Boujou tracking test with the USS Defiant

Planeguy

Planeguy

Active member
Having some slight movement of the sphere on the left. I placed the sphere on the axis of one of the nodes to avoid this "sliding", but it's still there. The points are tracking very nicely over the video though. So it must be something else I'm doing wrong in layout.

I think it's because of the little panning of the camera in the original footage, but unsure. After hours trying I finally gave up, but would like to find a way to fix it still agggrr

 
Hi Planeguy! I am not really sure what you mean exactly I find it hard to follow with the relatively crude wirframe overlay. But as you apparantly are having problems with som,ething to the edge of the frame: Have you made sure that this is not an issue caused by lens distortion? Do you know the make of camera and lens?
best,
lorenz
 

it looks difficult to track that.

so considering the shot and the mpg quality, i think it looks quite decent.

perhaps SynthEyes could be better?

 
erikals said:
it looks difficult to track that.

so considering the shot and the mpg quality, i think it looks quite decent.

perhaps SynthEyes could be better?
Click to expand...
Yes, I'm learning tracking isn't quite easy as it seems to make it look realistic. I've had more success with Boujou than with syntheyes. Found it easier to use I mean.
 
For this forward moving shot (helicopter scene from the indie movie Mortal, from Norway) I had to animate the borg cube backwards a bit in order to better match the original footage. I think it's because the cube it's outside the nulls and so it's not matching perfectly.

If y'all haven't seen the movie, check it out. It's the Norwegian Thor version lol. It's got good visual effect for being a low budget film though.

Shotcut_00_01_45_417.jpg
 
I'm curious as to Boujou. Haven't heard that name in decades and it it's day was ~$10K, before other trackers came out.
 
Yes, it's pretty darn old lol but even so, it seems to track things pretty well imho.

I'd like to try Blender's tracking option. Have you used it?
 
It should as it was the standard in it's day. Haven't used Blender. There are a number of things I should explore it for.

I don't do much tracking these days but still have Mocha Pro. Mocha is a Planar tracker not point reference so it's looking at sub pixel changes in the bg reference imagery.

Should work quite well on a shot like that I'd think.
 
erikals said:
Blender tracking wasn't that great.
try After Effects
or SynthEyes
Click to expand...
I have an old version of AE, and unfortunately can't export camera tracking data. But, the problem isn't much of tracking now that I think of. Boujou tracks pretty darn well considering, but when I place my objects in the scene if I don't place them perfectly, they drift. And I don't know what causes that.
 
Ma3rk said:
It should as it was the standard in it's day. Haven't used Blender. There are a number of things I should explore it for.

I don't do much tracking these days but still have Mocha Pro. Mocha is a Planar tracker not point reference so it's looking at sub pixel changes in the bg reference imagery.

Should work quite well on a shot like that I'd think.
Click to expand...
Yes, so far it has worked pretty well with all the shots I have, it's just when I place the objects in the tracked scene, they drift, unless it's an aerial shot, but if it's an object placed on the ground, then it drifts.
 
I still use the CS6 version of AE too.

Had a "simple" shot once where client had some hand held 8mm Kodachrome footage digitized to 4:4:4 HD (1920 x 1080). It looked gorgeous.

The shot was ~47 secs long of an old steam locomotive coming out of the forest & makes a gentle turn and the camera tracks with it to the right and slowly zooms in.

Stabilize of course, but that wasn't the task.

About 9 secs or so from the head of the shot, a small red sports car enters from frame left, makes it's turn on the road, at times is partially obscured by a pasture fence as it then proceeds and exits frame left having been on screen ~ 20+ secs..

The shot was for a WWII documentary and the car was definitely out of period. That's what I had to remove.
 
Ma3rk said:
I still use the CS6 version of AE too.

Had a "simple" shot once where client had some hand held 8mm Kodachrome footage digitized to 4:4:4 HD (1920 x 1080). It looked gorgeous.

The shot was ~47 secs long of an old steam locomotive coming out of the forest & makes a gentle turn and the camera tracks with it to the right and slowly zooms in.

