[Jeff Dobrow]

HMmmm….let me see if I understand you.

1) You have a MAX scene of this building,…
2) You are going to film some people greenscreen…
3) You want to be able to composite the filmed people into the MAX scene so that it looks lilke they are ‘there’ ?

Is this correct?

If so, you have a few possible issues……..
1) If you animate the MAX camera, you must film your people at exactly the same distance, focus, lens settings and movement,…….this would be very, very difficult without a motion control camera rig…AE cannot help you here at all.

2) If you film your people first, you then have to match your MAX camera ….same issues as above only in opposite. Again, AE will NOT help you here.

The problems above both lay in the fact that your actual people shoot camera will not match either your AE camera OR your MAX camera,…no matter how you go about it….once you start panning and dollying, zooming about your people…..forget it. And if you do your MAX or AE camera first,…then your real shoot camera will not match. Either way, the only real way is to do a lockdown shot with NO camera movement, or use an $$$ motion control rig..which in-itself is an epic, complex procedure….
BTW – the motion tracker will ONLY track x,y movement and rotation,…it will not track in real 3D….so unless it is a very simple left to right camera move, then forget it. Also, you will need a seperate 3D pass of ‘markers’ for the motion tracker to use as tracking points….

3) If you are filming your people straight-on, and you are want to put them in the MAX scene without regard for camera movement,…meaning they will look like thin ‘cut-out’ people at many angles then AE can help you somewhat. Even in this scenario, you are still going to need to sync your AE camera to your 3D camera, and then insert your people at ‘proper’ points relevant to the MAX 3D scene….using the .rpf format from MAX, to import cam data into AE is possible,…but tricky, and it does nothing to help your people placing,…….if you got the demo of MAX2AE, read the instructions….it is uber-simple to use,…..

Isn’t there a ‘free’ way? Check out Voodoo, it is a free 3D motion tracking system. Works well, is somewhat complex and still requires you to know what you are doing. Successfully integrating 2D video elements into a 3D environment with proper camera matching is NOT a simple thing.

Good luck, and post again with any more questions,…..let us know how it all turns out

[Jeff Dobrow]

HMmmm….let me see if I understand you.

1) You have a MAX scene of this building,…
2) You are going to film some people greenscreen…
3) You want to be able to composite the filmed people into the MAX scene so that it looks lilke they are ‘there’ ?

Is this correct?

If so, you have a few possible issues……..
1) If you animate the MAX camera, you must film your people at exactly the same distance, focus, lens settings and movement,…….this would be very, very difficult without a motion control camera rig…AE cannot help you here at all.

2) If you film your people first, you then have to match your MAX camera ….same issues as above only in opposite. Again, AE will NOT help you here.

The problems above both lay in the fact that your actual people shoot camera will not match either your AE camera OR your MAX camera,…no matter how you go about it….once you start panning and dollying, zooming about your people…..forget it. And if you do your MAX or AE camera first,…then your real shoot camera will not match. Either way, the only real way is to do a lockdown shot with NO camera movement, or use an $$$ motion control rig..which in-itself is an epic, complex procedure….
BTW – the motion tracker will ONLY track x,y movement and rotation,…it will not track in real 3D….so unless it is a very simple left to right camera move, then forget it. Also, you will need a seperate 3D pass of ‘markers’ for the motion tracker to use as tracking points….

3) If you are filming your people straight-on, and you are want to put them in the MAX scene without regard for camera movement,…meaning they will look like thin ‘cut-out’ people at many angles then AE can help you somewhat. Even in this scenario, you are still going to need to sync your AE camera to your 3D camera, and then insert your people at ‘proper’ points relevant to the MAX 3D scene….using the .rpf format from MAX, to import cam data into AE is possible,…but tricky, and it does nothing to help your people placing,…….if you got the demo of MAX2AE, read the instructions….it is uber-simple to use,…..

Isn’t there a ‘free’ way? Check out Voodoo, it is a free 3D motion tracking system. Works well, is somewhat complex and still requires you to know what you are doing. Successfully integrating 2D video elements into a 3D environment with proper camera matching is NOT a simple thing.

Good luck, and post again with any more questions,…..let us know how it all turns out

[Jeff Dobrow]

Check out MAX2AE at http://www.boomerlabs.com

It is a plugin for MAX which allows camera/light/object export for use within MAX.
Great app.

[Jeff Dobrow]

Check out MAX2AE at http://www.boomerlabs.com

It is a plugin for MAX which allows camera/light/object export for use within MAX.
Great app.

[Jeff Dobrow]

I agree. I keyframe a hue/saturation filter throughout my whole piece,….only adjusting colors down when they are illegal, then back up………I also use a levels to floor my blacks and ceiling my whites……

[Jeff Dobrow]

Without going into every step here…
WinXP Network Wizard will walk you through every step of the way,…asking you questions,…etc..etc..etc. Just depends how exactly you will be networking your setup,….if you get into floating license serving for gfx apps and the like, it can get pretty complex,…but for a simple peer-to-peer network, with everyone having net access, and printer/scanner access…..you could probably just do it yourself with the setup wizard…..

OR ask one of your more computer savvy friends?

[Jeff Dobrow]

Knowing Renascent’ workflow…I would say 3D Studio MAX entirely. Little or no AE at all.

[Jeff Dobrow]

If you set-up your gauge,…animate it in ‘any’ fashion,….then ‘copy’ the keyframes,….paste them into a text editor you will see AE’s text keyframe data format,….you could then in a variety of ways ‘paste’ your data into the appropriate area and then ‘re-paste’ the whole thing back to your keyframes…………

AE’s data is very well layed out and easy to follow……….

Good luck………..

[Jeff Dobrow]

If you set-up your gauge,…animate it in ‘any’ fashion,….then ‘copy’ the keyframes,….paste them into a text editor you will see AE’s text keyframe data format,….you could then in a variety of ways ‘paste’ your data into the appropriate area and then ‘re-paste’ the whole thing back to your keyframes…………

AE’s data is very well layed out and easy to follow……….

Good luck………..

[Jeff Dobrow]

Question…..
Maybe I am missing something (very possible)……..but even if you start off with colors from an NTSC safe palette,….what happens when you add effects and/or transfer modes which then create new color values? (e.g. glow, shine, additive mode…etc)

How is this accounted for?