how to use MAYA LIVE ???
 

Hello everyone, hope you're all cool,

I have a question. I'm desperately trying to combine 3D objects into video footage, and so naturally I have to track the motion of the camera.

It has come to my attention that Maya has it's own built in plug-in called Maya Live that can do this.

However, I'm finding it pretty difficult getting to grips with it - in other words it is KICKING MY ASS!!!

If anyone can offer any help or expertise, I would be extremely grateful. I'll be honest, I can't even figure out how to open it *cue laughter*!

Maybe someone could post a video tutorial on the subject. I know that I'm not alone and the whole 'camera tracking' agenda is causing people a lot of grief!

Hope to hear from you,
Geo.

Hi there le-geo.

I actually use camera tracking in my job, so I'm nearly an expert (well....nearly, lol!!)

I use Maya Live extensively, and it is pretty easy to get to grips with if you are used to the maya interface. To launch it, you need to have Maya Unlimited, then under the plugin manager, load Maya Live. Press F6 on the keyboard to load the maya Live interface. From here you have options to setup your backplates which you will be using to track with, track points, solve the camera and adjust.

There is simply too much about it to put down here. I learned how to use the program competently from reading the documents about it that come with Maya. They basically cover everything that you need to know.

What particular problems are you having??? If you list them, I'll try to give you some tips best as I can.

LisaG :p

Thanks Lisa,

I'm not a master at maya yet, most of my knowledge is in modelling/texturing/animating - so there's a whole other universe of maya features that I'm unsure of! Wow, my mind almost buzzes when I think of it! :confused:

Thanks for your help. My copy of maya was given to me by someone who upgraded, and unfortunately, WITHOUT manual! So, it's a little tricky.

I'll give it a go, and see how I get on - no doubt at some point I'll get confused and start crying like a baby with a soiled diaper! :rolleyes:

I feel very fortunate to have found someone with such great experience in camera tracking, if I have any other problems or questions is it OK if I ask you for advice? It would be such a massive help...

Kind Regards,
Geo.:D

Yes, thats no prob. Any questions, I'll try to answer best as I can.

LisaG :alien:

Hey Lisa,

I've managed to open up Live, using the F6 method (which is a big step in itself - sigh!).

Unfortunately, another hurdle has presented itself - I cannot open my video footage, well I can open it, but it doesnt play - just the first frame then nothing.

I'm trying to follow the instructions in the Maya Index but it misses out the simple basic info (like how to open live) and goes straight into the hardcore stuff.

Can you give me any help? I know I'm missing some really simple piece of info that will make cringe once I know it!

I'd be grateful for any advice.
Thanks in advance.
Geo.

Ok...

Right, for starters you need your video footage to be in a sequence of files that LIVE can read, I usually use a sequence of tiffs at 1024 * 778 resolution (I use a higher res if I need sharper detail).

Under the setup menu, under full res image browse to the directory where your sequence of images are, select the first one and ok. THis will now load your image sequence into LIVE. To the left of the screen, select the box that says 'cache', and increase the cache size so that it covers the number of frames in your sequence. Go back to the setup main menu. You now need to setup your filmback and aspect ratio so that it all works properly. (Sorry if I'm going too fast).

These settings are dependant on what you have filmed your sequence with. At work, I use the following settings, as it is for film size sequences:

Predefined filmbacks: 35mm full aperture
Film aperture: 0.967 * 0.735
DEvice aspect ratio: 1.316

I'm afraid I can't really help you too much with these as I don't know what you have filmed. You could try the above settings. The box next to 'ready to track' will go green when the settings are all done correctly. Your now ready to track, so simply select from the menu on the left 'Track' to change to the tracking menu.

This should set you up nicely.

Any more probs, don't hesitate to ask.

LisaG :D

WOW! Thanks a lot, you are being a massive help.

I'll give it try and see what happens.

Although, it's quite likely I may need your help again;)

Thanks,
All the best,
Geo.

