Tutorial: Setting the correct projection for Insta360 VR footage

We’ve noticed a recurring issue: many Insta360 videos are uploaded with the wrong projection setup. This often happens because creators skip over a few critical settings in the Insta360 Studio software. Here's how to fix it and ensure your VR videos provide a smooth and intuitive viewing experience.

VR is all about immersion, and few things break that illusion more than a video pointing in the wrong direction. If you’ve ever watched a 360° video where the camera view doesn’t match the movement direction (optical flow), you know how disorienting it can be. 

Common Issue: Mismatched Orientation

Some Insta360 videos are oriented incorrectly - they don’t point in the same direction as the subject is moving. For example, someone walking forward may appear to be walking sideways. This ruins immersion and makes navigation in VR unintuitive.

Creators often assume that FlowState stabilization is enough - it isn’t. While it helps with smoothness, it doesn’t determine where the view is centered.

📹 Video Tutorial

We’ve created a step-by-step video tutorial that shows how to use Insta360 Studio’s stabilization and keyframing tools:

⚙️ Key Insta360 Studio Settings for Orientation

There are three primary settings in Insta360 Studio that control how your footage is viewed:

1. FlowState Stabilization

• What it does: Smooths out camera movement by stabilizing yaw, pitch, and tilt.

• What it doesn’t do: It doesn’t fix orientation relative to the subject’s movement.

✅ Use it for stabilizing shaky footage, but don’t rely on it for direction control.

2. Direction Lock

• What it does: Locks the camera's direction. Either:

  • Stays fixed in one direction regardless of camera rotation, or

  • Follows the direction the camera is turning.

⚠️ If not set properly, this can cause videos to be locked in odd directions or follow rotation when not intended.

3. Add Keyframe

• What it does: Lets you manually set the viewing direction at specific points in the video timeline.

• Best practice: Use keyframes to align the view with the real-world movement direction — especially useful when subjects change direction.

⭐ This is the most flexible and recommended way to ensure the viewer always looks where the action is.

🧪 Step-by-Step Fix: Correcting Orientation

Here's how to reorient your Insta360 footage:

1. Open your video in Insta360 Studio.

2. Enable FlowState Stabilization.

3. Turn on Direction Lock if you want the view to follow camera rotation (e.g. biking scenes).

4. For manual control:

   • Navigate to the timeline.

   • Add a Keyframe where you want to change direction.

   • Use the mouse or input fields to rotate the view.

   • Add another keyframe to define the end of the turn.

5. Play back and adjust until the orientation feels natural and aligned with movement.

🔄 Can We Fix It Automatically?

A natural question is: Why not automate it? A function could technically analyze optical flow and rotate the projection to match - but developing this would require substantial dev time and testing.

🎯 Creators still bear responsibility for how their video is presented. Even small edits can shift the center view unexpectedly.

✅ Final Tips

• Always review your footage in VR before publishing.

• Don’t rely on defaults — take control with keyframes.

• Share this guide with fellow creators to raise the quality standard.

If you’re a creator using Insta360 and uploading to platforms like DeoVR, please take the time to get your orientation right. Your viewers will thank you.

👉 Have a question or need help with a specific video? Reach out to our team or comment below.