Camera Data - Ascii Cooper

[Adam H. Stewart]

I am working on a shoot this Thursday using a motion control rig. We are going to have to do alot of work in Post which requires us eventually getting the camera move to After Effects 3D. I have just used a the MAX2AE plug-in to send an 3ds camera and dummy's to AE and it worked beautifully. So that end is taken care of. The question is getting the camera data to Maya or 3ds. The DP said it gets spit out of the camera in the ASCII Cooper format - has anybody heard of this? We had a similar shoot last year for a James Bond DVD and they charged to convert the data to a Maya camera and it still wasn't very good.

Should I plan to motion track the shots anyway - maybe using Synth Eyes - I hear great things about this software and we don't have the $$$$ to spring for Bijou.

Thanks for your advice and help.

[percydaman]

yeah its called Kuper. Named after the guy who created it. We're looking at something similiar. Fortunately, a friend of my boss's knows this kuper dude and I guess he's going to write something for us so we can import realtime Kuper data into max. Thats the plan anyways.

BTW, search scriptspot and maxplugins.de for kuper and you'll come across some stuff. If you haven't already.

[Adam H. Stewart]

Thanks

Thanks for the info and the correction on the spelling of the name. I'll give difinetly search for scripts and do some general research. The producer wants me to go to the shoot to act as TD - do you recommend doing meassurements and tracking markers as a backup?

[vance3d]

I would warn you that depending on how tight the integration of 3d and footage is going to be that you may only get so far with the camera data alone.

motion control was originally developed to allow multiple passes of objects to be shot and composited. ie a beauty pass, a highlight pass, a matte pass... so you could change lighting set ups and exposures but still have the same motion recorded.

I recently had an experience with some motion control data that became a real problem and the company that shot it took a look at our not so great result and said it looked good to them.

another motion control guy told me that motion control is mathmatically correct but doesn't necessarily take into account defects in the rig and changes in the flex a particular will under go when it is fully extended or fully retracted.

the result of our experience is that we eventually had to do 3d tracking using Motion Tracker.

my suggestion to you would be that you cover yourself and have them shoot a pass you can use for motion tracking. So after you shoot all your regular passes, put markers where ever you can and make sure you always see at least 8 of them at any given time in the camera view. also take very carefull measurements of everything including dimensions of all objects, distance to the ground the nodal point of camera is at the begining and end of the shot and the distance the camera is from a common point like a marker you determine is the "origin"of your scene.

good luck.

V Miller

[Adam H. Stewart]

Thanks Vance

Thanks Vance - my previous experience with camera data was similar. What more annoying was the fact that the camera guys charged an arm and a leg to get us a basic Maya camera from the data. Even then it wasn't a very good match and we needed to do our own work afterwards.

I thought that things might have progressed a little since then - it was a year ago - but I suspect that the problems still exist as before. What are your thoughts on Synth Eyes ?

I'm very grateful for you advice and help.

[vance3d]

i don't have any experience with synth eyes. I've used motion tracker and boujou to a lesser extent. I think all three are capable programs but they have their own strengths and weaknesses.

I'm sure if you did a search on cg talk you'd find many more stories and some opinions on the different programs.

V Miller