questions on composition (maya+AE) :)

[Phred42]

Oh boy. No matter how hard you try, you're not going to be able to get your 3d object to sit on the ground in your background plate if you do it that way.

If you're going to move the camera around, you need to matchmove it using Maya Live or a similar program (Realviz Matchmover, 3d Equalizer, or Boujou perhaps.) Then you render out your object using the matchmoved camera, and you just drop the rendered image sequence on top of the DV one in After Effects and it'll all line up. It's fairly advanced stuff - the matchmoving part especially can be hair-pullingly difficult. If you're going that route, I hope you took a few measurements of the scene, and maybe have the measurements of your camera's focal length and film back.

If this is your first project using Maya with After Effects, a slightly different approach might work. Maybe you could build a spherical environment map out of one frame from every second or so of your pan. Build that big image file, map it to the inside of a big sphere in Maya. then put your object in the middle and move your camera around. You lose the motion of whatever was going on in the footage, but you'll keep more of your hair! ;)

Why not head over to this month's VFX Challenge thread and see what they're doing with camera mapping over there?

Good luck!

P.S. You can use expressions in AE to make your camera shake around. Look up the ummm..."wiggle" function in the expressions docs to see what I'm talking about. Or you can use motion sketch and 2d motion-capture some shaky cam action.

[BadKarma]

so in other words... i have no hope inhell of being able to do this ! lol

k im gunna check ot tha "sperical"(sp?) thing that you was chatting bout, should be fun. expressions in AE? shit i am behind lol

thanks alot fella.

BadKarma

[Tuqui-tuqui]

Am I late to answer this thread??? :eek:

Anyhoo, why don't you simply use the Motion tracker/Stabilizer in AE? Sure, its a lot of hard work, you will end up with something that would look nice....

Good luck!!!

[BadKarma]

Motion tracker/Stabilizer? in AE? are u sure? ive got version 5.0 is it in that version?

coz i couldnt find any matchmovers software neway... mainly looking for dat Icars(sp?) but the conpany doesnt seem to offer it for download nemore.

anyway would you be able to write a lil bit on where it is in AE and a lil bi ton how to use it?

Cheers Tuqui-tuqui

BadMarka

[Tuqui-tuqui]

Hey BadKarma!!!

Haven't forgotten about you, but I will have to do it on Monday. I don't have AE at home.... :thumbsdow

[BadKarma]

lol no probs mate, no rush its nice of ya to do it in tha first place :D

BadKarma

[Tuqui-tuqui]

All right!!! Let's see what we can do here......

In a composition, put your LIVE FOOTAGE (LIVE) and RENDER SEQ (RENDER), in that order.

Select LIVE and go to Animation > Motion Tracker/Stabilizer

A window will pop up with LIVE on top and the options at the bottom. Now, the Motion Tracker/Stab has several options, but for you, we'll use Track. Make sure the checkmark is in Position and not in Rotation, because the rotation has already been performed by your camera and Maya.

Go to Options. Apply Motion to LAYER (In the pull down menu select RENDER. Leave everything else the same with 29.97 fps, unless you're doing it in PAL or 24 fps.

Press OK

Now the fun part. In LIVE you have to select a highlight. What I mean is, that if you have a black wall, look for point/pixel/group of pixels that you can completely tell apart from the rest of the wall. Ex: Black/white. This will be the reference point by which AE will track. On top, where the LIVE footage is, you will see a marquee (One square inside another with a cross in the middle) Use the mouse to move the inside box to the highlight and put the cross directly on top of the highlight.

Close/minimize the Track/Stab window. Select Render and change its pivot point to the highlight you selected in LIVE.

Select LIVE and open the Tracker/Stab window. Press Analyze, and you will notice that the video wil start with the marquee following the highlight. If at any moment the marquee loses the highlight, simply press Stop and with Page Up/Page Down move between frames and put the marquee back in the highlight. Once you are done press Apply and close the Track/Stab window.

Select Render, open its Position attributes and you will that all the frames where the Tracking worked will be keyed. You can also edit it by simply going with the timeline to the frame yo want and move the Render layer. It will affect that key, but not the others.

Man!!! What a long explanation... But make sure you have Motion Track/Stab, otherwise all that explaining is useless.

Good luck!!!!

[BadKarma]

"What a long explanation..." - Understandment lol, cant thank you enuff fella ! i will hit AE tonite and get this tracking thing popping thanx again fella... and if there is anything i can help you wiv dont worry about asking.

Cheers

BadKarma

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