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Software Discussion
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3D Studio Max
I want to learn how to use camera tracking! :)
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Daniel 103 posts09 Dec 2008Hi guys! There are different months that I want to learn how to create a simple clip using 3d + video. How can I start? Do you know any videotutorial that I can purchase ? I saw the last Tyson's works, the moving house and and the giant walking in the forest, can I make the tracking with 3dsmax? Thanks a lot for the advices! (for example, is it difficult to match the small debris and rock with geometry in the clank animation? I really like it!) -
10 Dec 2008Hey Daniel,
Wow, no one has answered you yet. I'll give it a shot...
For camera tracking, there is tons of stuff you can buy to learn it, if you want.
There is currently only one book on the subject:
http://www.amazon.com/Matchmoving-Invis ... 561&sr=8-1
There are tons of video tutorials, however. Gnomon has quite a few.
http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/dvds/g ... ing_g.html
My personal favorite is Syntheyes. It does absolutely everything the more expensive ones do, and it is WAY cheaper. We use it here at my work, and I've actually never heard or read one bad thing about it. It's made and supported by one guy, so support is exceptional. You really can't go wrong with it.
http://www.ssontech.com/
There's tons of online training for Syntheyes, so you can actually learn how to use it before you even buy it.
http://www.ssontech.com/learning.htm#Tutorials
As for doing camera tracking in 3dsMax, yes, its certainly possible, but the Max tracker doesn't work the way the popular 3d trackers work. It does in a sense, but I believe you have to input measurements, which you definitely do not have to do with a 3rd party piece of software. The only person I've ever seen do a 3dsMax matchmove is Tyson, on his old "Beast" movie. If you are determined to use 3dsMax's built in tracker, I would suggest reading the manual and doing some of the tutorials there, as a starting point.
There are - or were - also a couple freely available 3d trackers, but how they work I cannot answer, I've never used them.
I listed them here:
viewtopic.php?f=22&t=1374#p13323
Colin, a very talented guy who stops by here occassionally, actually did a video tutorial for using Icarus. It's the last one, scroll down.
http://www.peerlessproductions.com/tuts.html
There ya go.
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Daniel 103 posts13 Dec 2008Hi hype! Really thanks for the advices I tried voodoo camera tracking ! I noticed that it work well if I put in my scene a sort of "trackers". For example I used yellow post-it! There is only one problem (there are a lot of problems at the moment
). How can I delete all the post-it from the scene ? With after effects frame by frame for example? (I'll turn mad and the result it's not so good). Thanks a lot!
I saw your tutorial and your works! Very intersting and good! (I must improve a loooooot
)
Thanks again! -
Daniel 103 posts13 Dec 2008Hi hype! Really thanks for the advices I tried voodoo camera tracking ! I noticed that it work well if I put in my scene a sort of "trackers". For example I used yellow post-it! There is only one problem (there are a lot of problems at the moment ). How can I delete all the post-it from the scene ? With after effects frame by frame for example? (I'll turn mad and the result it's not so good). Thanks a lot!
I saw your tutorial and your works! Very intersting and good! (I must improve a loooooot)
Thanks again! -
Daniel 103 posts13 Dec 2008Hi hype! Really thanks for the advices I tried voodoo camera tracking ! I noticed that it work well if I put in my scene a sort of "trackers". For example I used yellow post-it! There is only one problem (there are a lot of problems at the moment ). How can I delete all the post-it from the scene ? With after effects frame by frame for example? (I'll turn mad and the result it's not so good). Thanks a lot!
I saw your tutorial and your works! Very intersting and good! (I must improve a loooooot)
Thanks again! -
Daniel 103 posts13 Dec 2008Hi hype! Really thanks for the advices I tried voodoo camera tracking ! I noticed that it work well if I put in my scene a sort of "trackers". For example I used yellow post-it! There is only one problem (there are a lot of problems at the moment ). How can I delete all the post-it from the scene ? With after effects frame by frame for example? (I'll turn mad and the result it's not so good). Thanks a lot!
I saw your tutorial and your works! Very intersting and good! (I must improve a loooooot)
Thanks again! -
Daniel 103 posts13 Dec 2008Hi hype! Really thanks for the advices I tried voodoo camera tracking ! I noticed that it work well if I put in my scene a sort of "trackers". For example I used yellow post-it! There is only one problem (there are a lot of problems at the moment ). How can I delete all the post-it from the scene ? With after effects frame by frame for example? (I'll turn mad and the result it's not so good). Thanks a lot!
I saw your tutorial and your works! Very intersting and good! (I must improve a loooooot)
Thanks again! -
13 Dec 2008Well, not frame by frame, but yes, in AE.
This is actually a video tutorial I want to do, part of a series of removing things from footage, since that is a large part of vfx work.