Just a little query, can Maya Live not 'use' film formats like AVI, meaning you always have to use image sequences?

Thanks,
Geo.

Hi again.

Live only supports the following image file formats:

Alias(.als), Bitmap(.bmp), Cineon(.cin), Explore(.tdi), GIF, JPEG(.jpg), MAYA(.iff), PostScript(.esp), TIFF(.tif, .tiff), Targa(.tga), Wavefront(.rla). Unfortunately no, it doesn't support .avi movie files. You have to have a sequence of images.

You can convert your .avi movie into a tif sequence in something like Adobe Premiere, After Effects or Nothing Real Shake, if you have access to any of these programs.

LisaG :squareeye

Thats cool, I think i should convert it to a image sequence no probs.

Cheers,
Geo.

Lisa,

thank you for your insightful knowledge on this topic. You've obviously been a great help. :D

le_geo

While Maya hasn't shipped with any 'manuals' for some time now it does, however, come with a very useful help menu. Try hitting the F1 key once in a while and you'll find loads of useful information in there. Including a whole tutorial on how to use the MAYA LIVE feature.

Always happy to share my knowledge, thats what makes this website great.

Ahh yes, of course, the F1 help. I didn't think of that, I assumed that leo had checked that out/couldn't look at it for some reason. Yes, the section on LIVE is very good, it gives a good explanation as to how the solver works too, which is quite interesting.

LisaG

Just as a side note,

The tutorial that is in the Maya Help (F1) was also on Alias' website some time ago on a VHS. They were clearing out the old VHS method so I got a copy of it for 10 bucks.. and it was quite good so I recommend that if you can get a copy

-Emo

The same tutorial that he already has for free you suggest he pay money for it? :confused:

lol yes.. because he may not want to read it... while he can just put it in and watch how they do it...

-Emo

Hey, how can I upload my video clips?

I want to show you my tracking attempts!

I've edited this message because the ZIP folder I created didnt work. My bad.

Hi,

I was referring to Maya Help, I always do, but in its Live tutorial they never mentioned to press F6 to open the thing! Seriously.

Anyway, I've had some time to put Lisa wise words into action and have a go at some tracks. Bare in mind there are no lights, shadows and the objects are super crude. Once I figure out how to upload them, please offer feedback/advice.

Thanks in advance,
Geo.

Oh! Bye the way! Sorry about the multiple posts, I didnt think my computer successfully uploaded the file! Sorry!

le_geo

You won't be able to upload video clips here. You'll have to upload them to an offsite server then link to them here.

You can zip them and upload them but they'll have to be below the alloted file size of 262144 bytes.

Hey leo, hope the tracking is going well!

You could send me the video clip that you are using to track to my yahoo address if you like. I'll take a look and offer any advice I think is necessary. If you have any compositing software, such as Shake, you could try processing your image sequence to make it better to track. I find this can help a lot.

Hope to hear from you soon

LisaG :D

Hi everyone,

it took a while, but I managed to get my friend to upload my tracking test clips on his website. The links are below. Please take a look and offer feedback.

There's no lighting, or shadows and objects are very crude, just basic camera movement. In case you're wondering, the clips are really small, less than 1 mb each.

http://www.acehit.co.uk/live_test_1.avi

http://www.acehit.co.uk/live_test_2.avi

I hope they open/download OK!

Thanks,

Geo.

Hey Leo, long time no hear! :D

Your tracking looks great, especially considering the quality of your backplates. If you feel you have jitter, try smoothing out the camera curves manually in Maya.

What was your pixel slip in Maya LIVE?? (it'll be a figure in a box under the solve menu set). Ideally, you don't want it too high....around 0.4 is a really good result.....don't worry though if yours is high!! The tracking I do has to be pretty damn good, so we have to be accurate. Your effort is great, keep it up mate!!

LisaG

:alien:

Thanks Lisa,

yeah, it's better than I thought it would be. Pixel slip was pretty good I think, below 1.0, something like 0.8... cant remember exactly...

