how to use MAYA LIVE ??? - Page 2 - Simply Maya User Community

# 16 07-02-2005 , 07:43 PM

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Hey, how can I upload my video clips?

I want to show you my tracking attempts!

Last edited by le_geo; 07-02-2005 at 11:00 PM.

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# 17 07-02-2005 , 07:43 PM

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

Last edited by le_geo; 07-02-2005 at 11:01 PM.

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# 18 07-02-2005 , 08:10 PM

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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.

Last edited by le_geo; 07-02-2005 at 11:03 PM.

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# 19 07-02-2005 , 10:58 PM

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

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# 20 08-02-2005 , 06:22 AM

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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.

Dave Baer
Professor of Digital Arts
Digital Media Arts College
Boca Raton, Florida
dbaer@dmac.edu

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# 21 08-02-2005 , 09:18 AM

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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 user added image

When in doubt......smile!

https://www.x-menthelaststand.com/

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# 22 15-02-2005 , 12:08 PM

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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.

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

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

I hope they open/download OK!

Thanks,

Geo.

Last edited by le_geo; 15-02-2005 at 12:12 PM.

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# 23 15-02-2005 , 12:33 PM

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Hey Leo, long time no hear! user added image

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

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When in doubt......smile!

https://www.x-menthelaststand.com/

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# 24 15-02-2005 , 02:35 PM

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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.

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# 25 15-02-2005 , 03:02 PM

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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:

When in doubt......smile!

https://www.x-menthelaststand.com/

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# 26 19-02-2005 , 01:34 PM

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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.

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# 27 19-02-2005 , 05:19 PM

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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 user added image

to be good at tracking takes a lot of practice and patience.

LisaG :p

When in doubt......smile!

https://www.x-menthelaststand.com/

Last edited by lisa_gonzalez; 23-10-2005 at 03:24 PM.

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# 28 27-02-2005 , 12:48 PM

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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.

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# 29 27-02-2005 , 02:11 PM

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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 user added image