camera match move in 3ds max

[plainman007]

Hi, Can someone tell me how to do camera match movement within 3ds max. Where we use the camera match utitlity to match the movement of a real world camera by recognising the white crosses or marks on the green screen. I know the principle on which it works. That is max uses certain points as trackers and uses the movement of that point in the video to judge in which way the camera is moving. Can someone tell me how to pick the points on the greenscreen. Despite what i try the order in which this is to be done is confusing me. Thanks in adv.

[Anhar Miah]

dude I didn'y even know had such a feature, (which release?)

anyway the match moving I've done has always been external programs.

I'm sure the built in one in max probably would not be that great, I'm guessing using a dedicated external program would be better because they always allow you to export the track to all the usual 3d apps.

Anhar

[plainman007]

Hi chief. Yes there is a cam tracker utility. Its a plug in which comes as part of the max package since version 6 or earlier. I think its under helpers. Even the help files that ship with max teach you to do a camera match. They advise you to take real world measurements etc so that getting the initial angle can be easy. Then after marking points and defining the distances between each, max will start moving the 3d cam to match the real world one just using the info of how the points are moving. I cant comment on the quality since i myself am looking forward to using it sometime.

[Raptor365]

Max (7?) 8 has built in tracking and tuts that I've tried once (Rhino tut). I think Anhar is right in using external programs as they are much more powerfull. Mark Johnson used boujou 4 for JDS's Rekindling short. If you want the 3ds Rhino tuts PM me. --Gord.

...Okay, I think your talking about your background being 3ds and not your foreground, as in real person panned to be put over fake, thus the green screen. yeah, 3ds has built in tuts for that I think. Let me know.

[plainman007]

But Rhino is an independent 3d animation software right ? I cant reinvent the wheel just for this one feature. By the way camera matching was there within max right from version 6. Its in helpers panel. Ull have to click on the helper options and youll see camera match headind there. I have added cam points etc but dont know how to go from there ??? LOL.

[Anhar Miah]

I've had a look at max's tracking, errr as far as I can see, its only 2d tracking not 3d. I may be wrong but I do not think you can get a full 3d track from max's track utility.

However for simple 2d motion I guess it could work.

Anhar

[Raptor365]

In 3dsmax 8 you can find two tutorials that may help you.
from the menu:
Help->Tutorials->Projects->Advanced->Camera Matching & Camera Map
(and select one of two tutorials...)
->Using Camera Match, uses a pool table and pool ball
->Using Camera Tracker, which follows an animated Rhino on a table.
These may help.
If you do not have max 8, try downloading the 30 trial version, I think the tutorials are included.
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=5972446

Gord

Edit: Well, the above link is for 3dsmax 9. Hopefully the tuts will still be there.

Also stumbled across this, A free camera tracking utility plugin for 3ds. Haven't tried it...
(*********deleted*******)

[plainman007]

It doesnt say its free anywhere on that site ? Am i missing something Raptor ?

[Raptor365]

**********previous post deleted********

I guess that tracking utility I mentioned was just a one day license. Kind of feel like they suckered me on that one.
They didn't mention that until after I registered and actually went to use it. Live and learn.

Gord.

[Raptor365]

Here's a !!!FREE!!! camera tracker. Quality with no catches.
http://www.digilab.uni-hannover.de/docs/manual.html#overview

I am redeemed. -Gord.

...also in the same link:
http://www.imagemagick.org/script/index.php

is software called ImageMagick. For anyone who wants free source code for handling about 100 types of graphics images (bmp, mpg,giff,tiff,ect) in various source code formats (c++,Java...) check this out. (I just checked out the c++ source after download and this feels like christmas.)

[siniarch]

Maybe I'm mistaken or something, but I'm pretty sure 3d Max does camera tracking. you build a 3D environment that matches the environment of your footage. then you have it track certain points in your footage and you tell it which point in your 3D envrionment they are. It will build a camera and a camera path for you.
I watched a demo of this on their site I believe years ago. If you guys really need it I can look for it.

[Anhar Miah]

Siniarch you are mistaking "camera-Matching" with "Camera-Tracking"


the difference is with camera matching you take a still shot and align real world objects in order to get your 3d camera to line up thus allowing to do composting, however camera tracking is when the software automatically computes the 3d motion of the camera from the footage.

Also there is motion tracking, which is pixles of a footage are tracked, but this only works in 2d not 3d.

Max can do Camera matching and motion tracking but As far as I Know it can not do camera tracking.

Anhar

[siniarch]

Anhar,
Again I'm speaking from memory here, but I believe I saw a vide that did just that. "Camera Tracking" I can't find the damn thing, but I'll keep looking. If I'm not mistaken they guy tracked the points in 2d and somehow applied them to the camera matching over a period of time, thus providing Camera Tracking. If I see it again I'll let you know.

