Blender - IMAX Theater

Here are two IMAX theaters that I created in Blender. Both 3D models are freely available for download.

Screenshots:

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Download (version 3):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1feOVMe…?usp=drive_link

Features:

• 26.0 m x 20.0 m screen. Can be flat or curved.
• 9 rows of stadium seating
• 4 seat variations: very low, low, medium and high poly
• 12 sets of speakers
• Blender drivers

How to use:

• All speakers are linked to either the Speaker_main or speaker_secondary data blocks. Speaker_main is used by the front and corner speakers, while speaker_secondary is used by the side and ceiling speakers. You only need to edit two speakers (one from each data block) to properly play imported sound
• Movies are controlled by the Movie_Texture node group inside the Movie_Screen material shader. The Movie_Screen shader can be accessed by selecting a screen mesh. Videos with 1.43 aspect ratios work best with this node. In Cycles, images are projected onto the screen via a spotlight. In EEVEE, the image is displayed directly on the screen, as light projection is not possible in EEVEE.

You can find more information and full sized renders on these pages:

https://www.deviantart.com/sn0wsh00/art/B…r-v3-1334807132

https://www.deviantart.com/sn0wsh00/art/B…a-v3-1334811694

Screenshots:

[Blocked Image: https://i.imgur.com/Oz3Tqgm.png]

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Download (version 2):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dBXUrW…?usp=drive_link

17.8 m x 10 m flat/curved screen 8 rows of seats, with the option of barriers between rows 4 types of seats: BehNam (very low poly), sdmitch40 (low poly), GMOD (medium poly), Overwatch (high poly) 12 sets of speakers Blender drivers to control theater features and light brightness.

How to use:

• All speakers are linked to either the Speaker_main or speaker_secondary data blocks. Speaker_main is used by the front and corner speakers, while speaker_secondary is used by the side and ceiling speakers. You only need to edit two speakers (one from each data block) to properly play imported sound
• Movies are controlled by the Movie_Texture node group inside the Movie_Screen material shader. The Movie_Screen shader can be accessed by selecting a screen mesh. Videos with 1.43 aspect ratios work best with this node. In Cycles, images are projected onto the screen via a spotlight. In EEVEE, the image is displayed directly on the screen, as light projection is not possible in EEVEE.
• In the drivers menu, you can enable Style1 or Style2 to change the lighting design. Style1 uses the same white light design from version 1, while Style2 uses a mixture of white and blue lights.

You can find more information and full sized renders on these pages:

https://www.deviantart.com/sn0wsh00/art/B…r-v2-1337716905

https://www.deviantart.com/sn0wsh00/art/B…a-v2-1337723793

I created these Blender file to simulate how it's like to watch videos on a large format IMAX screen. Creating something like this inside a video game engine would certainly be better, but unfortunately, I currently have no idea how to use Unity, Unreal, Source 2 etc. A 360° video could also work as a VR environment, but Blender only renders panoramas natively in Cycles.

Using EternalTrail's eeVR Blender plugin, I've finally been able to render my IMAX theater as a 360° video in EEVEE. It still took a while a render, but it was still a lot faster than Cycles:

Spoiler @echo off ffmpeg -framerate 30 -i render/frame%%06d.png -i ds3.mp3 -pix_fmt yuv420p -c:v libx264 -crf 3 -preset slower -maxrate 50M -bufsize 100M -profile:v high -c:a aac -ar 48000 -b:a 384k -movflags +faststart output.mp4 pause

I tried encoding with libx265, but that caused issues on Youtube.

Watching a video projected onto a giant screen in VR/first person is very different from watching the video directly. For one, it makes it more obvious when the video's subject is off-centered. IMAX movies, despite their 1.43 aspect ratio, usually frame their subjects in a widescreen AR such as Scope; all the stuff outside the 2.39 aspect ratio frame is merely meant to fill the viewer's peripheral vision. For VR video, though, Iudex Gundyr is mainly positioned towards the top of the frame, forcing viewers to look towards the ceiling as opposed to the center of the screen (good thing you can't get neck strains from watching 360° videos in browsers). Thankfully, FromSoftware games have a parameter (LockCamParam) that controls non-cutscene camera positions.

Here is an 1.90 IMAX (aka LieMAX) Theater that I created in Blender:

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[Blocked Image: https://i.imgur.com/BMZ8MQ4.png]

Download link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MFZKj5…BXqx/view?pli=1

While looking through a list of IMAX venues, I noticed a lot of CoLA/Xenon screens have a 16:9 aspect ratio. In turn, I made my screen have a width of 17.8 meters and a height of 10 meters, which makes it similar in size to the IMAX venues in Morrow, Georgia; New Brunswick, New Jersey and Manchester, UK.

I also noticed in my research that LieMAX theaters tend to look less austere than 1.43 ones. A lot of GT IMAX theaters lack embellishments and/or have basic looking flooring. Many 1.90 IMAX theaters, on the other hand, seem to really like mixing laminate wood and carpet flooring together, which gives those theaters a warmer appearance. Therefore, unlike my GT IMAX model which mainly uses concrete floors, my 1.90 IMAX model uses wood, rubber and carpet textures for its floors and steps.

More information and full-sized renders can be found on these pages:

https://www.deviantart.com/sn0wsh00/art/B…ater-1333587335

https://www.deviantart.com/sn0wsh00/art/B…rama-1333621105

I've updated my IMAX theater model to version 3. Version 3 can be downloaded here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1feOVMe…hst3LP3BHm/view

Changes:

• Increased screen height to 20 meters. With a width of 26 meters, this screen is now similar in size to the BFI IMAX.
• Added new type of low poly seats
• Increased number of rows from 8 to 9
• Changed staircase and terrace layout
• Added a corrector to the film projector spotlight so that it can more correctly display images on a curved screen
• Various other texture and lighting changes

Here are a couple of GIFs showcasing the differences between version 2 and 3:

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I've also updated the original post of this thread with version 3 renders. More information, and full-sized renders, can be found on these pages:

https://www.deviantart.com/sn0wsh00/art/B…r-v3-1334807132

https://www.deviantart.com/sn0wsh00/art/B…a-v3-1334811694

In this update, I also slightly warped the projection image so that it would display more properly on a curved screen. Here are the shader nodes to do that:

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The formula for this distortion, which I guess is some sort of quadratic distortion, can be written as y' = y + ax^2, where a is the purple value in the multiply math node. The effect of the multiply node value on the projected image can be seen below:

[Blocked Image: https://i.imgur.com/PSRERhG.png]

I've updated my 1.90 IMAX Theater to version 2. Version 2 can be downloaded here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dBXUrW…?usp=drive_link

In addition to mixing together carpets and laminate wood, another thing I noticed about 1.90 IMAX theaters was that they tend to mix blue and white lighting together. Therefore, for this update, I added blue linear lights on the walls and ceiling, and placed smaller white lights in the center of the ceiling. I also added drivers so that you can control the brightness of those lights.

Additionally, I noticed that many cinema halls that have been built/renovated in the 2020s have installed walls between the rows. Some people have referred to these walls as privacy barriers, but otherwise, I can't seem to find any documentation on this feature. Regardless, I decided to also add these barriers to give the theater a more premium look.

Here are some GIFs comparing version 1 and 2:

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[Blocked Image: https://i.imgur.com/QEMTSPg.png]

You can find more information, as well as full-sized renders, on these pages:

https://www.deviantart.com/sn0wsh00/art/B…r-v2-1337716905

https://www.deviantart.com/sn0wsh00/art/B…a-v2-1337723793