Adding Camera Background Sequence Crashes

#1

I’m trying to load and use a sequence into the camera for background matching of some live action motion. When I start to scrub it Messiah Crashes.

Is there a particular format that Messiah likes best for image sequences?

It is a jpeg sequence right now but I can convert it into any format that it will accept.

The sequence is 3909 frames long.

Why can Messiah only bring in sequences as opposed to Quicktimes of AVI files that already have the audio?

Right now I’m having to seperate them to get it to work. The audio works fine by itself. It’ jus the video part that is holding me back.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

#2

try .tga If that doesn’t work then its a bug.

That does seem like a VERY long sequence though. . . have you tried breaking it up into smaller chunks?

#3

You are right about the size. I had thought about it, but hadn’t quite figured out the best way to do it’s almost one take. Got any suggestions?

Specifically, it’s that dance sequence in Napoleon Dynamite that I am spoofing.

#4

From what I remember. . . there are LOTS of camera cuts in that dance sequence that don’t join up with each other. One minute he is doing one thing. . . and it cuts to him doing something else. So. . . maybe you could cut up your back plates in the same way? Have lots of scenes?

#5

Got it. I will try that. Thanks
FYI, I think my files got corrupted when I transferred from one computer to the next so that could be the reason for the crash. I’ll repost my findings.

#6

If you still have long sequences it might be worth making the background images as low res jpegs as possible to save ram.

Messiah really could do with some improvements in this area, the image cache isn’t very clever and I usually end up with dropped frames when memory gets low, then the only way to get a full sequence shown is to clear and reload it.

#7

I cut it up and save it down to 320x240. As far as playability everything is great. Now the hard work is up to me. I have a fairly dense mesh so now that I have the image sequence behind it, I can’t see it well enough to match the moves. Doh!

So far what I did is just move the master null to the left a smidge so that I can see what is going on. Not too bad, but it could be better.

I would rather have it where I could have two cameras loaded at the same time. One with the image and one without. That would be cool. The other alternative is for me to come up with a crude, replacement mesh for quick matching and then swap it out later.

Any thoughts?

#8

I often have my objects in “Point view mode” when I do rotoscoping or tracking work.
If that’s not good enough, try to find a way to “hide and show” your object with a single shortcut for fast switching.

/ Svante

#9

That point mode thing worked pretty well, but I also tried creating a really crude model for a stand in and then hid everything else that didn’t need to show. So far so good. It’s still a lot of freakin work to try and match these shots up. Great learning.

#10

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