Greenscreen + 3d + 180 pan/rotation

[Joey Foreman]

You really can’t track rotation on the y axis -pans or camera arcs- in AE. For that you need 3d tracking like SynthEyes or Boujou.
You can’t Auto-Orient to movement inside a layer AE will have no idea that a camera is moving in your footage. The layer itself isn’t rotating, so AE’s camera has nothing to orient to.
Trying to match this by hand would be a nightmare, and you’d probably never get a really acceptable result.
Many of the 3d tracking applications allow you to import the results into AE. And you’re right about needing tracking markers in the greenscreen shot.
Check out the book Matchmoving: The Invisible Art of Camera Tracking for more info.

Joey Foreman
Editor/Animator
Nowhere Productions, Athens, GA

[Jeremy Allen]

….or you could rig up some sort of turn table to spin you around, keeping the camera locked in place. This would make the shooting part easier, and may even make matching easier if the turn table could spin at a constant rate. There was a tutorial on the cow a while back that touched on some of that concept. I’ll post it if I come across it again..

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8core MacPro, 3.0 GHZ, 10GB RAM, OSX 10.5.2
DualCore G5 2.0 GHZ, 2GB RAM, OSX 10.4.11

AE7 on both for now.

[Jeremy Allen]

I can at least take the credit for posting it here, but I can’t take full credit for the idea… Bill O’neill is the man.

Found the article here..

https://library.creativecow.net/articles/oneil_bill/shooting_3d.php

———————————————
8core MacPro, 3.0 GHZ, 10GB RAM, OSX 10.5.2
DualCore G5 2.0 GHZ, 2GB RAM, OSX 10.4.11

AE7 on both for now.

[Joey Foreman]

The portable rotated greenscreen on a frame will kill your motion tracking b/c your markers on the screen will never remain in a consistent relationship to the subject and camera.

As for the tracking there is one technique that might give you somewhat passable results (if you have access to Dave’s arena-sized greenscreen):

Position the 4 tracking markers equidistant from the subject on the greenscreen, and do your move.
In AE stabilize the layer in position, rotation, and scale using the 4 markers.
Apply the tracking data to the layer, make it a 3d layer, then parent a camera to that layer. Then drop it your set and make it a 3-d layer.

Joey Foreman
Editor/Animator
Nowhere Productions, Athens, GA

[Joey Foreman]

Having the subject rotate on a turntable could simulate the look of an arcing camera, but nothing would be moving in relation to the camera to track.
Remember he wants to match a camera move with virtual set.
I suppose if the turn is really smooth and a consistent speed, he could rotate the set layer and try to fake the perspective shift manually, but it’s going to look somehow…off.

Joey Foreman
Editor/Animator
Nowhere Productions, Athens, GA

[Jeremy Fabiano]

Jeremy Thanks for the link – I just realized I HAVE seen that tutorial before and forgot all about it..

The turntable idea is exactly what I should have thought to do… sry if I confused anyone about needing the actual camera mimicked.

I’m basically trying to arc around myself so I can get the profile shots and the front shot in sequence.

Imagine looking at the side of a plane’s cockpit, and as the person gets in, the camera arcs around the nose of the plane to the other side, looking at the actor the entire time.

Thanks for all the help every one 🙂

-Jeremy