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pharm
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 9422
Location: Never quite sure
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Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2012 12:20 pm
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I just love 'em! I recently did a little canoeing. I mounted the camera on the side of the canoe, facing backwards. After reviewing a snippet of the video I decided to play with some motion tracking using Mocha AE and then do some compositing. At the end of the creek, I added a cave. I don't have the original to post but there was nothing but trees where the cave is. It's not as sharply focused (because I cheaped out and rendered it as a FLV to save upload time) but it was fun. Yes, there are some minor flaws (but I won't point them out - those of you who are really observant will notice them and I can fix them). Just havin' fun!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOKYntlTcpA&feature=youtu.be |
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johann
Joined: 14 Apr 2010
Posts: 29
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Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2012 2:39 pm
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That's pretty well tracked in but yes it does look a little soft. Otherwise a decent track.
I still use Combustion from Autodesk (which is discontinued and no longer supported). 5 years ago we could apply tracking data straight onto roto masks and still tweak them afterwards and do fancy things like per node feathering to cater for different amounts of motion blur in different places on a mask. We could also export and import masks to and from other Combustion suits and Flames and Smokes for finishing so we could have a team of people roto-ing a shot while a client was sitting in Flame doing the finishing.
I don't understand why Adobe has never upgraded the masking tools in AE - I really find it unusable for all but the most basic tasks. Never had a good look at Mocha though - perhaps it is the answer. I guess I will have to retire Combustion pretty soon as it's getting so clunky!
PS: If you really want to get fancy you could track it in 3D and apply it to some basic geometry. you will then get subtle perspective changes on the cave and rocks instead of it looking like a flat texture. |
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pharm
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 9422
Location: Never quite sure
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Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2012 4:55 pm
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| johann wrote: | | ...PS: If you really want to get fancy you could track it in 3D and apply it to some basic geometry. you will then get subtle perspective changes on the cave and rocks instead of it looking like a flat texture. |
I'll try that next. I'm still a tracking newbie. Mocha AE seems to work pretty well, at least for my purposes. Mocha 2 Pro is good but too pricey for my purposes. I'm also looking at PFhoe. I'm going to download the trial version tonight and play with it. It's supposed to be pretty good for matchmoving. I've looked at Camera Tracker from the Foundry but since my use of it will be pretty limited, I'd rather spend $99 for PFhoe than $249 for Camera Tracker.
Also, yes the video is soft. The quicktime version is much sharper but was 77MB vs 5 MB for the FLV version and I was in a hurry (although I'm not sure why - lol) to upload it. Also, just for the humor of it, I shot this with a FLIP camera, mounted on a Manfrotto arm. |
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kk5hy
Joined: 01 Oct 2006
Posts: 639
Location: Houston, Texas www.jhdtstockimages.com
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Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2012 8:43 pm
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Well done!
I love Mocha. They are announcing version 3 during NAB this year. It's supposed to do 3D tracking.
I'm sure I'll upgrade after seeing it. |
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johann
Joined: 14 Apr 2010
Posts: 29
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Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2012 1:55 am
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| pharm wrote: |
I'll try that next. I'm still a tracking newbie. Mocha AE seems to work pretty well, at least for my purposes. Mocha 2 Pro is good but too pricey for my purposes. I'm also looking at PFhoe. I'm going to download the trial version tonight and play with it. It's supposed to be pretty good for matchmoving. I've looked at Camera Tracker from the Foundry but since my use of it will be pretty limited, I'd rather spend $99 for PFhoe than $249 for Camera Tracker.
Also, yes the video is soft. The quicktime version is much sharper but was 77MB vs 5 MB for the FLV version and I was in a hurry (although I'm not sure why - lol) to upload it. Also, just for the humor of it, I shot this with a FLIP camera, mounted on a Manfrotto arm. |
No worries. The important thing is to get experience. I used to own a vfx studio and worked on high-end TV commercials like BMW and Lexus. Once you have a handle on what the tools can do and the best way to get things done then you can become a true artisan / artist and look at a shot not from a technical point of view but from the point of view of what makes a good shot. This is the stuff that I'm still learning (and probably always will). Enjoy! |
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pharm
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 9422
Location: Never quite sure
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Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2012 10:24 am
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| johann wrote: | | pharm wrote: |
I'll try that next. I'm still a tracking newbie. Mocha AE seems to work pretty well, at least for my purposes. Mocha 2 Pro is good but too pricey for my purposes. I'm also looking at PFhoe. I'm going to download the trial version tonight and play with it. It's supposed to be pretty good for matchmoving. I've looked at Camera Tracker from the Foundry but since my use of it will be pretty limited, I'd rather spend $99 for PFhoe than $249 for Camera Tracker.
Also, yes the video is soft. The quicktime version is much sharper but was 77MB vs 5 MB for the FLV version and I was in a hurry (although I'm not sure why - lol) to upload it. Also, just for the humor of it, I shot this with a FLIP camera, mounted on a Manfrotto arm. |
No worries. The important thing is to get experience. I used to own a vfx studio and worked on high-end TV commercials like BMW and Lexus. Once you have a handle on what the tools can do and the best way to get things done then you can become a true artisan / artist and look at a shot not from a technical point of view but from the point of view of what makes a good shot. This is the stuff that I'm still learning (and probably always will). Enjoy! |
Thanks. The day I stop learning is the day I die (or possibly a few days before - ;))
I find it interesting that personalities are so different. Like you, I love to learn new things. I'll never understand the person who goes to work, comes home, sits on the couch and watches TV, day after day after day. |
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