As a small Christmas timed gift to the Steak Underwater Fusion community, a new "KartaVR v4" release has been prepared as a free WSL Reactor package manager based install.
KartaVR v4 is freeware distributed exclusively through the Steak Underwater user community platform. KartaVR v4 can be used on personal and commercial projects at no cost. KartaVR can legally be installed, for free, on an unlimited number of computers and render nodes via the Reactor Package Manager.
You will see these new additions in the Reactor "Bin" and "KartaVR" categories. You can read the KartaVR documentation in Reactor to get an idea of how the KartaVR toolset differs from the VR tools bundled with Fu 9-16.1.
You can download all 16GB of the KartaVR example 360VR video stitching media projects too.
Reactor Screenshots
reactor-atom-package.png
Reactor Bin Atoms.png
Reactor Atom Packages
If you want access to the core features of KartaVR in Fusion/Resolve, you simply need to switch to the Reactor "KartaVR" category section by clicking on in the left side of the Reactor window. Then you should install these two Reactor packages:
com.AndrewHazelden.KartaVR
com.AndrewHazelden.KartaVR.3rdParty
Reactor Install Notes
Edit: 2019-10-14
1. The earlier Reactor callback error was solved with Reactor 3.x so the installation of KartaVR is easier now.
2. The top line of the main "KartaVR" and "KartaVR 3rd Party Libraries" atom package descriptions will soon have a handy little caption to let you have an idea roughly how long the installation process will take:
The com.AndrewHazelden.KartaVR atom package will have this summary detail:
You are an incredibly generous contributor to the Fusion community at large Andrew. This is a stunning announcement, thank you for doing this.
Added in 29 minutes 37 seconds: @AndrewHazelden I'm (slowly) installing it now but I'm too eager to wait to find out – does Karta's HMD connection work in ResolveFu? The native HMD support is totally broken in 15 so I've been unable to use it for VR work beyond playing around
avclubvids wrote: ↑Mon Dec 31, 2018 2:13 am@AndrewHazelden I'm (slowly) installing it now but I'm too eager to wait to find out – does Karta's HMD connection work in ResolveFu? The native HMD support is totally broken in 15 so I've been unable to use it for VR work beyond playing around
Hi @avclubvids.
Edit: I did a v4.01 update on new years day to the atom packages for each of the KartaVR Scripts. This solved a few Resolve 15.2 compatibility issues related to the fact no bmd.scriptlib exists in Resolve. I also revised the viewer window snapshotting code in the PanoView script and Publish Media to Google Cardboard VR View scripts to add an entry for the Resolve 15 compatible Lua function that saves out a viewer window frame grab:
The PanoView script in KartaVR v4.0.1 now supports working with disk-based file paths from Resolve MediaIn nodes.
KartaVR Design Concept
KartaVR was made design-wise with the idea that as much of it as possible would work with Fusion (Free), be fully cross-platform compatible, and in its original implementation that it would work as far back as Fusion 7.7.
This Fusion (Free) support meant no compiled Fusion SDK plugins could be used since it would turn the toolset into working in Fusion Standalone only. The upside for that choice is that Resolve 15 support was possible in KartaVR since it was all done with macros and fuses.
HMD Media Review Options
There are multiple ways to beam content from KartaVR to an HMD. Each approach was done for a specific use case I had back in Fusion 8.2.1. The solutions to HMD playback in KartaVR are all a bit hacky TBH but they can still be of use to a compositor or 360VR video stitcher.
Fulltime Video editors working inside of Resolve's Edit page still need a native HMD media playback approach that would be best done by BMD.
Option 1
The "Publish Media to Google Cardboard VR View" script lets you customize the settings and generate a Google Cardboard VR View webpage that can be viewed locally or instantly pushed via Apache web sharing and WiFi to a smartphone with a Google Cardboard HMD.
Plublish Media to Google Cardboard VR View.png
Option 2
The PanoView script in KartaVR will send the imagery from the currently selected Fusion node to an Oculus Rift HMD or an HTC VIVE/OSVR HMD using an external media viewer/playback tool.
PanoView.png
Option 3
And finally, it is possible (but kludgy since there is no head tracking) to use the following custom HMD stereo based renderer3D nodes and then push your fullscreen view to an HMD using either a floating image viewer in Resolve 15-15.1, or a dedicated HDMI video output. These HMD centric renderer3D macros were made so I could use my Oculus Rift Devkit HMD with Fusion 8.2.1 on macOS and Linux without needing to use C++ compiled plugins and the Oculus SDK.
