Camera Tracking problems

[byvfx]

did you stablize it before you tracked it?

[SilverSpark]

Can you point me in the right direction? ie.. Software or method.

[GallenWolf]

Dude, for PFTrack, did you try upping the number of features? That helps when it gets shaky and lots of motion blur come in.

Alvin

[HowardB]

In PFTrack have some of the user features set as tracking guides in the high motion blurred areas, you might need to use lots of them. I wouldn’t suggest raising the number of user features higher then 200 as they tend to become less accurate.

[eodmpink]

Can you point me in the right direction? ie.. Software or method.

There's a 2d3 stablizer for premiero pro that comes as a plugin free.

[SOE digital]

Personaly I'm a bit "old school" when it comes to tracking. How about manual tracking when the computer cant do it?

[altruizine]

I agree.. track as much as you can up to and after the trouble area.. then just start adding points and hand tracking. I've been using Syntheyes lately and it performs very will w/ just 6 track points. So, hand tracking isn't terrible and it typically yields very good results.

-JF

[p-man]

Anyone got a link to a website for PFTrack tutorials? I was on one with flash tutorials some time but cant find it again and i havnt got much time to surf the net.

Cheers ThePman

[basti]

Personaly I'm a bit "old school" when it comes to tracking. How about manual tracking when the computer cant do it?

hey

this it not oldschool but it's the only way to do perfect trackings!
i've never used an autotracker and got perfect results in my whole
career. they are simply to inaccurate.
that's why i won't give anything for boujou pftrack etc which offer
only limited supervised tracking options.
they are one-chance-wonders - if it doesn't work it just doesn't work.
but hey nevertheless i'm happy they exist because my company gets
most of the jobs because these packages fail at the big studios'
difficult shots :)

basti

[Kai01W]

hey
this it not oldschool but it's the only way to do perfect trackings!
i've never used an autotracker and got perfect results in my whole
career. they are simply to inaccurate.
that's why i won't give anything for boujou pftrack etc which offer
only limited supervised tracking options.
they are one-chance-wonders - if it doesn't work it just doesn't work.
but hey nevertheless i'm happy they exist because my company gets
most of the jobs because these packages fail at the big studios'
difficult shots :)
basti

Yeah. Somehow feel the same here. Not having the "track record" (sorry) on matchmoving you have, most of the time I ended up tracking manually in Maya Live...
Have similar experiences with most automated trackers. Either they work and then its great or they don't....
Plus on middle class computers I feel that sometimes in the time it takes to analyze the shot I manually tracked it in almost the same time. With more control.
Some shots however I only managed to do with automated trackers ("even" backgrounds like meadows, water, etc.)

Oh well...

Gruesse aus Köln

-k

[SOE digital]

HeHe.
Sometime I feel like the only one in the world that manual tracks.

[basti]

HeHe.
Sometime I feel like the only one in the world that manual tracks.

you're not alone :)

[beaker]

this it not oldschool but it's the only way to do perfect trackings!
i've never used an autotracker and got perfect results in my whole
career. they are simply to inaccurate.
that's why i won't give anything for boujou pftrack etc which offer
only limited supervised tracking options.
they are one-chance-wonders - if it doesn't work it just doesn't work.
but hey nevertheless i'm happy they exist because my company gets
most of the jobs because these packages fail at the big studios'
difficult shots :)

bastiNo offense, but this is just BS old school thinking(like mocap vs trad animation). This is a clear case of right tool for the right job.

Just to clarify I have hand track plenty of shots on many films and I'm never afraid to do this when it is needed. The thing is autotrackers work just fine. They solve with 99-100% accuracy about 50-75% of the shots and take 1/10th the time. I use the autotracker first, and when it does fail after some massaging, then I move onto hand tracking. It is a waste of time to hand track that 50% that the autotracker handles just fine. This is how many studios work, so I am not in the minority here.

Making a statement that autotrackers are inaccurate is just ignorant and shows that you haven't used an autotracker in many years.

[altruizine]

agreed absolutely. Autotracking is both fast and extremely accurate. There's no point in not running an auto track and see where you get with it. Track it forwards, backwards and then fill in the problem areas w/ hand tracked stuff.

Autotrackers are very fast - the time you take to use one and have it be right will save so much time overall...

-JF

[basti]

well autotracking might be ok for boring and simple shots. of course i wouldn't
do manual tracking for a simple shot when syntheyes can solve it in litterally
seconds. but i was talking about complicated shots, only. i guess i'm a bit
biased about tracking because my company gets all these shots which simply
cannot be solved with autotrackers. these shots have been gone through the
complete autotracking pipeline (drawing garbage and object mattes, using
every combination of search are size and other parameters)
the point is: autotrackers just fail on these interesting shots and that's when
only manual tracking gets you to the perfect solve. but i'll stick with my comment
about accuracy. using a small number of well chosen manual tracks which fit
perfectly in 2d will alway lead to a better solve than thousands of autotracking
points. because there are always little errors which will be very hard to spot..
and although the tracks will be filtered etc they transfer their error into the
solution.

but hey.. please stick with your opinion.. so maybe you'll be another happy client
of my matchmove service soon! ;) jk

basti :)

btw: i've been using tracking tools and have been a professional matchmover for
about 5 years now including many featurefilms, commercials and big tv highlights.
so there's quite a bit of experience i'd say

[beaker]

Well sure thats what we're talking about. Your previous post made it sounds like you don't autotrack anything and only hand track stuff.

Oh, one other thing, some people have different definitions of hand tracking(maybe it's a language thing). Many people when they say hand track, they are literally hand animating the camera in 3d application without very little or any 2d tracking assistance.

[basti]

Well sure thats what we're talking about. Your previous post made it sounds like you don't autotrack anything and only hand track stuff.

Oh, one other thing, some people have different definitions of hand tracking(maybe it's a language thing). Many people when they say hand track, they are literally hand animating the camera in 3d application without very little or any 2d tracking assistance.

yep, sorry i wasn't clear enough.
hand trackings with only some 2d points is every matchmover's nightmare

cheers :beer: ,
basti

[ahmedsheeraz]

hi all
Although I am an animator/VFX artist but I recently dived into the world of camera tracking to explore it. I recently download realviz matchmover pro 4 trial to learn this stuff. I want some basic tuts and theory of camera tracking. Any help?
I also need some footage to track mayb blue/green screen. is there any website which offer raw footage just for newbies to learn tracking.

Thanx.

[beaker]

There are over a dozen tuts, theory and raw footage on the matchmover site.

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