Great work!  Can this be done just with ffmpeg or must all the tools in your step by step list be used?

Thank you! I don't think that ffmpeg can inject metadata tags into mp4 files when it transcodes them, but I am probably wrong, ffmpeg is pretty amazing. I will have to look into that.

The problem is that SE can only export as an *.AVI, and as far as I can tell, the only types of video file that can be tagged with 360 metadata are MP4 and MOV. This means that you'll need to convert your resulting AVI video with ffmpeg, to ensure that your frame size and resolution are maintained. If you capture and encode your AVI using MPEG codecs to compact it (like DivX), then the process of converting your AVI to MP4 with ffmpeg will go much more smoothly and quickly. If you're simply converting one clip then you won't need VirtualDub at all, because you'll only need that if you want to append AVI segments together without reducing frame size. Also, if you have a way to convert a tagged MP4 to a true 360 VR video file without using youtube, then please let me know. I have to use a 3rd party utility just to find and download my own hi-res videos from youtube, and there's no telling how long they're going to allow that to keep happening.

Gnargenox:
That took me months to figure out. Avidemux is good too, for splicing with fades.

Thanks for that! I'll look into it. I'm having an issue with VirtualDub when I edit the beginnings of videos, and as a result the appended segments have a pause where they intersect. Maybe I can just fade them into each other, or put a black screen in between them...? Oh, and I have been into making equirectangular projections for years, so that helped. :p I'm still nowhere near done learning all I need to know about producing these videos...

What about using a third party recording program like Free Screen Recorder?  I've used it before to record individual windows or whole screens and it has a range of different compression tools and codecs you can choose from and a couple of them preserve quality fairly well and dont use up a huge amount of storage either.

What about using a third party recording program like Free Screen Recorder?  I've used it before to record individual windows or whole screens and it has a range of different compression tools and codecs you can choose from and a couple of them preserve quality fairly well and dont use up a huge amount of storage either.

I use Camtasia for screen capture, but there are 2 reasons why I don't use it for this:

1) You are actually exporting video that is bigger than your screen, and those screen cappers will only record the portion that is seen.

2) SE hinders rendering to make way for exporting, not the other way around. The result is no skipped frames, and no jumpy playback.

The results I get with exports using DivX encoding/Xvid look pretty good for the most part, and the filesize is more than manageable. I'm really happy with them!

Here's another experiment I did yesterday. I was just trying to get a Terra doing a couple of full rotations, but when I went back to edit the stream I saw that I had been visited by a comet! It was totally amazing, and even though the comet really showcases the artifacts created by the skybox, I still will always treasure this clip because to me it represents how amazing Space Engine is. After literally years of use, I have never been surprised by a comet like that. It flew right by me! I'm so glad I recorded that...
[youtube]fzcQQRz1kLQ[/youtube]

To get everything and even do 360 degree 3D immersive panoramas what all do I need?  ffmpeg, avidemux, divx/xvid and anything else?

To get everything and even do 360 degree 3D immersive panoramas what all do I need?  ffmpeg, avidemux, divx/xvid and anything else?

You will need the injector tool, and maybe VirtualDub if you want to join the clips together. Good luck! I'm about to make a separate thread about how to make these videos, so feel free to post your results in there, if you want!

To get everything and even do 360 degree 3D immersive panoramas what all do I need?  ffmpeg, avidemux, divx/xvid and anything else?

To get everything and even do 360 degree 3D immersive panoramas what all do I need?  ffmpeg, avidemux, divx/xvid and anything else?

You will need the injector tool, and maybe VirtualDub if you want to join the clips together. Good luck! I'm about to make a separate thread about how to make these videos, so feel free to post your results in there, if you want!

Thanks, I will get all of these then!  So it's a total of 5 tools- ffmpeg, avidemux, dvix/xvid, the injector tool and virtual dub.

What about using a third party recording program like Free Screen Recorder?  I've used it before to record individual windows or whole screens and it has a range of different compression tools and codecs you can choose from and a couple of them preserve quality fairly well and dont use up a huge amount of storage either.

I use Camtasia for screen capture, but there are 2 reasons why I don't use it for this:

1) You are actually exporting video that is bigger than your screen, and those screen cappers will only record the portion that is seen.

2) SE hinders rendering to make way for exporting, not the other way around. The result is no skipped frames, and no jumpy playback.

The results I get with exports using DivX encoding/Xvid look pretty good for the most part, and the filesize is more than manageable. I'm really happy with them!

Here's another experiment I did yesterday. I was just trying to get a Terra doing a couple of full rotations, but when I went back to edit the stream I saw that I had been visited by a comet! It was totally amazing, and even though the comet really showcases the artifacts created by the skybox, I still will always treasure this clip because to me it represents how amazing Space Engine is. After literally years of use, I have never been surprised by a comet like that. It flew right by me! I'm so glad I recorded that...
[youtube]fzcQQRz1kLQ[/youtube]

You always may export video as a series of screenshots in SE, and combine them into whatever video container you wish with a third-party program. The fastest lossless format is uncompressed tga, the fastest compressed in jpeg.

Thank you very much for your help!
This is how I wound up doing it:

1) Set the windowed screen resolution in SE to 3216 x 1608 for a resulting 4k 360 video.
2) Export AVI compressed with DivX.
3) Splice together the resulting clips in VirtualDub for direct stream AVI copying.
4) Take the resulting AVI and convert it to MP4 with ffmpeg.
5) Inject the 360 data into the resulting MP4 with the Spatial Media Metadata Injector tool.
6) Upload the tagged 360 MP4 to YouTube
7) Download the full-resolution 360 encoded VR video when it's done processing.

If anybody needs any help making one of these videos, just ask, and I will do my best. Using ffmpeg is VERY easy, but you will likely need help getting started with it. Just ask! I will most likely make a thread about how to do this soon.

Here is my first result. It's not fantastic, but it's a MILLION times better than what I thought I would be able to produce. I've learned a lot, and feel confident that I will be able to improve the quality of my resulting videos. I am extremely happy right now, and this first video looks GREAT on an oculus rift, at 4k resolution!

[youtube]keOOuza3O0s[/youtube]

Hi Apollonius

What program do you use to record your gameplay? Everything you've done looks amazing!

I have been doing a lot of reading trying to figure out how to record and export 360 videos. I think these instructions are just what I was looking for.  
Will these instructions work with the current version of SE?  If not do you have any suggestions or modifications for recording and exporting 360 video with the current version of SE?  I appreciate any assistance. Thank you.