Tracking info from FCPX or Motion 5?

[charliev]

Hello,

 

This is a pre-purchase A:M inquiry...

 

I use Final Cut Pro X for video editing and Motion 5 for tracking information from the video...

 

1. I would like to know if anyone has experience with loading Motion 5 tracking information so I may animate an object from that tracking info?

2. Has anyone worked on using A:M to animate an object in a video using tracking? Would you like to share your experience?

 

Thank you!

-charlie

[robcat2075]

Hi chariev,

 

I don't think A:M directly supports a FCP motion format.

 

Biovision BVH and Polhemus DAT and Polhemus Network are the formats mentioned in the motion capture device list. Of those, BVH is the only one i recall people making use of. That has been done successfully.

 

I don't know if there is a way to convert.

[Fuchur]

Hi chariev,

 

I don't think A:M directly supports a FCP motion format.

 

Biovision BVH and Polhemus DAT and Polhemus Network are the formats mentioned in the motion capture device list. Of those, BVH is the only one i recall people making use of. That has been done successfully.

 

I don't know if there is a way to convert.

 

Yes A:M has been used to do that many times. One ofthe projects i could think of is this one:

Stian's raptors

 

See u

*Fuchur*

[charliev]

Hi chariev,

 

I don't think A:M directly supports a FCP motion format.

 

Biovision BVH and Polhemus DAT and Polhemus Network are the formats mentioned in the motion capture device list. Of those, BVH is the only one i recall people making use of. That has been done successfully.

 

I don't know if there is a way to convert.

 

 

Thank you for your reply.

 

Where would I find some documentation on the above formats (esp. BVH) I'll look into writing a conversion app.

 

-charlie

[charliev]

Hi chariev,

 

I don't think A:M directly supports a FCP motion format.

 

Biovision BVH and Polhemus DAT and Polhemus Network are the formats mentioned in the motion capture device list. Of those, BVH is the only one i recall people making use of. That has been done successfully.

 

I don't know if there is a way to convert.

 

Yes A:M has been used to do that many times. One ofthe projects i could think of is this one:

Stian's raptors

 

See u

*Fuchur*

 

Thanks for your reply (and link to the Raptor post!)

 

Is there a step-by-step tutorial some place? I'm not even sure of the terminology in order to do my own search... "Object motion"

 

Thanks for the help!

-charlie

[charliev]

It seems that the BVH is a skeletal hierarchy for motion. What I get from FCPX (Motion 5) is tracking motion info... For instance, in the RAPTOR video example (link above) the Raptor makes his way around the corner and down the hall... this is his "track". I'm assuming the BVH motion is his walking motion, muscles, head, etc.

 

I'll make the skeletal manually, however, I need to import the FCPX tracking ...

 

Are these one and the same, or what are the formats for the TRACK in side of A:M?

 

Thank you for all input!

 

-charlie

[robcat2075]

As far as I know, there is no provision for 2D motion tracking in A:M unless someone were to make use of a 3D motion-capture format in some 2D way.

 

You are asking about motion that has somehow been captured off of a 2D video, right? I don't have FCP but I have After Effects, it has an ability to track a detail in a video.

 

I can't think of anyone here having experimented with that. My initial question would be... where does this 2D plane of motion live in the 3D space of A:M after it has been imported? I suppose you could stick it somewhere manually?

 

The short answer is, no, A:M doesn't import 2D motion tracking. It's not something A:M has built-in right now.

 

The longer answer is... maybe it wouldn't be hard to convert? What does this file format look like? If it's like a human-readable text file and it's just XY positions for each frame, I can imagine someone writing a converter.

 

Can you post a small example of one of these files? I'd just be curious to see one.

[charliev]

As far as I know, there is no provision for 2D motion tracking in A:M unless someone were to make use of a 3D motion-capture format in some 2D way.

 

You are asking about motion that has somehow been captured off of a 2D video, right? I don't have FCP but I have After Effects, it has an ability to track a detail in a video.

 

I can't think of anyone here having experimented with that. My initial question would be... where does this 2D plane of motion live in the 3D space of A:M after it has been imported? I suppose you could stick it somewhere manually?

 

The short answer is, no, A:M doesn't import 2D motion tracking. It's not something A:M has built-in right now.

 

The longer answer is... maybe it wouldn't be hard to convert? What does this file format look like? If it's like a human-readable text file and it's just XY positions for each frame, I can imagine someone writing a converter.