Something I was wondering about though, in the clip featuring the hallway, I wanted to do a test animating something like a spider crawling on the wall (nothing major just a test).

But when I put a plane in to simulate the wall, it didnt line up that well. Could it be that my hall isnt straight, because I took meticulous measurements for each track point?

Oh yeah, one other thing, I want to change the scene so the origin is better positioned for animation (points constraint or something?). Do you use this feature?

Thanks for reading,
Couldn't have got this far without your help!
Geo.

Hey Leo.

Unfortunately, that is a weakness with LIVE...the solver isn't that great. You will notice this when it gives you a poor shape for your solution. The shape of the locators the solve produces should roughly represent the overall shape of your scene in reality. LIVE is not too great for this. You can improve your solves by adding plane and distance constraints. You could try selecting all of the points that make up one wall, and add a plane constraint to them. When you do this, a blue rectangle will appear in your scene, simply orient this to represent the wall, then resolve. It may well force the locators into the shape you want. There is more info about this in the help files.

** she takes a breath!! **

When you open your LIVE export in Maya, group both the camera and locators together to make an overall scene group. You can then move this group around in 3D space to where you want it to be. As a general rule, you should move and scale the solve to fit a built scene, and not move the scene to fit the camera. Sorry, this is VERY difficult for me to explain without actually showing you how to do it. Make a plane to be your wall, then move your new scene group until the wall looks right through the camera. The wall will track properly as long as the appropriate locators are touching the wall plane. Does this make sense???



:bandit:

Hey Lisa,

thanks for comment, sorry I havent responded sooner.

wow yeah, I think that makes sense, I wouldn't have thought of grouping locaters and camera together, sounds like a good idea. I'll have to try it when I have a spare time.

I was just wondering, if you ever have a piece of footage with a very fast movement that is really pretty blurry, can/do you ever manually position the solve ? Can you manually position the solve at all?

Anyway..... you should create your own video tutorial series Lisa, people would download your expert advice like crazy!

Thanks,
Geo.

I'm not entirely sure I know what you mean about manually positioning the solve for a blurry shot?? Do you mean how can you track a blurry shot?? You can manually place the tracking locator for every frame if you need to - not every shot you come across (in fact, very little!) will you give you perfect points to track. If you have a very fast moving shot with motion blur, you can manually place the tracking locator for each frame for where you think the centre is, obviously you need to try to be accurate.

Could you post a screenshot of your Maya scene with you solve/geometry at all? I could give you some better advice if I took a look, or feel free to email it to me.

..it would be quite cool to create a vid on this, but I'm pretty busy at the mo, moving house in a few weeks, so things are pretty hectic at the mo. Glad your learning lots though, sounds like you are picking it up really well :D to be good at tracking takes a lot of practice and patience.

LisaG :p

Hey,

about 'manually positioning' the camera, I meant animating it by hand, like you would normally, so that you can judge by eye where the track points should be. I was thinking this might be necesary if the shot is to fast or blurry for Live to understand.

Do you have any tracking attempts online at all? I'd love to see some examples of your work.

Do you use any other tracking software other than Live? I've heard good things about Boujou...

Geo.

Hi Leo.

Yes, you can hand track the camera! This is every trackers nightmare!! (well, it is for me anyway)...it can be very difficult to hand track the camera if the move is very fast or complicated, or the shot is very long. Literally hand tracking the camera means just setting up a camera and moving it frame by frame into position, to try to recreate the real camera move (sorry, this probably isn't a very good explanation!) You can just manually track the points yourself like I said before. If you are pretty accurate, you should get a solve out of it.

Unfortunately I cannot post any examples of shots I've tracked, as everything I've tracked so far has been for films that aren't even out yet!! I'm not even allowed to put shots on my showreel until the DVD is out.

