Try Mettle tools that were recently integrated into AE--that should give you a way to get your logo into an equirect without distortion, and also a reliable way to view the result. 

As for creating better panoramas, that's a huge question, and as much about hardware as software. I'd say (except via photogrammetry) you can't do good 360 video or stereo panoramas with a DSLR or ball-of-GoPros, no matter how many of them you have. You need a purpose-built 360 camera--here's a bit more detail on why:

https://developers.google.com/vr/jump/rendering-ods-content.pdf

However for a mono still panorama, which sounds like your situation, there's a much simpler solution--one regular DSLR with a NPP ("No Parallax Point") tripod mount like this: 

https://shop.nodalninja.com/nn3-mk3-series/

Nick

On Wed, Aug 1, 2018 at 11:46 AM, Adam Mercado <AE-List@media-motion.tv> wrote:

Hi gang, this is not an after effects problem, but the great minds in this group probably have some experience here that I can tap into.

Got a request from a new client to produce a 360 image built from photos I shoot with their logo added in.  I did a bit of google research and spent yesterday afternoon shooting some test shots in my back garden. I brought these shots into Photoshop and used Photomerge to combine them into (a) a cylindrical map and (b) a spherical map. I added a logo to the long flat combined image, but when viewed in the 3D viewer there were some problems.

1. The image is squished horizontally so everything is tall and narrow. Obviously a no go where client logos are concerned. The settings in the dialog box to view the pano seem to have no relevance here as changing them made no difference to the results.

2. The ends of the pano do not blend like the middle shots do, creating a distinct seam at one point of the 360 pano. I shot ten images, left to right, overlapping 30-40% each side. Files are named 1-10 and added to the Photomerge panel in that order. Photomerge then sets image 5 as the first layer and blends all the others in sequence, even wrapping around from 10 back to 1 in my shots. It does not wrap the ‘ends’ of the image creating a seamless 360, which turns out to be images 5 and 6.

3. In the Adobe help page for Photomerge it suggests having a top/bottom or ceiling/floor images to create 360 x 180 pano, but never gives the steps to do this. Also, the menu item in the help page does not correspond to the version of Photoshop I have (19.4.1 if I recall). It’s CC2018 and I’m sure the latest update

I also downloaded some free pano shots from wpanorama.com to test with Photoshop 3D viewer, and while the 360 wrap was seamless the horizontal squish was still present. So, why are my photos not wrapping properly, how can I fix or ensure better shots? And is the Adobe 3D viewer just bunk and I should try something more reliable?

Any ideas of where to look or what other app to use to pull off this job massively welcome. My first foray into anything VR so it’s a bit of a learning curve, which is fine, but every how-to page I’ve found just makes it sound bing-bang-boom easy as pie you’re done.

I can supply files if anyone’s that interested

Thx
Adam

Sent from my iPad

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