The Foundry CameraTracker

rcallicotte · January 10, 2012, 11:23:04 AM

http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/cameratracker/?utm_campaign=GLOBAL%252012%2520JAN%2520PROMO%2520CT%25201%2520DAY%2520FLASH%2520SALE.20120110&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua

What do you think? Could we find a use for bringing an animation from TG2 into AE and then utilize this plugin?

Walli · January 10, 2012, 11:34:29 AM

that does not make sense in my eyes - it would be much better to write out the needed information. I mean, you don´t need to track a 3D animation, you "just" need to write out the according camera position/rotation/fov and then you already have a perfect match.
Don´t know if its already possible to write a plugin for that.

rcallicotte · January 10, 2012, 11:41:33 AM

Here's an example of someone doing this with this plugin, but using movie footage -

http://vimeo.com/25857597?utm_campaign=GLOBAL%2012%20JAN%20PROMO%20CT%201%20DAY%20FLASH%20SALE.20120110&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua&s=2814&lid=29&elq=9bd35d7a3cf248528ba5397a2c441036

cyphyr · January 10, 2012, 11:43:36 AM

I've had to track 3d animation footage. When the original animation file is damage or lost for example (in my case I had overwritten (DOH!!!) the animation file with a version that was rejected so had to find a way back to the "lost" camera track.
So useful sometimes.
Richard

rcallicotte · January 10, 2012, 06:58:16 PM

By the way, CameraTracker will be on sale on January 24th for one day only for just £99 / $159 / €119, for 1 day only.

Walli · January 11, 2012, 02:30:26 AM

yes, when tracking real live you don´t have the camera data and so have to track the shot - but when working in 3D this usually makes no sense. Apart from what Richard is writing or if there is really no chance to get hands on the 3D data.
I guess in most cases when TG is used for film, the animation is done in other tools and then the camera animation is transfered to TG. So you would need the other way around.

rcallicotte · January 11, 2012, 09:12:02 AM

Walli, this is what I was thinking, but seeing I don't do this (have never done this), I was hoping to think things through. We could put text into a TG animation or even add to the effects, couldn't we? For example, what would adding a LW effect inside a TG animation do and how would it be handled? Could something like this, where the effects are piled on effects via multiple 3D programs, make use of the camera tracker in the same way?

Quote from: Walli on January 11, 2012, 02:30:26 AM
yes, when tracking real live you don´t have the camera data and so have to track the shot - but when working in 3D this usually makes no sense. Apart from what Richard is writing or if there is really no chance to get hands on the 3D data.
I guess in most cases when TG is used for film, the animation is done in other tools and then the camera animation is transfered to TG. So you would need the other way around.

Walli · January 12, 2012, 06:44:57 PM

yes you can do that and stuff like that is bread and butter of movie vfx specialists. But I guess in most cases the camera work is done in Maya, Max and the like and then transfered to TG, which works fine.

rcallicotte · January 13, 2012, 08:50:50 AM

In all of these years and I still haven't done this. Sounds like something I just need to do...someday.

Quote from: Walli on January 12, 2012, 06:44:57 PM
yes you can do that and stuff like that is bread and butter of movie vfx specialists. But I guess in most cases the camera work is done in Maya, Max and the like and then transfered to TG, which works fine.