3D Tracking Human features

[beaker]

All of it really depends on the shot. You can do 2d tracking in the compositor to get some information but most of it your really going to have to do by hand.

[Aneks]

depending on the complexity and type human motion or features you are trying to digitise a number of options exist. The most famous of these is motion capture !
But a huge ammount of reaserch has been conducted in this are. take the time to do so reaserch on the web you will be amazed what you can find !

[ramenchicken]

you can most certainly do this. there's a great example on www.vfxtalk.com of someone doing it using DV footage, painting blue and white dots on a dude's head, 3D tracking it using some motion tracker (don't remember which), and adding a 3D "hole" in the dude's head.

I'd give you the URL but vfxtalk is down for maintenance right now. it was in the "gallery" section, I think.

[beaker]

ramenchicken: yes and no. You can track it, but there is still a bunch of missing data, primarily the Z. Then on top of that you really need to model and animate a dummy object to match the performance which is pretty manual process. The tracking data is a guide, but no way a canned ham solution.

[Dutchman]

I have been thinking of the same 'problem' myself. I think that you can film a human with some 'tennisballs' ( ;) ) on some crucial points (pivots & spline), with 2 cams, one at the side and one from the front. Then just import it into Max (for example) as a background and (auto)track the tennisballs from the side. Then you can handtrack the points further into the Z-direction using the front footage.

If you've 2 cams (I've 3; even better), or a big mirror ( ;) ) this will be posible. Tell me what you'd think of this method...!

[beaker]

Yea, thats how vicon motion capture systems work. Your just doing manually what their software systems do automatically.

[ramenchicken]

Beaker, don't make me hurt you :)

seriously, though, here's the thread I was looking for:

(CAUTION! not for the weak of stomach. contains zombie brain content!)
http://www.vfxtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2550

Beaker (and others), you're right that it's not a completely manual process. there's a fair amount of prep, lots of gotchas, and you have to reconstruct the head model. but it sounds like you don't have experience with 3D trackers like boujou or PFTrack or Syntheyes (although if you do, please forgive my presumptiveness). if that's the case, you'd be very interested to check out these links:

RealViz Matchmover Pro (what zombie dude used; hellza expensive)
http://www.realviz.com/products/mpro/index.php

2d3 boujou (hellza expensive)
http://www.2d3.com/jsp/products/product-overview.jsp?product=10

Pixel Farm PFTrack (hellza expensive)
http://www.thepixelfarm.co.uk/products/products.aspx?PID=3

SynthEyes (relatively cheap!)
http://www.ssontech.com/synsumm.htm

digilab voodoo (free! but I haven't gotten it to work)
http://www.digilab.uni-hannover.de/docs/manual.html

(also do a search on here and vfxtalk for "icarus"...)

basically, what the zombie dude did was paint tracking markers on his actor's head, then 3D tracked them. this resulted in a bunch of points in *3D* space that he used as guides to, as you say, reconstruct the dummy head and make the "hole in head" model. really fascinating stuff. I'm *really* surprised he managed to do it with DV...

[beaker]

Beaker (and others), you're right that it's not a completely manual process. there's a fair amount of prep, lots of gotchas, and you have to reconstruct the head model. but it sounds like you don't have experience with 3D trackers like boujou or PFTrack or Syntheyes (although if you do, please forgive my presumptiveness). if that's the case, you'd be very interested to check out these links:I forgive your presumptiveness. :) Many of us here on the board are professionals and do know what we are talking about.

You don't need to treat us like retards. :)

[Ross Forster]

:bounce::eek::twisted::scream::banghead:...retards indeed.;)

I'm *really* surprised he managed to do it with DV... Personally, I think we hear that too much these days...anyways, its a great piece.

[Dutchman]

Because Voodoo is free, I've tried to work with it (first 3D tracker ever for me :) ), and for me it works really cool! :) I've done some quick tests, and I feel really exited about the possibilities :) So tnx for the link!

But am I right that such an app is made to track footage to create a moving 3D cam...? For such stuff as that zombie is it not really effective...? For such footage you don't want a moving cam, but a moving object...! Am I right or not? :) And is this in the same way used in professional bizzness? (camtracker for object tracking...)

add-dit: So it is it right that you can't track motion capture (done as in my prev post) like tennisballs?! I've BTW found out that that Pixelfarm product does have a motioncapture thing:

http://www.thepixelfarm.co.uk/images/Screenshots/PFTrack1.5_Screenshots/Motion_Capture.gif

[ramenchicken]

But am I right that such an app is made to track footage to create a moving 3D cam...? For such stuff as that zombie is it not really effective...? Dutchman, from my understanding the only difference between a moving camera and a moving object is how you export the data. so theoretically Voodoo would be able to do it, but like I said I couldn't get it to work so I didn't get far enough to export data.

I forgive your presumptiveness. :) Many of us here on the board are professionals and do know what we are talking about. You don't need to treat us like retards. :) okay, fine. to be honest, I'm not sure how to take this comment of yours, and that bothers me. just so you know. I hope our friend Dutchman here didn't think I was treating him as a retard.

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