(For Fusion Standalone on macOS users I made an AppleScript that simplified the process of getting the floating image view fullscreen on an HMD which was handy in the time prior to OpenVR and HTC Vives coming to the macOS.)
Todo List
I still need to look into adding support for Resolve MediaIn nodes in KartaVR "Send Media To" scripts so they can push the selected video footage out of Resolve to external tools in cases where the MediaIn node represents footage that has as a single path on disk for an asset, and it is not a more complex compound clip.
TBH 90% of the effort on this KartaVR v4 release was getting all the supporting tools packaged into Reactor "Bin" category atoms. Then I had to update the Lua scripts so they linked against Reactor:/Deploy/bin/ based PathMap locations. I re-wrote most of the Lua scripts so they used a bit fresher Fusion 9+ style Lua code vs Fusion 7 era backwards-compatible syntax.
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Last edited by AndrewHazelden on Tue Jan 01, 2019 8:09 am, edited 2 times in total.
Fantastic info Andrew, checking into it as soon as the installation works - it seems to keep hanging on the KartaVR Documentation Atom installation... will report back...
The callback issue happens when more then ~800 files are downloaded in one session by Reactor since a callback event is used to track each of the downloaded file's completion. By chance, the KartaVR documentation has just about that many files which is why you are having the issue.
Last edited by AndrewHazelden on Mon Oct 14, 2019 2:06 am, edited 2 times in total.
So I can manually install everything but KartaVR and the documentation atoms in reactor due to this issue - is there a way to manually install just those atoms? I downloaded the gitlab repository but adding the atoms does not get recognized by reactor nor do I think it’s properly installing the third-party packages. I feel like the proper way to do this would be to get the documentation atom installed outside of reactor and then run the KartaVR reactor instal so that all of the third-party packages get set up correctly? As it stands the KartaVR atom will not install because it tries to also install the documentation and gets stuck
This is the first time I’ve used reactor so I apologize if the manual installation of atoms is documented but I couldn’t find it
Last edited by avclubvids on Wed Jan 02, 2019 9:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Yeah I see that now... I think that info might have been added in Andrew's 2:23 am edit... it's confusing that posts can be edited like this – kinda breaks the linear threading I'm used to in forums...
Last edited by avclubvids on Wed Jan 02, 2019 9:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I don't recall exactly if that information was in the original post. I seem to remember it that way but I could be wrong.
Regardless, the ability to edit is important to keep the quality of the content high (starting with typos). Revisions are very common in larger and more complex posts. Sometimes it may be better practice to add entirely new info in a separate post, but ultimately that's up to the poster. It's worth keeping in mind
@AndrewHazelden – I bet it's nothing you can do anything about given the current glitchy state of LUTs in ResolveFu15, but the "Edit" option on the LUT manager in R15 is greyed out on your View LUTs so they are not editable (it is not greyed out on other LUTs), also the LUTs do not appear to work. This is on OSX R15.2.2, I'll check Win10 tomorrow sometime:
Screen Shot 2019-01-01 at 11.59.44 PM.png
Added in 21 minutes 28 seconds: @AndrewHazelden The PanoView script seems to only work when a Saver is selected and the current frame has already been rendered to disk – is this expected? From the documentation I assumed it would work from any currently viewed node and does not require a render first, but maybe not? I've only been able to get GoProVR to work on OSX so far, will try other players on Win10 tomorrow to see if this is just a GoProVR issue.
@SecondMan I'm honestly not sure if it is working 100% yet, as I'm having a lot of weird issues like the UI of Resolve itself locked up but the keyboard worked so I was able to add and a delete a few tools until the UI controls came back. I'm going through the KartaVR tools now and reporting issues as I hit them... but it's impossible to say "the tools are 100% installed correctly and there are bugs in the tools" vs "the tools are not installed properly yet, I need to fix that first"
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Last edited by avclubvids on Wed Jan 02, 2019 9:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
KartaVR works best in Fusion Standalone. The Resolve support is a new thing that could be considered experimental at best. You could use the Fuson Comp Link atom in Reactor to push your nodes back and forth between Resolve and Fusion if needed.
I can fully admit the number of scripts and nodes, and the way they work in KartaVR can be intimidating to new users. And the approaches needed to be used in Fusion and Resolve for an aftermarket addon like KartaVR to function can be way more than just a bit unintuitive when compared to the ease of use of FCPX's native VR tools.
