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Mettle Skybox V2 – The Toolbox for 360-Degree Video Production

Nils Calles
01.05.2017
36O-degree videos present us digital artists with completely new challenges. Even simple effects such as blur or glow do not work cleanly here. Premiere does have a small 36O-degree viewport, and the free GoPro player plug-in also makes full-screen monitor output possible. But special tools are needed to work properly.
Hier kann man sehr schön sehen, was der „Projekt 2D“-Effekt bewirkt. Die kleine Schrift in der Maske zeigt, wie die Verzerrung an den VR-Viewport angepasst wird. Die große Schrift außerhalb der Maske zeigt, wie es vorher aussah. Mit dem „Rotate Sphere“-Effekt lässt sich der Text im Panorama positionieren.
Hier kann man sehr schön sehen, was der „Projekt 2D“-Effekt bewirkt. Die kleine Schrift in der Maske zeigt, wie die Verzerrung an den VR-Viewport angepasst wird. Die große Schrift außerhalb der Maske zeigt, wie es vorher aussah. Mit dem „Rotate Sphere“-Effekt lässt sich der Text im Panorama positionieren.

Archive notice: This article was originally published on May 1, 2017. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.

Here, the Canadian software company is one of the pioneers and continuously develops its plug-ins to optimize 360-degree workflows. Chris Bobotis, Mettle’s Creative Director, is currently traveling around the world to give talks everywhere, look at current projects and speak with producers.
We already briefly introduced the plug-ins in the last issue. This time, we want to look at the tools in a little more detail and also discuss the workflow. With the free Skybox VR Player plug-in, it is possible to output the viewports of Premiere and After Effects to Oculus and HTC headsets. Alternatively, in Workspace mode the program interface can also be projected into the glasses, and even a virtual keyboard can be displayed.

The almost psychedelic Mobius Zoom transition. The somewhat wild transitions are probably intended above all for funky extreme-sports videos.
The almost psychedelic Mobius Zoom transition. The somewhat wild transitions are probably intended above all for funky extreme-sports videos.

Skybox VR Tools for Premiere and AE

For 360-degree videos, effects need seamless edge transitions. With Blur, Denoise, Glow or Sharpen, strange artifacts otherwise appear at the image edges. The good Skybox Sharpen effect in particular is actually indispensable for sharpening the inherent mushiness of the images caused by distortion, and Denoise helps improve shots that are noisy because of insufficient light. Simple tools for rotating the 360-degree view and adapting 2D objects such as text or logos to the distortion of the panoramas are naturally also available.

Mettle Skybox V2

Skybox V2 for After Effects represents a major step forward. Not only the new viewport, which offers an undistorted view for retouching, but also the ability to use After Effects’ internal camera tracker for stabilization make creating good 360-degree content much easier. Skybox naturally also supports the company’s own 3D plug-ins such as Freeform and Shapeshifter. But Plexus or Videocopilot’s Element 3D can also be used very well in the 360-degree environment. In addition, Skybox V2 now provides the ability to work in an undistorted 2D viewport. This makes retouching considerably easier. We already showed an example of this in the last issue.

Equirectangular output of an Element 3D animation
Equirectangular output of an Element 3D animation

360-Degree Stabilization

We did a test shoot with a Samsung Gear 360 at Musikpark Mannheim. The camera was mounted on a simple monopod microphone stand with a heavy round base plate, which we carried around. Although that does not replace a gimbal, the counterweight already stabilizes the camera quite well. We loaded various takes of the video into After Effects and then opened the Skybox Composer Window. There, you first have to generate a new viewport via “Add 3D Edit.” After clicking “Properties,” a new window opens in which the tracking analysis is started with “Apply AE 3D Camera Tracker.” After the Camera Solve, you then generate a camera and can stabilize the scene by clicking “Stabilize Footage.”
The camera tracker in After Effects is, however, one of those things. As with normal camera tracking, it works quite well in most cases—then the stabilization is excellent too. If it cannot complete the Camera Solve, however, you can try tracking again by modifying the viewport.
Caution: Because tracking takes place in the viewport, tracking must be repeated after every change to the image section. If that does not help, the tracker’s sparse setting options usually leave you unable to proceed. We achieved very good results with some scenes, while others could not be tracked at all. Mocha VR offers better intervention options here.

Here you can see very nicely the null layers with which the Skybox script stabilizes the camera.
Here you can see very nicely the null layers with which the Skybox script stabilizes the camera.

Conclusion

The tools from Mettle Skybox are a kind of Swiss Army knife for 360-degree video production. They help with most problems and make professional work in video panoramas possible in the first place. Now that Vimeo also offers a 360-degree player, demand for good content will certainly continue to rise.
Other software companies have also just released new tools. It is worth taking a look at RE:Lens from RE:Vision Effects and Mocha VR. The well-known tracking tool has recently belonged to Boris FX. Naturally, demo versions of both plug-ins are also available for testing.

Nils Calles Author
Nils Calles runs a media agency in Musikpark 2 in Mannheim's Jungbusch creative district, where he specialises in producing trailers, motion graphics, image films, magazine programmes in the virtual studio, tutorials and 360-degree websites. He is also a producer for Linkedin Learning and a trainer and consultant for workflows and software in the post-production sector. He has also been travelling the world for over 25 years as an editor, producer and compositor for various productions and broadcasters at trade fairs and in OB vans and has put the site postproduction-tutorials.net online with selected video tutorials.