Cinema 4D and Live Action

G

grahamdunn

Active member
Hi all,
This is a pretty elementary question, but I was hoping to get some direction before I make life difficult for myself.

I'm working with live action (shot on blue) and some Cinema models. I have set external compositing tags for the CG elements, so when I bring the project to AE I can see where things are in the scene and how they're arranged, etc.

In one scene, for example, a live action character kicks his foot, and I animated a word in C4D flying towards camera that I need to integrate with the kicking. Would you bring the live action footage into C4D as a texture and use it to texture a polygon to get some reference? The footage is 720x486, so how does the scale translate in C4D (measured in meters or something)? I don't want to scale it out of whack or something. I'm trying to avoid the guess and check method, so I feel like I must need to get the footage in C4D (though it doesn't really update unless you render the frame you're on). Basically any pointers for how to make sure I've lined up my CG and live action would help. Thank you thank you!
 
Is the camera locked down or is it moving?

1/ Set your project properties to the proper frame rate.
And in the render settings set the render size to the same as your footage. 720x486 in this case.

2/ Bring footage into C4D through a materials luminance channel (or any channel).
Create a background object and assign the material to it.

3/ When it asks if you want to create a copy at the document path say no, it'll find it.

4/ Click the little thumbnail image to open the shader properties. Select the animaton tab.
Change timing to 'Exact Frame' and hit calculate. You may also have to then set it to 'Range' and manually set the value depending if your importing camera tracking files.


You can view the animation while using the time slider if you go to the materials- illumination and check 'Animate Preview'.

You'll also want to add a camera and if your footage is locked down, set it's position to 0,0,0 and add a Restriction tag to it to lock it in place.
 
Last edited:
Thank you so much! I was getting sort of close, but would never have figured all of that out. I really appreciate it.
 
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