The easy explanation is:
1 - track the post-it note
2 - take a frame of the footage into Photoshop and paint the post it note out.
3 - bring the clean frame back into AE, apply the tracking data to it, then roto it so it only covers the little post-it.
4 - add grain and blur to match, if necessary.
Of course, it sounds easy written out like that, but you'll come across many problems trying to track tons of things throughout an entire shot, then you will most likely have some work to do with rotation and scale on the patches, and you'll be rotoing lots of things back over top of the patches, etc, etc, etc...
But, that's essentially how to do it. -
Daniel 103 posts14 Dec 2008hype thanks a lot for the explanation! I think I have understand the process of delete the post-it from the scene. (one of your tutorial about this should be very useful! ) Meanwhile I download the demo of syntheyes. After 3 hours (I'm not joking) I haven't understand yet the coordinate system. I saw every single tutorial about the setting of the origin tracker and the other two and alla my scene gone wrong. Even the tutorial example! (only sometimes with luck I choose correctly the points). I have a little sample took with my camera. I think that the quality is too low for syntheyes because I can't get a good plane (but I think isn't the resolution the problem beacuse I can't find the plane with other sample). Can you say me please if it is good enough? If I send you some jpg can you help me please to only show me where is the 3 good trackers to find a plane? (my boss is really interested to buy this sw if I show him it is useful )
Thanks again man! -
16 Dec 2008Yeah, post an image. Take a couple screengrabs of you scene in Syntheyes, preferably more than one of the orthographic views and the camera view.
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Daniel 103 posts17 Dec 2008Hi hype! Thanks as always! I'm trying to track different shot. This is my best experiment! What do you think? (in this case post-it notes wasn't necessary)
http://www.finallycg.com/Scene_480p.mov
And this is a frame so you can see the scene without the wireframe.
http://www.finallycg.com/uploads/images ... teapot.jpg
But, as I said you I find difficult this scene instead and I really want to tracking this shot too! (personal challenge) (shot took with the same camera of the previous shot) These are some screenshots : ortographic view
Some screenshot of the camera view:
The movement that I have in this shot is from the left to right (with a little pan). There are 170 frames, if you want I can zip them and give you a link. Thanks a lot again man! -
17 Dec 2008wow, man, I think your track looks really good! I didn't see anything wrong with it at all until I started watching the table that kind of goes offscreen on the left. There's a few frames where that wobbles a bit. I actually think the best solution for that might be to just delete those keyframes on the motion path and let it fill it in on it's own. Unless there's a weird jump in the footage, that should get rid of those little 1 frame jumps. But for the most part, I think you have a pretty dang good track there!
The second shot, the garage pan, that looks pretty easy and straightforward. Is this the one where the main problem was setting the orientation after it was tracked? I circled the points I would pick, and numbered the order I would pick them in. But only if those points are inside those squares I drew in the orthographics. That way, you know you're picking ones along the bottom, where you want the ground plane to be. -
Daniel 103 posts18 Dec 2008Hi hype, sorry but I think I haven't understand your advice. If I choose the trackers you selected the result is that all trackers are on the floor and the camera is almost perpendicular. I made another thing : I made a full automatic process (as in my best experiment) and then I place 3 trackers on the floor (all 3 trackers follow the points that I choose correctly). Then I solved (with "refine" mode) and without setting a coordinate system I make this screenshot so you can see where these 3 trackers are placed.
In the left view I can see that these 3 points are placed on a same plane (and I think it's correct). But if I choose these 3 point for the coordinate system my scene gone wrong. I choose the trackers number 3 as the origin, the number 1 as a locked point placed on y axis and the trackers number 2 placed on the xy plane. And this is the output
Thanks a lot again! -
19 Dec 2008Ah, interesting. It's interpreting your footage as a nodal pan, kind of. That's weird.
In that first image in your last post, see how it looks like the 3 points you picked are on the back wall? (in the point cloud, not in the camera view). Those points need to be laid out on the floor, between that back wall and the camera. It's weird that it would interpret it that way without you specifically telling it to do so.
Any chance you can upload this footage? I'm not a Syntheyes expert, but I'm sure I can figure out what's going on and why it's tracking it that way. You don't have it set to nodal pan, do you? If you can post the footage somewhere, I can give it a try this weekend. -
Daniel 103 posts19 Dec 2008Sure you can view the footage!
http://www.finallycg.com/garage.rar
These are the 225 frame of the footage. I haven't set to nodal pan (I don't know what is it!) Thanks a lot for your patience!
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