Etude Three (3) - Initial Process

After downloading several films and pieces of footage from Archive.org I decided to select the short documentary type film called "Angry Boy", which is a two part short drama piece that explores child psychology and focuses around a young boy. I narrowed down my shot selection to the beginning of a short pan to the right which I thought would be ideal for camera tracking as it has a small space centre screen where I could initially just test whether the footage was good enough to track well and incorporate 3D objects.

Above image available from: (http://www.archive.org/movies/thumbnails.php?identifier=AngryBoy1950)

With the scene isolated I then began to convert the frames of the scene into Targa files (.tga) in Adobe Premiere, which is the only format that the camera tracking software Voodoo reads files on Windows. Initially I had to convert the video to a WMV and then render off into Targa files due to errors in the import process to Premiere, which may have affected quality and was one of my main concerns especially when considering the age and initial quality of the footage which wasn't ideal. I then imported the files into Voodoo which read each frame and set tracking points that would be used in 3DS Max to help add geometry to the scene.

Above shows Voodoo tracking the points on the footage with the green markers being placed in areas that will be tracked and preserved for exporting to another package. The information/status window did report I higher number of errors and failed capture points.

I then exported the data into a 3DS Max Script to later import into 3DS Max. Below shows the scene I set up in 3D Max after running the exported voodoo script which created a camera and tracking points in Max. Then using the created voodoo camera I set up two teapot models, lights and a plane with a matte/shadow map applied to it to capture their shadows and match the lighting to the footage. I also added the original scene's footage to the background of the Camera's viewport so that I had a reference when creating the scene in Max.

Below shows an example of the test after I combined the separately rendered layers in After Effects.

As I had initially feared the footage was too jittery to accurately calculate and track therefore the added 3D objects slide around inaccurately. Although the pan of the camera is accurate enough there is too much noticeable noise in the cameras movement when it was tracked and therefore the objects aren't seamlessly integrated into the scene in terms of placement.

I later attempted to use After Effects stabilize feature to help reduce this movement but it wasn't enough to help. Therefore instead of continually altering already low resolution footage I decided to look for better footage.

If I am unable to locate adequate footage I will either film an area for tracking and simply demonstrate 3D compositing with an accurate track or use higher resolution stock footage to track and add objects to or edit.

Voodoo Software downloaded from: (http://www.digilab.uni-hannover.de/download.html)

Additional references:

http://www.digilab.uni-hannover.de/docs/manual.html

http://www.max-animation.com/voodoo_camera_tracker.htm

http://www.computerarts.co.uk/tutorials/3d__and__animation/the_rules_of_camera_tracking

Dobbert, T., 2005. The rules of camera tracking. [Ebook]. 3D World.
(available at: http://www.computerarts.co.uk/tutorials/3d__and__animation/the_rules_of_camera_tracking)

[accessed 20th March 2008]