I use Boujou bullet, Boujou 3 and 3d Equalizer as well as Maya Live. Boujou is a good, easy program to use, but I find that it crashes a lot, and is a pain to set up each time you start a new shot. It can give great solves though, and because it creates so many points, it is very easy to align scene geometry to Boujou solves. 3D equalizer is the best tracking software out of the lot. It has an excellent solver, and can also handle zoom shots really well. The interface takes some getting used to, but once you can use it it's great. I've found that shots that won't solve in Boujou or Live will come out fine in 3de. At work, some people specialise in a particular tracking software, which they use all the time. I like to change between them all, as they all have good and bad points, so one particular piece of tracking software might be more suitable for some shots than others.

Jeez, I can waffle on sometimes......lol!!

LisaG :cool:

Let me assure you we all enjoy your Waffling :)

This is one great thread!

Thanks Lisa . . and Leo to for bringing it up.

Cheers
Paul
Extreme Newbie :)

BTW: I've just downloaded and started looking at Voodoo Camera Tracker . This is one of their Test Clips

Its free so I'm not sure how good it is.

Cheers
Paul

Hi BMS

Just took a quick look at the Voodoo camera tracker, it looks like it works a bit like Boujou. The test clip was good. I haven't heard of that piece of software so I can't really comment on how good it might be, but if you like it and it works good for you, then great! 3de, Live and Boujou I think are just the 3 most well know and widely used tracking software, but I'm sure there are lots of others out and about that are just as effective.

LisaG :p

Not sure how good it is either.

I tried a 10 second clip and it did well, then I tried a 5 second clip and it kept on crashing. I guess that's expected from Beta Software. :(

I'm going to have a play with Maya Live next.

BTW: I'm a newbie at this :D

Cheers
Paul

I think that Maya Live is a good choice for if you are new to tracking. If you are used to using Maya, then the interface is lovely to use, especially the interface for tracking the points - its difficult to find a piece of software that tracks points faster. I also think that it makes you think about your shots a bit more, rather than just letting it run through Boujou, you can have more input into the shot. You can also select which points you want to track, so its great for learning what are good and bad points to track. The solver isn't great, but if you are using it for just small personal projects, it should do you well. I've got some great solves out of very difficult shots using it.

Good luck with it,

LisaG

Hey Lisa,

feel free to waffle on, because what you type definitely isnt waffle. If I find anything frustrating about forums its when people dont talk enough! It's great that you're willing to share you're knowledge.

Wow, I didnt realise you were working on movies, in fact I dont know what I thought! Are you allowed to tell us what movies they are? Sounds awesome.

How does Maya Live cope with zoom? I havent given that a go yet.

Oh yeah, BMS, I agree, I hope people find this an interesting thread. We're really lucky that someone like Lisa found it!

All the best,
Geo.

I'm glad that people are learning new things through this thread, thats what makes this website fab!

Yes, I think I can say what films I'm working on, but I won't say anything about them. The good thing about tracking is you get to work on lots of different films. At the moment I'm working on Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate factory.

:)

WOW! That's a proper movie!

I was expecting something a little more low-key... you must be a tracking genious!

How is the job going?... or is that confidential....

lol! I wouldn't say I'm a tracking genius at all! I've only been doing it for nearly 6 months, but I'm really enjoying it. There is so much that I've learnt, the difference in the learning curve from being at Uni to working in the industry is massive! I do other things as well as tracking, such as 3d roto and modelling bits for scenes for camera alignment. Its also pretty cool being surrounded by people who do lots of other different things, such as texturing, compositing, effects and animation....you get to pick up loads of little tricks and tips.

LisaG :alien:

Sorry . . . I posted a problem I was having and after spending 2 hours trying to work out what I was doing wrong, I found the problem. Sorry about the post guys :eek:

Here is my first attempt at Maya Live

Cheers
Paul

Looks really good, BMS. I think there's a a bobble at the end, but its really hard to tell as the video clip was quite small for me. Great job though :tup:

LisaG