Camera Track using xsi 2.0

[noar]

Is it possible?

if so, how? where? what button do i push P

If not, is there any affordable or demo softwares out there that could help me do a quick composite?

Thanks for your help.

[atyss]

You can't do it in XSI.

The cheapest software I know that has this kind of functionality is Adobe After Effects Pro Bundle. Check out adobe.com for pricing.

Hope this helps
Salutations - Cheers
Bernard Lebel

[noar]

oh yeah.. i know that.. i have after effects and i've been able to sucessfully do motiontracking with it.. but the problem is, if i move (walk around) while shooting the video background... (say i walk AROUND my target area)

now when i go to render my robot, how do i know how to animate my camera so that it renders the proper angle of the robot to match my cramera movements.. know what i mean?

[atyss]

Yeah I understand. Well if you camera moves, and moves like held by a human, you're on for a serious challenge. I think you should consider using MatchMover, Boujou or this kind of highend product.

Of course if the motion of the camera is simple, you can try to keyframe your XSI camera manually.

Sorry I can't help you more.
Salutations - Cheers
Bernard Lebel

[noar]

hrm... kind of a shame.. i guess i better just stand still with a steady hand.

see i was thinking the bot would run down the street... as i stood streetside to 'film' him as he runs by.. it's a shame there's no way to track, then output that info to xsi... i guess i'll just have to wing it as best i can...

composite is fun... but there's soo much involved. hehe

[ottscay]

If you can just do a simple tripod pan to follow your robot, you may want to actually give hand tracking a shot. I've hand-tracked a number of tripod pans, and it really isn't as bad as all that...I think it took 3-4 hours of work to get a track that no one has complained about. The key is to get a few markers that you know the real-wrld size and distance from, (e.g. cars) and represent them with basic geometry. Go into rotoscope mode, and match tem up with the first frame. Once you start looking at other frames, you may discover that your initial match-up wasn't quite right. It takes a few hours of tweaking. It's not super-easy, but I think it's well worth it to get a few moving shots.

Scott

[noar]

yeah.. the smoother the input video the easyer to snych up with. i follow ya.

I'm quickly realizing that the AE tracker is pretty crap.. i wish i had a better camera for DV recording.. but i get a maximum 320x240 10fps blah.
Still.. i wanted to try my hand at composite cuz the result is often great.

AE has problems following my markerpoint at one point where i moved the camera a bit suddenly.. is there any way to modify the tracking curve created by AE?

[ottscay]

Sorry, I can't help you. I will recommend Commotion. It's tracker is awesome; it's fast and I've never had a problem tracking any scene. Although AE is better at motion graphics, I strongly recommend Commotion over AE for actual compositing.

Scott