Maya Live: Looking for tuts

[gmask]

Originally posted by DVmaker
So i'm trying to learn maya live, and it seems that no one, and i mean NO ONE knows anythgin about it. Does it suck? Should i find somthing else...should i learn icarus? What's the deal... Why is Maya Live so taboo?

thanks,
aj

There are definately better 3d tracking programs than Maya live. There are hundreds of tuts for Maya but I cna;t think of a single one online for Live..sorry

[Levitateme]

check it out

www.2d3.com

im not saying its the best, from what i have seen though is its pretty user friendly .

[Tom N.]

Heres one I found a while ago.. Haven't used it yet so i can't say how good it is but have a look:

http://www.bk.tudelft.nl/scripts/guide/maya3/refguide_subindex.asp?sort=s

[kiaran]

Has anyone out there EVER used Maya Live successfully?? I've never heard of it being used. I'm trying to learn it right now and I got about two steps into the tutorial then when I hit the track button I get this

'error: invalid width size, please resize the image'

What the hell does that mean?!? I've tried everything, any help would be great.

Kiaran

[sporktine]

i've run through the pdf tutorial that comes with unilmited (instant unlimited) and that clears some of it up, but live is like the bastard stepchild of the maya toolset. not very easy to manage, imho. have had better experiences with combustion (though it doesn't do nearly what live is SUPPOSED to do)

[DeathBrain]

Originally posted by kiaran
'error: invalid width size, please resize the image'

My Maya Live always works well here :)
Your image aspect ratio size should be the same size as 4:3 film source or larger film resolution, don't play arround with 400x300, 500x200 or something weird size, and always use IFF/TGA as your background sequences
But the best way is using Maya Fusion or Combustion for tracking :)

[bluedragon128]

Yeah, make sure that your image aspect ratio and film aperture is set to what video resolution you are using. If you are set to go maya will show a little green ready to track icon. Some times it helps to make a dirty plate, in another program such as: Shake, or After Effects. Make sure that the sequence contains varations of light contrast and hue. This will help you ge a better track. And also make sure that what you save out is the same resolution as the orginal. Back to Maya Live, what you are looking for Live to do is give you the lowest slippage that you possibly can get, (around 0-4) is good closer to zero is awesome. Hope that helps some.

[kiaran]

Thanks for the replys,

Unfortunately I still can't get this working. Here are my settings:

Film Aperture: 3inches by 2inches
Device Aspect Ratio: 1.5
Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1

The green box confirms that I am ready to track and all is good. I've triple checked that all the aspect ratio's match up to my image sequence footage and yet when I try to track I still get this:

'invalid width size, please resize the image'

I also tried exporting a tif,tga and iff sequence non of which fixed the problem. The tga's didn't even show up in the viewport regardless of any combination of cache settings.

I'm getting really desperate here, maybe if someone who has had success with this could post a sample image seq along with the settings they used then I could determine if it's just my computer that is screwing up or what.

PLEASE HELP ME!

Thanks,
Kiaran

[DeathBrain]

Film Aperture: 3inches by 2inches, Device Aspect Ratio: 1.5, Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1 ?? :eek:
Maya doesn't recognize those size :D
Turn on "auto compute" option :)

[DeathBrain]

Here's my setup (http://www.geocities.com/zigaretos/live.txt), 720x576 for those TGA sequence files :)
If you want to use "user defined" setup then turn "on" auto compute ;)

[kiaran]

Thank you very much deathBrain,

Having tried all manner of setting as you described using 'auto-compute' and whatnot I still have had no luck. Finally I decided that I have the settings correct and that the error must me from something particular to my computer.

I sent my image seq over the network to another computer and tried it again, using the same settings. Lo and behold, it worked!

Seems there is some setting on my system, somewhere, that is causing this bizarre error. So, I went searching over at highend3d to see if anyone has heard of such a problem and I found only one mention of a similar error and nobody posted a reply to his problem.

Fortunatly, I have access to a different workstation that I can use but I would still like to get this sorted out on my own system.

One other note of interest... When I click 'start track' I get a red error in the command feedback saying 'ERROR: failed open image'

Any ideas why this is happening? I have no other programs open that would be using the images, I think this must be linked to my 'invalid size' error.

Anyway, thanks to everyone's help, especially deathBrain.

Kiaran

[kiaran]

Just a side note:

Having finally used Maya Live, I'm very impressed with the speed and ease of use. Watching it track the points across the film is actually pretty fun and easy. :thumbsup:

Having seen the lack of online support for this program I may have to write a nice little tutorial once I'm finished. Although the documentation is pretty good.;)

Cheers,
Kiaran

[DeathBrain]

Originally posted by kiaran
Fortunatly, I have access to a different workstation that I can use but I would still like to get this sorted out on my own system.

