Anyone still working with Icarus PE2.06 ?

[videodrome]

What file format is your live-action footage? I havent run into any problems with mine, otherthan the fact that i can't import it as dv-avi footage, i can only import image sequences.

Obviously the better quality footage, the better the track. Stuff like video grain, zooming, auto-exposure, low contrast lighting will just make life difficult.

The camera motion also is very important, ive done all my own shooting which has resulted in favorable results, but this isnt the case most of the time..

The co-ordinate system isnt that crucial, i always make sure i get a nice locked ground plane, and then export the motion data. the x/y/z is different in every 3d program, i basically go with the icraus system, and then when i import the data into 3ds max, i have to reconfigure/scale it accordingly.. as long as i know where the ground plane is, everything else is easy..

Not sure if this was any help, i'd have to see the footage to make an accurate assesment.

[Micha1138]

Hey videodrome,

thanks for the reply !

I seems that this nice freeware program isn´t used by many people anymore ?

I actually used various kind of footage , but to no avail. The number of colours is always reduced :\.

Anyway, the main and constant problem I am having at the moment is, that the z-axis is most of the time a bit off.

If you look at a picture with a slight top view, the vertical lines corresponding to the z-axis will go to a third vanishing point. But it seems that I cannot get the z-axis-lines set correctly to match the actual z-axis.

If I only place axis lines for x and y, then I get a good result, but although I have set a point of origin, the ground plane tends to shift,i.e. the origin point shifts.

Totally annoying :\

Oh, and by the way, I am using the 2.08, not the 2.06 as I wrote in the topic description. sorry.

With what version are you working ?

Thanks for looking !

Michael

[videodrome]

Im actually using 2.07 (windowsXP) , i've been trying to track down 2.09 for a while.. i dont think many people are using it anymore because its no longer free and its only for non-commercial work, and there is no online support. I got my copy from a computer magazine i bought 2 years ago which came with a free cd. i didnt use the program until 3 months ago...

It took me a while to get nice locked ground planes, its very important to calibrate the focal length of the scene with the axis lines before doing the final calibration, and then of course picking a good origin point that is on the flat surface where you want the ground plane.

It took me a while of using different axis lines to figure which works best, and i know, it gets very annoying, but the payoff is great when you finally figure it out! i cant give you any easy solutions though.. just try different combinations, and just worry about one vanishing point.

[Micha1138]

Thanks for that motivational push ;-)

I´ll give it another try, since now I have the focal lengths that were used while shooting the footage. I´ll update when I have new results. Maybe this will do the trick, so I don´t have to rely on the internal calculation of the focal lengths.

Thanks for looking,
Michael

[Micha1138]

Hey Videodrome,
I finally made it ! I got the hang of working with Icarus now !

It is not that hard if you know what to look for ;)

The problem I had with the colour depth of the imported material was apparently caused by the videocodes of the mpeg file I had to work with. I just got the footage as a targa image sequence, and this really works fine ! The only problem I now have is that the footage actually is not that well shot regarding refernce for tracking points :\ But I guess this is just another step in learning how to use tracking software. I now know how to plan my movie sets next time :p .

Thanks for the help anyway, I´ll post when I have the completely result online :)

Thanks again,
Michael

[videodrome]

good to hear its working for you now, and yes, the source footage is very important (obviously) to getting a nice calibrated camera track... lots of parallax motion, contrasting elements, obvious perspective lines, but of course this isnt always the case.

keep at it, its well worth the effort to learn camera tracking. im still trying to get over the wow factor of adding cg elements into live action footage, and instead actually trying to do something creative with it, otherthan just adding 3dstuff in for the sake of it! if you know what i mean...

one of the best uses of camera tracking (and what originally inspired me to figure this stuff out) was a little 1min short i saw at Resfest 2003, about this robotic soldier in south africa, it was done by Embassy Visual Effects as a spec ad/demo. it was shot with a handheld video camera, and the CG robot looks very real.. this just blew me away because it isnt slick & glossy, it just looks rough and realistic. :) here is the link to the film...

right click & save:(roughly 16mb)
http://www1.analogik.org/video/tetra_vaal_.mov

[Micha1138]

Hey, you trying to discourage me now or what ? :lol: :lol: :lol:

Man, really cool, I like the way they handled the integration, between the good old "get out of the scene early enough" (the robo jumping across the cars) or the fullfrontal integration (robo behind the corner in explosion). I think they also may have used motion tracking, the movements look really smooth and real. Maybe it was a guy in a suit and the only tracked and removed portions of his outfit ? Anyway, thanks for the link !

And now that I get the hang of working with icarus, I start to grasp what is possible with this little prog ! I just discovered the reconstruction technique for complex shapes, and haven´t worked with mattes and rotoscoping yet ! This really is going to be fun in the future !

The finetuning still will take some time, there sometimes are a few wobblers in the cameramovement, but nothing that cannot be corrected by a little bit effort. And one thing I discovered is that I do not necessarily have to do everything in one go, you´ll see what I mean when the material is up on the net :D.

Thanks again,
hope to talk to you soon,

Michael

[videodrome]

[QUOTE=Micha1138]Hey, you trying to discourage me now or what ? :lol: :lol: :lol:

Hehe, naw, just trying to inspire you! ;) Im pretty sure they used motion capture for the robot, and im positive the robot is totally cg (lightwave), if you goto http://www.theembassyvfx.com/ you can see that all of thier stuff is primarily photorealistic cg mixed with live-action, some cool stuff there, worth checking it out.

Look foward to seeing some of your work, just pm me when its up.

Later!

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.