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Syntheyes help in AE – I really need some help…
Hi all,
I working with Syntheyes and trying to get the (.ma for AE) export to work in AE. I import it and use the “square” comp, import the original tracked video footage and turn it to 3D, then:
1. the syntheyes comp import at a smaller size, not 720×480
2. when the footage layer is turned to 3D, it is really close to the camera and its alignment is all screwed up.Any help you can give would be great. 2 days of headache are taking there toll on me… 😉
thanks,
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6 Replies
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Correct me if I’m wrong, but the square comp is inside the other comp, yes?
If this is so, then you need to put the BG video in the outer comp and not the square comp. If I remember correctly, the square comp is for things in the square world like camera data, lights, etc. Whereas the outer comp stretches those things to sync up with the .9 pixel aspect ratio stuff like your video.
I haven’t used Maya import in a long time, but hopefully that points you in some useful direction.
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YES YES YES – We’re getting somewhere. Awesome Chris. Two comps import, one is the square comp (which I read in another post was the one I needed to use). This square comp is also inside the other comp, like you said. So…
I dropped a solid into the square comp as a test, turned the layer to 3d, and parented it to one of the null tracking point layers. Am I on the right track? I’m embarassed to ask this with a few years of AE experience, but I’m getting lost and feel if I could just get on the right path I could run with it.
Thanks for the help
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Yes, that sounds right. But your BG video (the video you originally tracked in SE) should go in the outer comp below the “Square” Comp layer. So the solid that’s inside the square comp is laid over your video. That should sync up. Another note is that the scale between AE and Maya is Waaaay off. I remember having to do my object in the 3D space of AE at like, Scale = .1 or something like that. The number doesn’t HAVE to be exact to make a perfect track, but you’ll find it gets your scales in the ballpark.
Do you happen to own C4D? Since using C4D, I import 3D tracking data into it first (using the lws export). That way I can clean up tracking points I don’t want, I can name the ones I do want to mark for AE. Then use C4D’s built in Render to AE comp option.
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I do have C4D. Maybe I should try that. Much easier to see what the points are and clean them up it sounds like?
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Yeah. In Syntheyes, export your track as Lightwave (.lws). In C4D, just open this file like any other project. You will see the point cloud of nulls. Using C4D 9.6, you can set tags on the nulls you want to add AE layers to. Then after tagging all the nulls that you want to keep as references, I would just delete all the others. If you want to look at your video in C4D to make sure everything matches, Create a material. In the color channel load your video. Go to the animate tab and click ‘calculate’. Now Create a Background object and slap that material on there. You should see your video with all the trackers over it.
Then use the normal methods C4D uses to generate an AE comp file (aec). The great thing about doing it this way is that it’s (to me at least) less confusing and more organized. Plus since you now have C4D involved as well, you can always jump back to C4D and create true 3D elements that will match the camera perfectly. Now you can create layers in AE or in C4D and both programs have a matched camera with your BG video.
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Thanks Chris for the very detailed info. I appreciate your time. I’m looking forward to seeing what I can do with this. So much possible, but boy so much more to learn now…
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