[plainman007]

Hi Siniarch,

Ive been saying that from the beginning of this post. Ive told anhar to start with that theres a camera tracker and camera match utility both built into max itself. He didnt know about it. Ver.7 onwards had it. I never got to play with it until recently. Very complicated procedure to use. I somehow set my mind to it and learnt it over a period of weeks and several severe headaches. LOL. Your real world measurements should be more than precise,,,,down to the last inch for you to get an accurate solution. Then like you said u get to postion objects around your matching points which are in the real world scene and the cg cam then moves exactly like the real camera did (based on the video which has been given to it to sample). This is no task for the weak hearted. Most other programs (3rd party) ike bojou etc are using a unique process without real world measurements. Advantage ! you dont need cam track markers etc in the real world scene. The software analyzes how the video is moving and formulates approximately how far the obejcts are and their placement. The process is known as photogammetry and uses paralax error principles etc. The catch is that those softwares love shaky videos. The more shaky the video the more easily it can process. Then it gives a file which has to be imported within 3ds max and the cam takes this information and moves according to the real world cam or is supposed to. Very unreliable. The max racking is perfectly geometry at play. But the latter softwares are very unpredictable. But each has their own uses. Like lets say you have a helicam shot. You arent going to go in your car placing markers over 100s of miles right (that too with exact measures) lol. Here these proggys are more versatile and probably the only solution. But for 3d set extension etc etc. I think its better to go the geometry path.

[Ferdi Willemse]

Max has a camera tracker and camera matcher for as long as I know (started of with 3ds max 3). However, I really recommend you not to use it, as it's very buggy and inaccurate. Try a third-party program.

[Anhar Miah]

hmmm, I did look for the camera tracker and all I could get it too do was track objects in 2d (same as in combustion) but, yea I could have missed it. At any rate I would prefer to use 3rd party programs.

One slight note is that with 3rd party programs you do not need to have tracking markers to get a track, only something with some perspective, and the programs to allow to input real world dimensions.

Then there is the old school way of manually keyframing it to camera match.

[plainman007]

Anhar > Ive tried it with some shots recently. I got decent results. I was very kicked up about it and happy. But its a very tought route to go. So many linkages so many tracking properties for each and every marker. Yes,,, i know u dont need markers at all in the 3rd party programs. But when i tried a friends version of bojou just for kicks. It created very mismatched movement even using their own supplied demo tracking tga seq. What 3rd party tool are u using ?

[plainman007]

Ferdi > a little off topic but may i ask you how you got that look in your avatar ? Photoshop work ? Id like to get a video to have this look ? any ideas how to go about it ? Ive tried some things like playing with th color curves etc. Ive gotten some close results but would like to know if there is a standadised technique to get this ink and paint look.

[Anhar Miah]

use, vodoo, sytheyes, and pftrack. Allegedly much better than bojou...

[im.thatoneguy]

Use MMtracker. It's free for now and produces very good results. Works right inside of 3D Studio Max too.

The default tracker is pretty much garbage, you can get pretty good results, but the setup is arduous and requires a lot of cleanup.

[plainman007]

Thatoneguy > Who told you that mmtrack is free ? I tried the download and there are strings attached. Its not a free application as far as i understand. I downloaded it. It wuldnt run. Then i got the serial thru the email about 1 week later. Then that serial didnt work. Then i get an email from their company asking me if i was interested in buying some of their products. I replied saying their so-called free version didnt work and was it really free. I got no reply from them at all. Id like to know how it worked for you.

Voodoo is good ive seen. Problem is it will work only with image sequences of tga types.

[Ferdi Willemse]

Ferdi > a little off topic but may i ask you how you got that look in your avatar ? Photoshop work ? Id like to get a video to have this look ? any ideas how to go about it ? Ive tried some things like playing with th color curves etc. Ive gotten some close results but would like to know if there is a standadised technique to get this ink and paint look.
Hi Planman, sorry for the late reaction. I kinda forgot about this topic. I painted my avatar in Photoshop, so it's no post work on a video, just plain brush strokes:happy:

[plainman007]

Looks nice anyways. Similar to the AHA video. You remmember that one. "Take on me" by AHA where he pops out of the newspaper and drags a girl from the coffee shop into the newspaper. Then they are chased by a villian and they run between the pages etc only as line art like your avatar. There is a way to do this in Vegas i think by using some of the video effects like where you get everything beyond a threshhold into white and lower than that all turns black. Thanks for replying anyways. Bye.

[twocik23]

Here's something I just stumbled across, looks very promising, thought I'd share


http://www.ssontech.com/entry/cgtalkLW.htm

[Anhar Miah]

erm, Its syntheyes, been using it for a while, its old news.