One other note of interest... When I click 'start track' I get a red error in the command feedback saying 'ERROR: failed open image'

Any ideas why this is happening? I have no other programs open that would be using the images, I think this must be linked to my 'invalid size' error.

humn... 'ERROR: failed open image' ? neh..thats weird :hmm:
Are you using networking folder ?
Btw, The logo image that defaults in the Full Res Image setting must be either overwritten or cleared. Otherwise, Maya Live assumes you intend to track against the logo image. Make sure to press Enter for the change to occur.
Oh and make sure there are no other file(s) in your sequence folder except your sequence files ;)

[DeathBrain]

Originally posted by kiaran
Having seen the lack of online support for this program I may have to write a nice little tutorial once I'm finished. Although the documentation is pretty good.;)

Ohhh..I still don't have enough time to do the same things :cry:

[kiaran]

To answer your questions:

1.) Files are stored locally in their own folder.
2.) The sequence is loaded correctly and playsback fine in the viewport. :shrug:

Personally, I'm at a loss. I have no idea why this is happening.

Thanks again,
Kiaran

[DeathBrain]

Try to use one of these size for your sequence files :)

- 640x460 (NTSC)
- 720x486 (NTSC)
- 720x576 (PAL)

1. set your time line to 0
2. create a new tracker point
3. adjust your track point
4. start track

Like this (http://www.geocities.com/zigaretos/live2.txt) :)

[kiaran]

Hi,

First of all, thanks to deathBrain for helping me with this.

Those are my exact steps word for word. I've tried with several different resolutions/ratios 4:3, 16:9, NTSC, 3:2 etc... none of them changed a thing.

However, as soon as I used my friends workstation the tracking worked flawlessly. Here's a little video of what I was able to accomplish in about 2 hours of working with Live on friends system:

Camera Tracking Example (http://www.telusplanet.net/public/edwin/kiaran/animation/BoxTest.mov)

Please note, I DID NOT put the little soldier into the footage, that was done by some other artist. I just used this footage to try and track with. I composited the little orange blob that's sitting on the table just to show how well the tracking worked. Of course it needs proper shadows and such to look correct but I'll do that when I need to, this is just a test.

If anyone has any other ideas as to why my workstation alone gives these errors I would be very happy to hear them.

Thanks,
Kiaran

[kiaran]

To answer DVmacker's orginal question:
So i'm trying to learn maya live, and it seems that no one, and i mean NO ONE knows anythgin about it. Does it suck? Should i find somthing else...should i learn icarus? What's the deal... Why is Maya Live so taboo?

The quick answer is Maya Live does not suck. I may have sounded a bit slanted towards it in my earlier posts but once I got it working on my friends system I found it to be very cool and surprisingly pretty fun to use.

I had to use about ten points to get an accuracte track and the great thing is that I did this in a very short period of time and without any measurements from the area where the footage was taken from.

I found it very easy to use by following the included 'instant maya' tutorials. Soon I was tracking like a pro because all the controls make very good sense and are easy to understand.

It had no problem tracking my VERY bumpy handheld, grainy (downright poor quality) footage. I hear people complain because "live needs too many trackin points" ...blah blah blah...

It's so easy to add a couple points here or there as needed that I don't even see this as an issue. Now, I haven't used any highend tracking progs like Boujou or Matchmover ($10,000 ?!?!) simply because of the price, but Maya Unlimited definetly has a fully featured and capable tracker in maya live. Don't worry, it works charm.

Cheers,
Kiaran

[DeathBrain]

Originally posted by kiaran
First of all, thanks to deathBrain for helping me with this.

No problemo...:)
Originally posted by kiaran
However, as soon as I used my friends workstation the tracking worked flawlessly. Here's a little video of what I was able to accomplish in about 2 hours of working with Live on friends system:
Camera Tracking Example (http://www.telusplanet.net/public/edwin/kiaran/animation/BoxTest.mov)

OMG...:eek:
This clip is really cool...really match (even the camera is shaking)...awesome tracking :thumbsup:

[kmp3d]

Hey wow thats great!!! I too have not been able to results out of
maya live. Kiaran if you could post some tips and so forth that helped you get an accurate track and solve, that would be great.
Anyway great job on bringing that "black art" of maya live to light.

:applause: :buttrock: :thumbsup:

[Martin_G_3D]

damn thats just great man

but i cant find tutorials about Live in Instant Maya???