The upside is there are a ton of example KartaVR for Fusion comp files included that can help to get someone who is willing to go "down the rabbit hole" up to speed on what they need to do.
Why is KartaVR Soooooo Complex to use?
KartaVR is aimed at an intermediate node based compositor who would only be considering using Foundry tools for their immersive post-workflow if KartaVR was not used. And...for all the complexity needed to use them, the Lua scripts + macro nodes in KartaVR do add a few extra nice-to-have features in Fusion that BMD currently sees no need to add in the short term.
The ease of use of FCPX, Adobe AE/PP's native VR tools or Mistika is not the space that KartaVR was really hoping to take over. All those tools are really good at what they do and keep things simple.
KartaVR was trying to be a Rosetta Stone like format converter and node based re-working toolset that could then have its output crunched away to compute on a Fusion based render farm.
KartaVR is best at doing the really edge-case stuff you can't easily do in simpler and easier to use VR tools. The origin story for Domemaster Fusion Macros/KartaVR was that I had made the 2012 era "Domemaster Photoshop Actions Pack" toolset and wanted to add sequence support handling to those tools. Fusion's node-based tools were the best place at the time in 2014 for me to implement that "Domemaster Photoshop Actions Pack" like port that would support 4D timeline based immersive conversions.
I did an interview with Jason Fletcher, of the Fulldome Blog a few years back that overviewed how the various VR tools I created were designed to be used as part of a full and much larger immersive content creation pipeline.
You will get a better view of how Domemaster Fusion Macros/KartaVR fits into that view of things and why it works how it does if you jump to 41 minutes into this video clip:
avclubvids wrote: ↑Wed Jan 02, 2019 12:02 am
@AndrewHazelden – I bet it's nothing you can do anything about given the current glitchy state of LUTs in ResolveFu15, but the "Edit" option on the LUT manager in R15 is greyed out on your View LUTs so they are not editable (it is not greyed out on other LUTs), also the LUTs do not appear to work.
The same KartaVR features that are accessible as macroLUTs in the viewer window, can also be added to a comp as standard macro nodes, too. You might find the ViewerEquirectangular and ViewerEquirectangularStereoOU nodes helpful as it gives more controls and options over the 2D and stereo 360° previewing capability in Fusion Free and Resolve. And it's not the sexiest of technologies, but you can wire in the KartaVR Anaglyph previewing nodes to do a quick on-monitor stereo preview of things as you work on stereo paint and roto inside the Fusion Free GUI.
Although its a bit complex for a fine artist (non-TD) comper to use, you *can* also preview cubemap movies from any standard cubic image projection using a combination of the ViewerCubicFaces and ViewerCubicFacesStereo nodes with the "2CubicFaces" centric image projection conversion macro nodes.
As a neat tip, the "ViewerMesh" and "ViewerMeshStereo" macro nodes and the "ViewerMesh LUT" macroLUT work in a similar fashion under-the-hood to how Phil Day's excellent Whirligig media player does in that you can use an OBJ mesh with a custom UV layout to display footage using any image projection imaginable. The "KartaVR Images" atom package has quite a few different image projection sample OBJs to get people started.
Look in this folder for the base set of OBJ media viewing meshes: Reactor:/Deploy/Macros/KartaVR/Images/
You can use a KartaVR macro node in your comp that you wire your comp nodes too as the way to view 6DOF VR Color + Depth media, or as a 360° in comp viewer with lots of different image projections supported if you don't like how macroLUTs are working for you.
viewer macros.png
z360 macros.png
PanoView
avclubvids wrote: ↑Wed Jan 02, 2019 12:23 am@AndrewHazelden The PanoView script seems to only work when a Saver is selected and the current frame has already been rendered to disk – is this expected? From the documentation I assumed it would work from any currently viewed node and does not require a render first, but maybe not? I've only been able to get GoProVR to work on OSX so far, will try other players on Win10 tomorrow to see if this is just a GoProVR issue.
It is expected that Loader and Saver node footage would exist as media on disk. PanoView viewer tools like DJV View are then able to playback a full sequence that might be hundreds or thousands of frames long.
When KartaVR is used as a 360VR stereo stitching tool, the time per frame to do renders at 6K LatLong Stereo or 8K LatLong Stereo makes it so you'd want to pre-render the full sequence on your local Fusion Render Node 9 based render farm and then have KartaVR pass that footage as a disk-based file reference to your viewer app so you would get real-time playback.
