(Term 1: Week 5)
This week we learned a new software, 3D Equalizer (Release 6) from Dom Maldlow about how to do Camera Tracking. In this exercise, we have to track a camera movement and trail of a short video so that we can put a 3d object or character inside the shot.
Below are some notes I took while following Dom’s demo.
Preparation
Interface:
As I quickly noticed while trying to get familiar with the interface, 3D Equalizer don’t use the standard OS design. It can be quite confusing at first. The common menu like open, save, and windows are at the bottom. The open and save windows are using its own proprietary UI, so finding a specific folder to save a document can be very different. I usually save my file directly into my iCloud folder so I can easily switch and work between my Mac & Windows machines, but the interface makes finding the folder very difficult.
In the main interface, there are several working environments. ‘Basic’ is the standard for common panels and tools.
Import footage:
Click on the available camera on the left sidebar (Scene > Cameras > “seq#1”) or add a new ‘Sequence Camera’ from Right-click menu.
Click ‘Browse’ on the right sidebar and select the footages that we want to import and set the start and end frame.
Create buffer for better playback for heavy files by Playback > Export Buffer Compression File…
Tracker Point
Create a new tracking point: ‘Ctrl’ + Left-click
Reposition existing point: Left-click
When placing tracking point, select an area with contrast color, sharp edge and does not changing shape. Adjust the tracker size depend on situation to track properly. Put trackers on foreground, middle and background so the software can track the perspective and parallax in the shot.
Select points: Alt + Left-click drag / Shift + Left-click in Point Browser
Tracking
Start & stop autotracking: Click ‘Track’ (button) or ‘T’ (keyboard)
Click ‘End Point’ to end / close the tracking frames
Forward frame by frame tracking: Click ‘>’ (button) or ‘.’ (keyboard)
Backward frame by frame tracking: Click ‘<’ (button) or ‘,’ (keyboard),
Activate ‘Center 2D’ button to center the view while tracking
Change ‘Direction’ to track forward, backward or both depend on the situation when tracking
Image Controls
Image controls can be used to adjust the brightness, contrast and saturation of the image to help us identify good tracking spot. It should be noted that the adjustment has no effect on the tracking result.
– Open ‘Windows > Image Controls Window…’
– Enable the control by clicking on ‘Image Controls Enabled’ button
– Enable the ‘Control Colors Enabled.
– Change the color, brightness, contrast etc
Calculate the tracked points
After we have enough tracked points, we can finalise and calculate the trackers to check if the tracking is good or not.
Click ‘Calc > Calc All From Scratch…’
Click ‘Use Result’ button
From ‘Deviation Browser’ we can see the tracking accuracy. We should try to stay around 1.0 or lower. If not, its mean there are trackers which are not properly tracked.
Camera Distortion
If we know the original camera spec and settings that was used to record the video, we can adjust and match the virtual camera setting so the result will be more accurate.
Select the ‘Lens’ on the left sidebar and go to ‘Focal Length’ on right sidebar to change the camera settings according to the original camera. Change the value and set it to be ‘Fixed’, ‘Adjust’ or ‘Passive’.
Go to ‘Windows > Parameter Adjustment Window…’
Let the software calculate
During this process, I think I don’t get very good results even after several tries. The tracking became quite shaky and not very accurate. I may try again in the future.
After everything completed, the tracking data can be exported to 3d software like Maya, 3Dsmax and Blender.
Final Result