SW Speeder Motion Tracking

[Gorf]

Are there any SynthEyes users out there in NTSC land who are successfully exporting drop-frame camera tracks to A:M?

 

I found it after successfully tracking a NASA animation of a flyover of the Victoria Crater on Mars (where the "Opportunity" rover is doing some digging). It seems that for drop frame footage, the frame times in the export from SE are all screwed up.

 

It just seems odd that SE is the recommended tracker for A:M, and yet this doesn't appear to have been noticed.

 

(I got into tracking after getting PF Hoe on the cover of Digit Magazine - it was OK I suppose, but SE is far more powerful. The footage above was a problem piece on their support forum would not easily track in any of The Pixel Farm's affordable offerings.)

[Bendytoons]

The title's a bit naughty, I know.

 

Are there any SynthEyes users out there in NTSC land who are successfully exporting drop-frame camera tracks to A:M?

 

I found it after successfully tracking a NASA animation of a flyover of the Victoria Crater on Mars (where the "Opportunity" rover is doing some digging). It seems that for drop frame footage, the frame times in the export from SE are all screwed up.

 

It just seems odd that SE is the recommended tracker for A:M, and yet this doesn't appear to have been noticed.

 

(I got into tracking after getting PF Hoe on the cover of Digit Magazine - it was OK I suppose, but SE is far more powerful. The footage above was a problem piece on their support forum would not easily track in any of The Pixel Farm's affordable offerings.)

I noticed this, and posted a similar question a couple of months ago. Then I figured the problem out and found an answer.

 

The problem is that A:M only supports project frame rates that are whole integers. It can place keys between frames but will only render a whole number of frames per second (Hash inc., if I have this wrong forgive me). The solution is to change the frame rate of the footage in Syntheyes to 30fps. It will then export at that frame rate, and will import into A:M beautifully. It doesn't matter that you change frame rate because When you later compile your individual frames back into your movie you can change it back in your editing package.

 

You can see Syntheyes export in action in my current "animated self portrait" wip thread, and in earlier wip threads with the "bug" character.

 

Ben

[Gorf]

Final composite is here.

 

I made the 'speeder from blueprints of the Star Wars ep IV vehicle so no creativity there. It took me about three hours and there's a load of stuff that needs tidying up, mainly at the back under the wings. It passes casual inspection from a distance, though.

 

The driver is a manga character straight from the Animation:Master CD - I think she's called "Haruka". I only changed her robe colour to dusty brown. You can't really see her, though.

 

So on the whole, the only real creativity is the ground plane - which had to be modelled even though you don't see it. That way, when you render the shadows, they are "caught" by the invisible > models and change shape accordingly, matching how the shadow would distort if it really existed and hit the real-life feature.

 

Initially, the whole exercise was to demonstrate the job SynthEyes did with tracking the plate, however the model I was going to make (the AT-AT) was too complicated for such a transient job, so I settled on a simpler landspeeder model. BIG MISTAKE. You can't show how good a track is if the object you're inserting into the footage is designed to float 18" above the ground plane anyway! Just before I abandoned it, Sam decided he wanted a lightsabre fight with General Grievous, so I finished off the project a. to show him how compositing works, and b. to get a feel for producing shadows.

 

His current plan is to have the fight run along the lines of the Star Wars fan film, "Duality".

[Rodney]

That was very smooth.

You may consider it simplistic and not particularly creative but it look quite successful to me.

Color me impressed.

[Dhar]

That is impressive. Very nice work.

 

How come I don't see many speeders around here?

[Tralfaz]

Initially, the whole exercise was to demonstrate the job SynthEyes did with tracking the plate, however the model I was going to make (the AT-AT) was too complicated for such a transient job, so I settled on a simpler landspeeder model. BIG MISTAKE. You can't show how good a track is if the object you're inserting into the footage is designed to float 18" above the ground plane anyway! Just before I abandoned it, Sam decided he wanted a lightsabre fight with General Grievous, so I finished off the project a. to show him how compositing works, and b. to get a feel for producing shadows.

 

Hi Gorf:

 

Nice job on the tracking with the speeder.

 

I had started working on an AT-AT a while back (see link below). It isn't textured, but it is rigged and has a walk cycle with it. If you are interested, I can zip the project up and you are more than welcome to use it. I only ask that if you add textures to it or change it, that you make the textures and changes available to whoever else wants to use the model. Also, if the model is used in any type of film (other than tests), that credit is given.

 

http://migrate.hash.com/forums/index.php?s...=24581&st=0

 

Thanks...

Al

[robcat2075]

That was quite successful!

 

What would be cool is to have the speeder react a bit more to the proximity of the ground. That would make it seem even more "there".

[Gorf]

Are you kidding? That's a fantastic model - I'd love to use it. To be honest, it's way beyond my abilities, at this stage, so it's unlikely I'll add anything to it quicker than you do yourself.

 

I'll PM you with my address... Thanks for the offer!

[Gorf]

That was quite successful!

 

What would be cool is to have the speeder react a bit more to the proximity of the ground. That would make it seem even more "there".

 

Yep - It didn't react to the ground at all - the speeder carries on parallel to a flat ground plane, and I remodelled the "shadow catching" invisible gound plane to fake things like the crater. The first crater is close, but I missed with the remaining dips in the ground - but in mitigation I was doing it all by eye. There's a big chunk where the speeder appears far from the ground but there aren't any apparent gound features to explain it. Then, the shadow disappears completely as the virtual ground rises higher than the bottom of the speeder.

 

When I watched it again, earlier today, I figured it could also do with a bit of pitching forward during the hard deceleration at the end - either that or fix the vehicle's route and speed - whoever is driving it drives worse than I do.

 

 

It could also do with some dust being kicked up... Plenty of scope for improvement, I think.

[Tralfaz]

Hi Gorf:

 

I just created a new WIP for the AT-AT where anyone can download the model (see link below).

 

http://migrate.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=28158

 

Hope people can make some use of it.

 

Al