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# 1 18-05-2008 , 11:06 PM

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Join Date: Sep 2003

Location: Baltimore

Posts: 75

Hey Everyone,

What I really want to do in Maya is the following (and this is an overall, probably will take months to do right goal):

- Take a camcorder and record on a tripod some scenes from my rooftop deck and local park. 5-10 second scenes.

- Incorporate that into Maya so I can at first, just have a Sphere realistically roll across the screen.

- Incorporate a spinning spaceship across the screen.

- Incorporate a spinning spaceship across the screen, but give it some depth of field (behind a tree or something like that).

- Have a giant dog/dinosaur/snake/whatever move realistically across the screen with depth of field.

- Have a giant dog/dinosaur/snake in a scene but also have it interact with my 5 year old daugther ("it chasing her or something").

- Crack open a beer after I've accomplished that.

I've started to play with Maya live and I'm not doing horribly at it. I'm stuck a little bit on constraints. I think my tracking/solving is ok.

I guess I'm looking for some pointers and suggestions on how I can best do this. The document I'm working off of isn't bad. I would love it if there were some kind of video tutor for this (even something I would be willing to purchase).

So, thoughts guys?

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# 2 18-05-2008 , 11:36 PM

Registered User
Join Date: Sep 2002

Location: Minnesota, USA

Posts: 3,709

Hey clebo, sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but in the industry Maya live is really never used anymore due to 2 things mainly:

1. Its just too cumbersome
2. Not much documentation anymore

Alias used to have a video you could buy on vhs, but that was dropped long ago user added image

Regarding your shot, however, you had said that your shot is going to be from a tripod?
Do you mean that your camera will not be moving?

If so, then a tracker would not help you I'm affraid.

In that case some simple roto and/or camera projection would work much better for your situation, just fyi user added image

Good luck!

PS, if you are looking for a far superior 3D tracker that is free, then might I suggest:

The Voodoo Camera Tracker

Otherwise, the industry standard 3D trackers are:
Boujou
Realvis Matchmover
3D Equalizer
PFTrack

Good luck!

Israel "Izzy" Long
Motion and Title Design for Broadcast-Film-DS
izzylong.com

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# 3 19-05-2008 , 12:16 AM

Registered User
Join Date: Sep 2003

Location: Baltimore

Posts: 75

I appreciate the quick response and I'll give that other software a try.

I guess my question is then, how does a "hobbyist" do a scene where a "giant cartoon dog" created in Maya/whatever is in a scene shot from a digital home video camera?

Does the Diglab allow me to put "annimation" into the scene? Wouldn't having a second application make it more difficult to do? I completely believe you when you say Maya isn't used anymore (it doesn't seem very intuitive), I'm just wondering what I would use then.

<I am reading the site and there seems to be a lot of documentation so maybe my questions above will be answered>

Thanks again.

Chris

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# 4 19-05-2008 , 02:08 PM

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Join Date: Sep 2002

Location: Minnesota, USA

Posts: 3,709

What you would do in a 3D tracking process, is film your footage based on the needs of your story.
Then, track the footage and solve for a camera to output back into Maya to match your animation to your footage user added image

Israel "Izzy" Long
Motion and Title Design for Broadcast-Film-DS
izzylong.com

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# 5 20-05-2008 , 10:05 PM

Subscriber
Join Date: Dec 2005

Location: London

Posts: 429

oe for small jobs maya live is still pretty fun, i dunno i just loved the tracking technique.

Thou havent used it sins 2006. But for small hobby jobs i think its allot of fun.

here are some other cool programs for cam tracking

https://www.thepixelfarm.co.uk/

https://www.sci-d-vis.com/

DDTN

WIP Mooey
Mustang Fastback and the Mustang Fatback
WIP Mieke
WIP BanQuebe
The Critter ï¿½ Lulu on the walk

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# 6 21-05-2008 , 05:33 AM

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Join Date: Sep 2003

Location: Baltimore

Posts: 75

Ok, I downloaded Voodoo and I was able to read the directions and seemed to be able to import the .MA file into Maya, which I did. I followed the directions from there and at first I thought it worked, but then as I looked closely, the image sequence wasn't working (it was only showing the first frame).

Again, the directions were easy and in Voodoo. There are below:

By choosing this item from the menu the Voodoo Camera Tracker exports the estimated camera parameters to the 3D animation package Maya using a Maya Script file. This file has the extension ".ma". To run the script go to [File¨Open Scene] in Maya. The image sequence can be displayed as an environment map in Maya:
select [Panels¨Perspective¨VoodooCam]
select [View¨Camera Attribute Editor]
open the "Environment" field and create an image plane
the "Image Plane Attributes" window opens and you can enter the file name of the image sequence
activate "Use Image Sequence" checkbox and adjust the "Frame Offset"
in the "Placement" window select fit "To Size"

Any thoughts on why this would occur? The files are xxx.jpg where xxx is the number sequence (from 1-215).

Chris, Baltimore

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# 7 21-05-2008 , 11:31 AM

Subscriber
Join Date: Dec 2005

Location: London

Posts: 429

i dont remember which programs but some dont like sequences from 1 to 225

they prefer 001 to 225

Giving it the same amount of framepadding.

worth a try

DDTN

WIP Mooey
Mustang Fastback and the Mustang Fatback
WIP Mieke
WIP BanQuebe
The Critter ï¿½ Lulu on the walk

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# 8 21-05-2008 , 11:44 AM

Senior Software Developer
Join Date: Jan 2005

Location: Livingston, Scotland

Posts: 1,701

I think you need to remember that you are not going to render this whole final sequence out in Maya. To get this to a finish you need to render out the 3d animatio andd composite it in a compositing software like After Effects, Fusion, VideoMach etc...

Chris (formerly R@nSiD)
Twitter
When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will truely know peace - Jimmy Hendrix

Winner SM VFX Challenge 1

3rd Place SM SteamPunk Challenge (May 2007)

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# 9 21-05-2008 , 04:06 PM

Registered User
Join Date: Sep 2003

Location: Baltimore

Posts: 75

Yea.....I have VideoMach and that works great on some other projects I've done.....what I'm saying is that when I do the import process from Voodoo, Maya is only taking the first jpg in the sequence, not all 215. It was hard to notice at first because my "test scene" doesn't really have much movement to it.

And the file names are 001.jog to 215.jpg. That was a good point made as well.

Maybe I just imported the sequence before checking the "sequence" checkbox or something. The scene looks good in Voodoo. I'll keep reading....hopefully it's just something dumb that I'm forgetting.

Otherwise, it looks like it's working well. I'm seeing depth of field with my cheesy spaceship that's flying around the screen. Once I get this solved, then it's on to constraints so I can make the ship look like it's coming from behind a building or something. That should be fun....

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