 

Can you post a small example of one of these files? I'd just be curious to see one.

 

Hi Robert,

Yes, you've got the idea of what I want to do.

 

I'm a programmer, so I could do whatever conversion is necessary but don't have access to the 2D motion output yet. But, I think your idea is sound to convert the 2D to the 3D...

 

In use, Motion 5 will track a point on the 2D plane, but it also gives me scaling and rotation so the result should be something like 2.5D... using scale for a partial Z... I'm thinking once the heavy lifting is done in the motion file - I could fine tune in A:M (as objects that I wish to animate will need to cross paths, one behind the other.)

 

Rendering in A:M with an Alpha channel and bring it into FCPX and I should be good *IN THEORY*, but I don't have A:M to try this... so, was hoping someone may have come this way before where I could benefit from their knowledge.

 

The effect is certainly powerful...

-charlie

[robcat2075]

I'll note that A:M can also render a depth buffer for when that is useful in compositing to distinguish between objects of different distance from the camera.

 

There is a two week trial version of A:M available although two weeks may be rather brief to get up to speed to investigate what you are wanting to do.

[Fuchur]

There are several programs in that direction. I think what you want to know of is MotionTracking (!= motion capture).

A motion capture software which works with A:M is Zign Track 2 (or A:M Track 2) which really works quite well, but what you are after is very likely motion tracking.

As far as I know, A:M itself does not have such a functionality.

 

But there is software that can export A:M importable data like Icarus or Vodoo with ICAM by Zign Creations:

- ICAM

- Icarus

- Voodoo Camera Tracker

 

I have never really used this but it should work well enough.

There was another software (something with Ph...oe in it) which could work with A:M too and worked quite well, but I can not remember the name, no matter how hard I try... maybe someone else knows it?

 

See you

*Fuchur*

[markw]

I think the software you are thinking of Gerald is what used to be the very reasonably priced PHhoe. It was quite capable and more or less within the budget of a hobbyist who needed it. Now sadly it is no longer with us.

Its replacement PFTrackX is by all accounts even better at what it dose but much, much more expensive at 2,499€!

Still, if any want to look at it or their other software you can find it here: http://www.thepixelfarm.co.uk/

[largento]

There's an application called Syntheyes (not free) but available for Mac & Windows that does camera tracking and can export the data to A:M.

 

It will also export the same data to multiple applications, including AE & Motion. Presumably you could export the camera tracking to both A:M and AE and then be able to render elements to place in an AE project.

 

Included exporters for After Effects (2- & 3-D, with plugin effects matching SynthEyes's distortion model for AE CC/CS6; PixelBenders for AE CS5.x); AutoCAD DXF; Bentley Microstation; Blender (various ongoing versions); Carrara; Cinema 4D python script; COLLADA; Combustion (2- & 3-D); Electric Image; Filmbox FBX; FLAIR motion control cameras; Flame (2- & 3-D); Fusion 5 (2- & 3-D); Hash Animation:Master; Houdini; Inferno (2- & 3-D); Lidar XYZ; Lightwave; MAXscript (3ds max, 3D Studio VIZ); Maya; Mistika; MDD animated mesh vertices; Modo; Motion(2- & 3-D); Nuke (3-D & 2-D corner pin); OBJ meshes; Particle Illusion; PhotoScan; Poser; Realsoft 3D; Shake (2- & 3-D); Smoke2008 (2- & 3-D); Softimage dotXSI; toxik (pre2009); trueSpace; Vue 5 & 6 Infinite;

Multiple-export system can write several different output formats in a single step.

[jimd]

Hi

I've been experimenting myself

and Blender seems to works well as a motion tracker ( it does not export data to AM )

how ever models made in AM work great in Blender so I just go back in forth

 

here is a ruff test I made using

Blender for tracking AM for the roof model and build board Hit film for green screen

 

 

The girl was the track she was green screened and had camera motion so she is the foundation

again this a test not meant for final

that being said it was easy to do and I had no idea how to use Blender or exporting AM objects up until this test

 

bty I put some of the obj on the roof for the heck of it just to see what I get (:

cine.mp4

[largento]

That's pretty good! It does seem like the camera stops abruptly before the end of the shot, though.