I've got maya 5 unlimited and all i get is:

Tutorials

Overview

Maya Basics

Polygonal Modeling

NURBS Modeling

Subdivision Surfaces

Animation

Character Setup

Rendering

Dynamics

Expressions

MEL

[sporktine]

The tutorial for live is under "Instant Unlimited" not "instant maya" unless alias took them out of 5 (which i doubt)

[DeathBrain]

www.funny3d.com has 1 Maya Live tutorial :)
here here (http://www.funny3d.com/tutorial/article/Live.pdf) :beer:

[sporktine]

DeathBrain, since the korean language doesn't seem to phase you, would you kindly translate that tutorial for the rest of us? It's funny. The real problem with live is indeed the fact that the only place you can get enough information about how to use it, is from places that don't speak your language. By sheer luck you meet someone who knows something about it, then they start explaining it to you in a language you don't understand. Yay!

By the way, that is the unlimited tutorial i was talking about, but translated to korean.

[DeathBrain]

Errh...don't get mad at me :blush: I am not a korean anyway, just searched the google and found that one :blush:

try this one (http://depts.washington.edu/cmmr/Students/alumni/jon_eytinge/FinalReport.pdf) :)

[sporktine]

Not mad, just teasing!

[Martin_G_3D]

Originally posted by sporktine
The tutorial for live is under "Instant Unlimited" not "instant maya" unless alias took them out of 5 (which i doubt)

I couldnt find instant unlimited, and when i clicked a link directing to instant unlimited i got a 404

But now I found it somehow and got a lot of stuff to read

guess something went wrong with installation

DAMN Instant Unlimited is 500 pages! :eek:

[DeathBrain]

To activate Maya Live
Windows > Setting Preferences > Plugin Manager
then turn on "Maya Live.mll" :) like this (http://www.geocities.com/zigaretos/live3.txt)

Unlimited has :
1. Subd Surface
2. Cloth
3. Fur
4. Live

Errh...ok..i am preparing tutorial & tips for Maya Live guys....:beer:

[kiaran]

So where's that tutorial deathbrain? ;)

Looking forward to seeing it.

Cheers,
Kiaran

[DeathBrain]

I Still don't have enough place to upload the sequenced zip files :banghead:

[kiaran]

How much space do you need? I could give you the username / password for my FTP if it's not too big.
email me if you want to do this:

kiaran@email.com

Thanks,
Kiaran

[CnexS]

deathbrain, ive got a really large webspace that you can use, so fare ive only tried to upload about 500mb and that when well

but its a private account so you haveto send the things to me and then ill upload the directly

[DeathBrain]

Wow :eek: thaaank you so much...ok.. preparing materials :)

[Jozvex]

Originally posted by kiaran
I'm trying to learn it right now and I got about two steps into the tutorial then when I hit the track button I get this

'error: invalid width size, please resize the image'

What the hell does that mean?!? I've tried everything, any help would be great.

That's what I got!! I posted a topic on here (and other sites) about that same error a while ago, but yeah no-one really new anything about Maya Live.

I tried everything from deleting prefs, to reinstalling but nothing fixed it. Then........on about my 50th attempt I set my timeslider to start at frame 1 instead of frame 0 and it worked!!

I have no idea why that was causing it for me, but it worked when I used that setting. You should try it if you haven't already!

A new tutorial on it would be great though, I still pretty much suck at using it. I can get things to track fine, but then when I use the constraints and apply the track to the camera, my camera ends up facing in a weird direction... :shrug:

[DeathBrain]

Hi jozvex :)

if you want Maya Live to start from frame 0 :
1. set your slider down to 0
2. turn off "use current frame"
3. set your frame range
4. then "create", use green track box to locate your first rack section
5. then "start track"

[Jozvex]

Though if I've got it set to 'Use Current Frame' and my Time Slider is on 0, shouldn't that be the same thing?

I can't remember what settings I used anyway hehe. :scream:

[kiaran]

Jozvex: I was so happy to hear that someone found a fix for that error I keep getting but when I started up Maya and tried your suggestion I still get the same old error.

So far the only fix I've found is to use a different workstation.

:shrug:

[Jozvex]

Oh really? Damn..

You know I posted this on the Alias Maya forums a few months ago and within 1 hour my post had been deleted.....

I don't know why, I was just asking about the error.

[Nemises]

Anyone ever find a solution to this?..

Was just running through the Maya Unlimited Live tutorial, and get the same error, invalid image width.

Having followed the tutorial religiously, and using the images that come WITH Maya, I assume it should work.

ah well...hope someone knows :)

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