compositing 3d lines into live action footage

[swine_007]

sorry dont know what happened to the attachment. It seemed to have disappeared

here it is again
attachment diagram

[Cryptite]

As far as the best way to make the line, i'm not sure, but as for the way of importing the video to be able to scrub. I can help you there. Now you won't exactly be able to drag the timline bar around and see the moving footage, but you can if you hold down < and > to go forward and back frame-by-frame. To do this, go to your viewport background (Alt-B) and click files, then navigate to your movie. Select your Aspect Ratio to Match Rendering Output (this way, what you see in the viewport your using, is what you'll see in the render) Also, click Animate Background. That should be all you need to see what your doing. Hit OK. Once all said and done, you must add the movie again as a background environment map. Hit '8' and point your Background Environment Map to the same movie. After all this, you should be able to render and get what you want... Hope this helps!

P.S. ----
1.) Don't forget to use masks to simulate having your lines actually go behind the movie scene objects!
2.) Also don't forget to go into your time configuration and set your FPS to 25fps.

[swine_007]

Hi Cryptite,

Thanks for your pointer. Now I'm able to insert the to the bg. Actually I think I managed to make the video scrub-able by ticking the "animate background" option on (see attachment). I dunno what version of max support this but I'm currently using max 5.1

Finally I'm moving slowly but still not fast enough deadline still monday nextweek :(

[Ls3D]

I did something like this,...

Create a render spline of your entire path. Then when it previews correctly, loft a sleeve along the same path and set that up with a matte shader. You can then animate the loft shape to reveal your spline. As far as going around 2D objects I would put the sequence in combustion and keyframe erase (roto) out the spline as it passes behind the video source.

-Shea
www.Ls3D.com

:cool:

[swine_007]

Hi Ls3D,

Thanks for your advice! However as far as compositing is not really an issue. The biggest I problem I have is not knowing what method to use to create the lines. Lofting is definately a solution but it is not perfect. Like I mentioned in my 1st post that the end result of animating a loft object with scale deformation gave me pointy start and end of the line (i've included a qt6 sample of this problem ). I need to have control over the length of the line.

swidjaja88.netfirms.com/line2_LAN.mov (http://swidjaja88.netfirms.com/line2_LAN.mov)

My colleague showed me exactly how to do this in maya 5. He firstly created a CV line and then he created a poly cylinder and he attached the cylinder to the line using "attach to motion path". Then he added another command called "flow path object" (this function basically create deformation latices that automatically will bend the cylinder as it traveled pass all the curves within the CV line). That was it, so simple to do in maya.

Please do not ask me to use maya if you were wondering. I just find the program is really difficult to use compared to max. It's alot more technical and plus I don't have the time to learn it such a short time. :blush:

Do you or anybody else on how to do this in max?


Thanks

[Cryptite]

Well, I just ran a test using way 1. I had a cylinder with 200 height segments pathdeform and simply edited the stretch value to make it follow the line. That worked. Now, that may also be because the path I used wasn't as long as yours was. Maybe if you posted up your Max Scene File, we could take a look into it ourselves... If that doesn't break and rules you are following... Another way i tried is, and this would take some tweaking as far as timing goes, is: to use more than one cylinder segment, test and see how far your cylinder can go with its 200 height segments before it begins to lose its shape. Stop at that point and clone the cylinder, except make this one start at the place the last one stopped and have it continue the path following.

[JeffPatton]

I'm not sure if this will help or not, but it's just an idea, so here goes. :shrug:

Does the object have to be a solid line? I'm thinking you could use the new particle flow system to create a string of particles and have them follow a non-rendered object around your scene.

[swine_007]

hi Cryptite,

Like i mention in my first post that I've tried using combination of pathDeform and cylinder. The problem it has that Max has a limit on how many height line segments you can have (which is 200) at one time. I've tried to using meshsmooth to make the surface more smoother but it didnt work.

Here's zip of the test files (one with pathdeform and one with loft obj with scale deformation)



folical9,

Does the object have to be a solid line? I'm thinking you could use the new particle flow system to create a string of particles and have them follow a non-rendered object around your scene.