If you want to peek at a single frame of the media that would be pushed by the node tree into a Saver node, just click on the node that is one-node-in-your-comp-flow *before* the Saver node, and view that node's output in PanoView.
You could also use a LifeSaver Fuse and set it so that node's output is rendered to disk interactively as you view it. Then the footage would exist on disk and PanoView could display it for you.
LifeSaver Fuse With Interactive Saving.png
With Panoview, any regular (non Loader/Saver/LifeSaver/MediaIn) node that does an image based operation is snapshotted live-to-disk as a still image that is saved to the Temp:/KartaVR/ folder.
This snapshot uses the settings and file format options defined in the "Script > KartaVR > Viewers > Edit PanoView Preferences" AskUser dialogue window.
KartaVR Edit PanoView Preferences.png
There is a [x] Use Current Frame option in the "Edit PanoView Preferences" dialogue that is fairly important to decide if you want it on or off.
KartaVR Hotkeys
If you installed the "KartaVR Hotkeys" atom then the default keybinding is that selecting a node and pressing "TAB" key will push the footage to the PanoView viewing tool.
And "Shift+TAB" will open the PanoView preferences.
The "V" hotkey opens the Google VR View publishing script.
And the letter "o" hotkey will open the containing folder for your media asset in a desktop folder browsing window if the selected node represents footage/assets stored in a Loader/MediaIn/Saver/LifeSaver/ABC Mesh/FBX Mesh/FBX Exporter node.
If you have the excellent Nuke2Fusion reactor atom by StatixVFX installed in your copy of Reactor, then you can easily edit the KartaVR hotkeys file to remap the default key bindings for the PanoView TAB hotkey entry by editing the following .fu file in a text editor Reactor:/Deploy/Config/KartaVR Hotkeys.fu.
You can use the Reactor menu entry's Tools > Show Reactor Folder menu item to hop inside the Reactor:/ PathMap location.
The KartaVR v3 era default hotkeys are listed in the documentation here.
Several of the default hotkeys were commented out in the KartaVR hotkey file by adding -- to the first part of their entries for the KartaVR v4 release since as a freeware toolset, new KartaVR users would not be using Fusion as a dedicated VR suite.
Send Media to
The PanoView script is used to link to common media viewer tools. The same basic media passing functionality also powers the "Script > KartaVR > Send Media to >" scripts that can push Fusion footage to Adobe AE/PS/AI, Affinity Tools, and other apps.
KartaVR Edit Send Media To Preferences.png
KartaVR Fusion to AE Workflow Interconnects
BTW, if you look in the "Script > KartaVR > Send Media to > Edit Send Media to Preferences" AskUser dialogue you will see that there are custom controls for pre-assigning Mettle SkyBox tags to the media as it is passed to AE.
The "Send Media to" functionality that is labelled "Mettle SkyBox Effects" also works with the Adobe CC 2018/CC 2019 bundled AE VR tools that were based upon the original Mettle SkyBox Studio tools.
Edit Send Media To Preferences Dialogue.png
KartaVR has a deep set of options and tweaks that can be used. But it requires a skilled operator who has the time to read the KartaVR guide cover to cover to GROK how it all is meant to work in a big-picture view... Without that level of insight into the *why* aspect of each tool's design concept it will be a big soupy mess.
KartaVR is really much closer to being an imersive pipeline with the Fusion nodes being the desktop "home" like environment that links out to all your other eco-system tools which include PTGui for doing quick UV pass / ST warping maps.
KartaVR is not trying to be a "1-trick pony" like plugin since AE and Fusion 9 VR have native tools that do basic (simple) workflow things better and easier then I could ever try to do as an aftermarket addon.
I'm just an R&D kind of scripting TD person who makes custom scripts to solve my own production bottlenecks. KartaVR was made as in-house pipeline tooset that other people have access to use, too.
KartaVR Render Farm
I really do wish BMD had re-enabled the Fusion cluster compute option that was present in Eyeon Fusion 6.4. That would be a life-changing amount of awesomeness for VR artists.
