This is a tutorial on how to use Google Street View images as a skydome in VAM. I realize there is another tutorial on this posted back in January, but it's in Korean and doesn't really explain much in detail. I hope this offers more clarity and ease of use.
For the tutorial please download the attached PDF called "Google Street View Skydomes.pdf" and you can also view the attached medial file for a video run through as well.
I also recommend reading through MacGruber's AssetBundle tutorial as well if you've never used Unity before. Here's the link to his assetbundle tutorial:
hub.virtamate.com
Excerpt from my guide (download the PDF to see all full instructions step by step):
Why did I make this guide?
Well, I personally love using skydomes in my scenes and I’m sure many others do as well. Problem is there is a very limited selection of HDRIs/Panoramas that are free, and even PolyHaven isn’t updated that often or contains the kind of skydome variety I am looking for (such as an aerial city panorama that can be used for an apartment scene in VAM. On the other hand, Google Street View has an enormous amount (more than you can imagine) of street view images that can be used as panoramas. These put those paid HDRI’s/panorama’s to shame, because these are uploaded and freely available by Google and individuals uploading their own images from all over the world from every setting you can image and the majority are high quality (above 8k) as well.
Why is this any good and why should I care?
You should, if you like using skyboxes, because whatever you can image in your mind as a skybox (within actual reality of course, no sci-fi), you can go look and find something that fits in. I’ve been looking for aerial panorama’s for my NYC Apartment scenes and found absolutely nothing that fits, until I was able to figure out how to use Google Street views to get the skydomes of distant Manhatten skyscrapers and nearby Brooklyn/Queens suburbs into my scene.
Why street view? I don’t want street level skydomes in my scenes! Well that’s the thing, it’s not ONLY street level images that Google has. It has tons of 360 images of being on rooftops, aerial shots from drones, spectacular 360 images of anywhere in the world from cities to deserts to fields to urban areas to…anything!
Oh shit! That sounds awesome! Now how I do I use a google street view 360 image as a skydome in my scene?
A few notes before we get started:
- These are Google owned images, even from user uploaded panoramas. That means you CANNOT include them in your paid content. If you share it out to the community as part of VAM content then it needs to be non commercial, non derivative unless you get explicit permission from Google or maybe just the uploader (which I’m sure will entail some kind of commercial use fee).
- This guide assumes you already know how the basics of Unity. If you need a quick tutorial, there’s many videos on youtube you can look into. I’m no Unity expert myself, I just know the basics to make assets and skydomes for Unity, that’s it.
- If you don’t have or care for learning Unity, but you still want a certain set of Google images to use as skydomes within your scene, reach out to me and I’ll see what I can do for a very small commission.
- In addition to Unity you will need a piece of software called “Street View Download 360”. You will see the link to download this program from the website we will use below
For the tutorial please download the attached PDF called "Google Street View Skydomes.pdf" and you can also view the attached medial file for a video run through as well.
I also recommend reading through MacGruber's AssetBundle tutorial as well if you've never used Unity before. Here's the link to his assetbundle tutorial:
Guides - Unity AssetBundles for VaM 1.xx
After some people essentially begged me to do it, I spend several evenings this week and the this entire Saturday on writing a tutorial on Unity AssetBundles. It ended up to be an 13 page PDF of 2700 words. Lots of pictures, obviously. This...
hub.virtamate.com
Excerpt from my guide (download the PDF to see all full instructions step by step):
Why did I make this guide?
Well, I personally love using skydomes in my scenes and I’m sure many others do as well. Problem is there is a very limited selection of HDRIs/Panoramas that are free, and even PolyHaven isn’t updated that often or contains the kind of skydome variety I am looking for (such as an aerial city panorama that can be used for an apartment scene in VAM. On the other hand, Google Street View has an enormous amount (more than you can imagine) of street view images that can be used as panoramas. These put those paid HDRI’s/panorama’s to shame, because these are uploaded and freely available by Google and individuals uploading their own images from all over the world from every setting you can image and the majority are high quality (above 8k) as well.
Why is this any good and why should I care?
You should, if you like using skyboxes, because whatever you can image in your mind as a skybox (within actual reality of course, no sci-fi), you can go look and find something that fits in. I’ve been looking for aerial panorama’s for my NYC Apartment scenes and found absolutely nothing that fits, until I was able to figure out how to use Google Street views to get the skydomes of distant Manhatten skyscrapers and nearby Brooklyn/Queens suburbs into my scene.
Why street view? I don’t want street level skydomes in my scenes! Well that’s the thing, it’s not ONLY street level images that Google has. It has tons of 360 images of being on rooftops, aerial shots from drones, spectacular 360 images of anywhere in the world from cities to deserts to fields to urban areas to…anything!
Oh shit! That sounds awesome! Now how I do I use a google street view 360 image as a skydome in my scene?
A few notes before we get started:
- These are Google owned images, even from user uploaded panoramas. That means you CANNOT include them in your paid content. If you share it out to the community as part of VAM content then it needs to be non commercial, non derivative unless you get explicit permission from Google or maybe just the uploader (which I’m sure will entail some kind of commercial use fee).
- This guide assumes you already know how the basics of Unity. If you need a quick tutorial, there’s many videos on youtube you can look into. I’m no Unity expert myself, I just know the basics to make assets and skydomes for Unity, that’s it.
- If you don’t have or care for learning Unity, but you still want a certain set of Google images to use as skydomes within your scene, reach out to me and I’ll see what I can do for a very small commission.
- In addition to Unity you will need a piece of software called “Street View Download 360”. You will see the link to download this program from the website we will use below