 

I was playing yesterday with an old shot from a home movie my friends and I made back in 1987. There was one shot with a mirror on the wall and as the camera moves, you can see my friend who is operating the camera in the mirror plain as day. I'd always wanted to replace it with a painting or something and after stumbling on something about tracking decided to give it a try. I was using Mocha AE with the idea of just replacing the rectangular mirror with a 2D image. The problem I ran into was that the camera work was very erratic, there wasn't really anything I could use as a tracking marker that would survive the shot. The mirror's image was constantly changing, so that confused the tracker, too. To be honest, though, I think even if everything else would have worked, I was still dealing with video taken from a 25+ year old VHS tape that was probably 3rd generation to begin with.

 

It would be fun to have something like Syntheyes just to make fun videos for my nephews, but at $300, that just isn't gonna' happen in my current financial state. :-)

[robcat2075]

I recall there used to be a free motion tracker that worked with A:M. What was that?

 

 

 

Hi

I've been experimenting myself

and Blender seems to works well as a motion tracker ( it does not export data to AM )

how ever models made in AM work great in Blender so I just go back in forth

 

Hey, crazy idea... I wonder if a spreadsheet could convert the Blender format data to A:M format data? It's probably all text fields, right?

[largento]

Didn't you try to go down that path once before, Robert? The data for the camera in A:M didn't seem to be cooperative.

 

Icarus was the free one, but it doesn't exist anymore and I couldn't find it anywhere when I looked.

[robcat2075]

Didn't you try to go down that path once before, Robert? The data for the camera in A:M didn't seem to be cooperative.

 

 

Have I?. I looked at the file format once and it seemed to have understandable information in it.

 

These things aren't incomprehensible magic, a little comparative analysis by someone who uses both programs would probably do it.

 

My interest in Blender is practically zero so it won't be me who does it but I'm sure translating camera motion from one coordinate system to another won't be a vexing problem.

[Rodney]

I'm sure Ikarus can be found elsewhere but I see this guy has it available for Mac and PC via his site:

 

http://www.colinlevy.com/tuts/IcarusTutorials/Icarus.php

 

From the AE tutorial on his site he demo's that the text from the Ikarus file can be manipulated (because there apparently is no direct way to import the file he copy/pastes the data from a text editor into After Effects).

 

Unless I'm mistaken Pixel Farm (the owners of Ikarus) do not offer it any more but do offer PFTrack and other software.

Pixel Farm website

[markw]

I'm sure Ikarus can be found elsewhere but I see this guy has it available for Mac and PC via his site:

 

http://www.colinlevy.com/tuts/IcarusTutorials/Icarus.php

 

From the AE tutorial on his site he demo's that the text from the Ikarus file can be manipulated (because there apparently is no direct way to import the file he copy/pastes the data from a text editor into After Effects).

 

Unless I'm mistaken Pixel Farm (the owners of Ikarus) do not offer it any more but do offer PFTrack and other software.

Pixel Farm website

PFTrack, though very capable, is probably not for the financially faint hearted though at nearly $3,500!!!

[jimd]

That's pretty good! It does seem like the camera stops abruptly before the end of the shot, though.

 

I was playing yesterday with an old shot from a home movie my friends and I made back in 1987. There was one shot with a mirror on the wall and as the camera moves, you can see my friend who is operating the camera in the mirror plain as day. I'd always wanted to replace it with a painting or something and after stumbling on something about tracking decided to give it a try. I was using Mocha AE with the idea of just replacing the rectangular mirror with a 2D image. The problem I ran into was that the camera work was very erratic, there wasn't really anything I could use as a tracking marker that would survive the shot. The mirror's image was constantly changing, so that confused the tracker, too. To be honest, though, I think even if everything else would have worked, I was still dealing with video taken from a 25+ year old VHS tape that was probably 3rd generation to begin with.

 

It would be fun to have something like Syntheyes just to make fun videos for my nephews, but at $300, that just isn't gonna' happen in my current financial state. :-)

 

 

"That's pretty good! It does seem like the camera stops abruptly before the end of the shot, though."

 

 

yes but not because of the app and the green screen footage was not something i would use, again just a test

I just wanted to blow threw it and was not too concerned about all the details

however I did want to see what kind of looks i can get so I placed a bunch of obj's and images along the way

 

The cool thing

I"m very impressed on just how well AM works with all this

it such a time saver

 

 

heres another test shot

green screen girl and birds

everything else AM models dropped into Hit Film and yes she is tall!!