If you want to make KartaVR a highly productive working environment, this is the ideal type of KartaVR hardware setup to have with a few render nodes on-site powering the node based 360VR stitching and effects workflow:
P.S. I added a "RenderPal Submitter" atom package to the Reactor "bin" category that is handy if you don't like the Fusion Studio 9 built-in Render Manager's handling of memory leaks on challenging long-duration 8K+ res 360VR stereo scenes. This can make working with high-res footage far less stressful.
Always render to image sequences from Fusion and you won't loose any time when trying to scale things out to a mini render farm.
IMHO image sequences are much less headache inducing for "Saver" node usage, when compared to doing long sequence outputs directly to movie file which will IRL give you lots of troubles when working on a tight deadline with no room for failures.
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Last edited by AndrewHazelden on Wed Jan 02, 2019 3:27 am, edited 5 times in total.
EDIT: I feel like I'm losing my mind with your ninja-edited replies changing as I'm responding to them – this forum gaslights by allowing users to edit posts! I've never experienced a non-linear forum like this before...
@AndrewHazelden Thanks, this clears a few things up. Quick replies as I paw through all these tools and help docs:
AndrewHazelden wrote: ↑Wed Jan 02, 2019 12:25 amIf you want to peek at a single frame of the media that would be pushed by the node tree into a Saver node, just click on the node that is one-node-in-your-comp-flow *before* the Saver node, and view that node's output in PanoView.
I have no clue why this wasn't working before, but it's working as described here now... maybe a reboot cleared out something that was causing an issue. Ugh, this is exactly how I thought it should work hours ago! So, this is perfect – PanoView is the missing link to an HMD that Standalone has but ResolveFu broke. You are the man!
AndrewHazelden wrote: ↑Wed Jan 02, 2019 12:25 amYou could also use a LifeSaver Fuse and set it so that node's output is rendered to disk interactively as you view it. Then the footage would exist on disk and PanoView could display it for you.
Again, maybe user error here, but it seems that LifeSaver only does exr? GoProVR and other apps like it don't support EXR so I was not able to use this for HMD on OSX, even though I really wish I could use it now that I've seen that you have that awesome interactive saving option in there!
A few additional observations as I go:
• The vast majority of the KartaVR tools do not show up in the R15 Effects Browser, so they are only find-able in the Shift-Space search menu. This is further complicated by the names all being quite long so they get truncated unless you make the window bigger, which I did not know you could do until I started to write this message The dark Resolve UI kinda hides the window drag zone if you're not looking for it. This is a note for Reactor-installed tools at large, ResolveFu has had similar issues with a lot of OFX plugins not showing up properly.
Screen Shot 2019-01-02 at 1.35.24 AM.png
Screen Shot 2019-01-02 at 1.38.42 AM.png
Screen Shot 2019-01-02 at 12.54.36 AM.png
AndrewHazelden wrote: ↑Wed Jan 02, 2019 12:25 amYou could use the Fuson Comp Link atom in Reactor to push your nodes back and forth between Resolve and Fusion if needed.
I'm using the excellent ResolveFX Warp tool pretty heavily for stereo repair work, so Standalone is not an option on this one. R15.something added Fusion Comp I/O so moving between the apps is pretty seamless now, just not in my current comps b/c ResolveFX are not available to Fusion standalone. As a wider note, the Resolve Essentials Reactor toolset has a few dead links to forums that don't exist and tools that are now redundant like the mentioned Composite Import and Export.
• I need to test it, but does the MetadataVR node survive the Resolve Deliver Page? I feel like it won't... but would be very happy if it does. If not, I assume a normal Saver to h264 or h265 would get the metadata injection as expected? Have you looked into v2 of the spatial metadata spec yet? It supports mesh projection too.
• The _Renderer3D nodes all seem to be having issues in R15.2.2 – I get errors like "RT kernel ChannelBoolean_2174_1ABF0C00 failed to build" and the resulting imagery is not at all correct, I'm seeing random spherical rotations, vastly different images in Left and Right, etc. I would think this falls under this caveat:
AndrewHazelden wrote: ↑Wed Jan 02, 2019 12:25 amThe Resolve support is a new thing that could be considered experimental at best
• The Filter Macros are a very sorely missing piece of Fusion's VR toolset, thank you for making them!
I'm still working my way through it all, but so far the Filter Macros and the PanoView are definitely working and definitely going into the mix immediately
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Last edited by avclubvids on Wed Jan 02, 2019 9:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Christmas timed gift to the Steak Underwater Fusion community, a new "KartaVR v4" release has been prepared as a free WSL Reactor package manager based install.