The line needs to be solid object. I was thinking about using "Path Follow" but the only down side of that it only support particle. And to be honest I've never done anything with particle.:hmm:

However if you have a sample file that you can share with me that somewhat can be modified to suit my need using "Path Follow" is always welcome :)

[swine_007]

here's the 2nd attachment

[Ls3D]

I don't think you understood my suggestion.

The spline is the rendered object, the lofted sleeve hides the spline via a matte material. As the shape animates along the path it reveals the spline, which should render quite nicely.

Do not use scale deformation, rather animate the loft shape position (sub object) or create the loft and put it on a path deform, using the render spline and percentage sliders as needed.

With the loft you will not have the 200 segment limitation, also you may want to set your spline to adaptive interpolation.
You could use the same principal with two lofted shapes if the render spline is not shading the way you need.

I used this technique to create a animated bump map for a snowboarder and was pleased with the results.

If you have any more trouble I could tweak your scene file for you.

-Shea
www.Ls3D.com

:cool:

[swine_007]

Hi Ls3D,

Do you mind creating a sample max file for me to have a look at? Just a simple will do that shows your method and I will take it from there.:) It will tremendously help to speed up my progress.

Regards

[Ls3D]

Ka bam!

I have your file (see your private messages) and I have come up with a better way to do this. Both methods are in the file so you can see what the heck I have been talking about (chose zine 1 or zine 2 from nammed selections sets)

The 2nd method invloved putting an opacity map on the loft and animating it with UVW xform.

Gee I hope this box does not have that max file killer thing going on..

-Shea
www.Ls3D.com

:cool:

[Cryptite]

Pardon my possible stupidity, but I just opened your pathdeform .max file and it seems just fine to me. What problem, exactly, are you having. Because from what I see, the line is showing up just fine... :surprised

[swine_007]

The problem with my pathDeform file that:[list=1]
the line can't be smooth enough to be extended over 1168 frames @ 25fps cos the cylinder has a max value of 200 for segment height.
the line continues to animate to the full path length from start to end where I want the line to have a fixed length let say 100cm.
[/list=1]

I want the line to look somewhat closer to the quicktime movie i have posted earlier. Here's the address again:

--- swidjaja88.netfirms.com/line2_LAN.mov (http://swidjaja88.netfirms.com/line2_LAN.mov ) ----


-sw

[Cryptite]

Well to keep it a certain length, then adust the percentage, not the stretch...

[Ls3D]

FYI, I got your PM, but the mail bounced back.

& I tried removing the space. Feel free to resend your proper address.

-S

P.S. Crypt, the issue is there is not enough division in the cylinder primitive, look at the end of the animation and note the obvious polygons. Although since the camera pans your suggestion is quite valid.

One solution is to loft a straight section where there is no segment limitation and put that on the path deform.
Then rather than animating the geometry moving, one could animate a opacity map. I have cooked this scenario up and am in the process of emailing it. I would put it up for all to examine but I'm not at my FTP enabled workstation, rather I'm at a beach house watering plants and keeping an eye on the view. Tough gig ;)

[swine_007]

Hi Ls3D,

sorry abt the bounced mailand late reply :) . Been extremely busy preparing the other stuff at work.

anyway here's another email acc you can try:
stanley@upperstorey.com

what's the zip file size btw? Cos this email can only accept max abt 5mb.

If it bounced again, do you mind putting it somewhere where I can download it?

Thanks man

[Ls3D]

As luck would have it I made a midnight trip to the office to grab some STL files,.. he he Thinking about having a part imaged. So anyway beacue of that I have my FTP dillio setup.

***
Here ya go bro,

Der LinkNz (http://http://www.ls3d.com/FTP/pathdeform_Ls3D.zip)

I hope you can read it. Note the mapping type (unique to lofted objects) and UVX Xform animated parameters. Also note the instance of the opacity map in the specular color swatch, this prevents just the highlights from rendering when the object is supposed to be hidden. I used a checker procedural so you would not need a map for it. Check out the other selection sets because naturally there is more than one way to do this.

take care,

-Shea
www.Ls3D.com

:cool:

[swine_007]

thanks a lot for the help man! Greatly appreciated! Will let you know the progress later

regards

[ssyed]

apply mesh smooth but the end vertice set weight to 50 it won't get pointy and champfer the edges... or u could animate the loft using thin.g... if forget

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