Stabilize of course, but that wasn't the task.

About 9 secs or so from the head of the shot, a small red sports car enters from frame left, makes it's turn on the road, at times is partially obscured by a pasture fence as it then proceeds and exits frame left having been on screen ~ 20+ secs..

The shot was for a WWII documentary and the car was definitely out of period. That's what I had to remove.
Click to expand...
Ouch! That's a money shot there lol! Did you rotoscope it out?
I've been looking at 8 and 16mm motion picture cameras. The footage coming of those things is so gorgeous. Nothing beats the color of film
 

many lean on SynthEyes these days
i can't say tho'
didn't test it too much
way back Boujou was "the" tracker, unsure if that still goes

 
erikals said:
many lean on SynthEyes these days
i can't say tho'
didn't test it too much
way back Boujou was "the" tracker, unsure if that still goes
Click to expand...
Might have to try the latest version and see if it helps with the drifting. What I don't understand is why the nodes/nulls are all rock solid, but when I plane an object it drifts, even if it's just a bit, still slides. So annoying
 
Planeguy said:
Ouch! That's a money shot there lol! Did you rotoscope it out?
I've been looking at 8 and 16mm motion picture cameras. The footage coming of those things is so gorgeous. Nothing beats the color of film
Click to expand...

Not roto, but using Mocha's amazing Remove module, overlaying masks, etc.

Ya, 16mm taken into the digital realm is still beautiful. Still expensive. These days, is pretty common if your going with film is to digitize the origin camera neg right off.

I still have my 16mm Arri-S.
 
Planeguy said:
Might have to try the latest version and see if it helps with the drifting. What I don't understand is why the nodes/nulls are all rock solid, but when I plane an object it drifts, even if it's just a bit, still slides. So annoying
Click to expand...

i wonder if offsetting the time could help.
in Layout (F6) make frame 0 be frame 1

 
Planeguy said:
....but when I place my objects in the scene if I don't place them perfectly, they drift. And I don't know what causes that.
Click to expand...
This could already be the solution to your problem. If your 3d tracking is good your trackers are positioned correctly in 3d space.
So choose a tracker that is exactly on the position where you want your 3D object to be and place it there. If it is higher or lower it will always drift like a spaceship hovering above the ground. :)

Another reason for drifting can be lens distortion, as Lorenz (fishhead) already mentioned. There is certainly a workflow in Boujou to correct this.

ciao
Thomas
 
Ma3rk said:
Not roto, but using Mocha's amazing Remove module, overlaying masks, etc.

Ya, 16mm taken into the digital realm is still beautiful. Still expensive. These days, is pretty common if your going with film is to digitize the origin camera neg right off.

I still have my 16mm Arri-S.
Click to expand...
Oh man! An Arri-S! Post some pics! There's a company in Germany that sells modded 16mm projectors, you probably may have heard of them https://www.youtube.com/@film-digital2129 (Film Digital it's the company's name). They sell the projector with attachments, LEDs, and a controller. All you have to do is attach a camera, or a phone. Seems to work pretty well from what I saw in the videos and the prices aren't crazy expensive. I think it's like 2 grand for a unit, which compared to the few alternatives out there, it's cheap.

An ARRi would be my dream camera. If anything, I'd be happy with a Krasnogorsk-3 :D
 
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Thomas Leitner said:
This could already be the solution to your problem. If your 3d tracking is good your trackers are positioned correctly in 3d space.
So choose a tracker that is exactly on the position where you want your 3D object to be and place it there. If it is higher or lower it will always drift like a spaceship hovering above the ground. :)

Another reason for drifting can be lens distortion, as Lorenz (fishhead) already mentioned. There is certainly a workflow in Boujou to correct this.

ciao
Thomas
Click to expand...
Found out what the issue was. I was missing an important step in boujou which is aligning the geometry (the ground) to horizon level of the videos. Now my problem is getting the ground as close as possible to the video in the xyz coordinates, but at least the drifting has subsided quite a bit now.
 
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