In Setting Up Igloo Showroom a small guide on how to play content using just the warper is available. If all you wish to see is a single movie or panorama, please follow that guide for the fastest method.
If you would like to create a longer viewing experience, perhaps view multiple videos or panoramas sequentially, please follow this guide.
Content File Placement
Igloo content can be played from theoretically everywhere on your computer, however we have found it best practice to place it in a specialist folder, usually somewhere with lots of space.
Please create a folder on your largest storage drive’s root called Igloo and then a sub folder called content like the picture below.
Once that is created you can add that folder to the Igloo Warper’s content system by clicking Media Folders, and then Add Folder if your folder is not present in the list.
Clicking Rescan Folders tasks the warper with searching for any content that it can play within the folders it has access to. Any content that it finds will be added to the Media Files list.
Using Igloo Encode
If you have created a piece of Igloo 360 content, we recommend outputting it from Adobe Premier Pro (or alternative video creation tools) in the most lossless codec possible.
These codecs, such as HEVC, or Apple ProRes will play using our Igloo Warper, however they will not play as well as our preffered codec HAP. This is due to the HAP codec using the graphics card (GPU) to process the movie rather than the CPU. This stops bottlenecks occuring when playing large resolution videos, which is all Igloo Structures play.
Unfortunetly the HAP codec is not supported as a direct output from most video creation packages, so we created our own Drop & Go piece of software to convert any video to HAP.
Igloo Encode should be included as part of the IglooShowroom.zip, and can be installed using it’s own Wizard. Once installed, simply load it using the Start Menu, or Desktop shortcut if you created one.
Drop your content onto the Grey window, choose an Output Directory, and then click Go!
This will create a copy of your movie, converted to the HAP codec. There are advanced Options if you wish to explore them, or you’ve found the conversion to contain errors.
Igloo Playback
Once you have suitable content that you wish to play inside Igloo Showroom. You can add it to the clip banks of Igloo Playback.
This will allow you to quickly launch all of that content, and manipulate it for the optimal viewing experience.
To add content to Igloo Playback, simply open a File Browser Window, and drag your movie or panorama from your Igloo/content folder to an Empty tile on the clip bank.
| Info |
|---|
Adding it to an occupied tile will cause it to overwrite that tile. You can also clear a tile by Right Clicking it. |
Once the movie is placed on the clip bank, ensure that the Igloo Warper is open in the background, and you should be able to select that clip, and it will play.
You can then add more clips, more panoramas, and even more content to the clip bank. Which by default will play one after the other.
For full documentation on how to use Igloo Playback, please follow the link HERE
The Result
The content is now being triggered inside Igloo Playback.
Played using the Igloo Warper, which then outputs via Spout into Igloo Showroom.
Final Adjustments to Content
You can see that the content we are demonstrating here is full 360 spherical content, It looks perfectly fine in our floor, or ceiling projection systems like the screenshot above. However, in our other structures it doesn’t look correct, like the screenshot below.
To achieve the correct scale for the content, it’s Vertical Stretch, and Vertical Position will need to be adjusted using Igloo Playback.
| Info |
|---|
Once these values are adjusted, they are saved to that piece of content. As long as the name of that content remains the same, it will always use those values. |
These are adjusted using the vertical sliding bars within Igloo Playback, like so:
Before
After
There is no specific value that works perfectly for every piece of content. It depends entirly on the structure it’s being shown within, how it was captured,and the horizon line within the content itself.
The result below is a best guess, as it looks good to my eye. However, the creator of the content may disagree, and it might look incorrect within the real structure. This is why all these values and adjustments can be corrected and adjusted in real time, using Igloo Playback on the real Igloo Media Player.
