Compositing onto a shaky camera

Horsefly wrote on 6/20/2009, 12:17 PM
Hello,

I might sound Elementary, but I am having trouble trying to place an image onto a plate thats a little shaky.

A scene involves focusing on a radio running without power, and I want to place a digital reading on the display, but it seems a lot of incrimentation in the keyframe to keep it stuck to the one place ( If this makes any sense ) ?
Is there any way I could anchor it to a specific point on the plate and it will then follow the movement automatically ?

Thanks for any advise offered.

Glenn

Comments

baysidebas wrote on 6/20/2009, 12:45 PM
Any reason you can't reshoot the radio?
Horsefly wrote on 6/20/2009, 1:16 PM
Aye, the CB was lent to us for a prop for only a few days.
I have found a small section with the least shake, sliced it and dragged up to max, but even using the velocity , its still hard to make it look organic and not tacked on in the keyframe pan and crop.

Thanks though.
richard-courtney wrote on 6/20/2009, 2:01 PM
You need motion tracking software. There a free trial for
voodoo (http://www.digilab.uni-hannover.de/docs/manual.html#download)
and syntheyes. (try it but no output)

Then you need a 3D graphics program such as Blender (Blender.org) or
trueSpace (http://www.caligari.com/downloads.html).

You put your reading on a plane and have the software move the plane about.
The output will be a series of numbered still photos that you can group import
into Vegas to composite.
Horsefly wrote on 6/20/2009, 3:07 PM
Thanks for your help.

I was hoping there would be some kind of simple solution in the pan and crop, like using an anchor point for it to stick to.
In retrospect, I should have shot it with a tripod, but it was such a small segway in the scene that you forget how crucial they are.

Will try the demo of the software you have recommended.

Thanks again.
Former user wrote on 6/20/2009, 3:24 PM
What would it look like if you froze the scene, basically make a still by setting the velocity envelope to zero.

Dave T2
farss wrote on 6/20/2009, 4:55 PM
Find someone with After Effects, preferably CS4. The motion tracking is what you're after. For any motion tracking software to work you do need ideally 4 points that it can track. With something like a CB radio you should be OK.

How long is the shot. If it's only short the file can easily be sent to anywhere on the planet pretty simply.

Bob.
GregFlowers wrote on 6/21/2009, 10:36 AM
You could first stabilize the footage using something like the Deshaker script. That might make hand tracking the digital display a little easier. Not ideal but could be done as a last resort. How long is the clip? The best way as already stated is to use motion tracking software like in After Effects.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 6/21/2009, 11:17 AM
deshaker or a pay program to remove shake. If it's a small clip (ie under 100mb) put it on a site & I'll make a stabilized one for you!

Voodoo motion tracker is free, not a free trial, FYI.
Tech Diver wrote on 6/21/2009, 4:29 PM
Boris RED is great at motion tracking and corner pinning where all the scalling, translations and rotations are beautifully handled. There are many instances where you either don't want to deshake or can't because you want to pin an image on an object that's moving in your frame of reference.

Boris RED can be downloaded as a free 14-day trial and I think that Boris FX can do this as well. As I recall, Boris offers a special price for Vegas users.
alltheseworlds wrote on 6/21/2009, 8:21 PM
Use a still image of a radio and chromakey the background,
Rory Cooper wrote on 6/21/2009, 11:14 PM
I agree with alltheseworlds

Just take a still snap of the steroid radio and then gently slow pan in with a PIP
Copy keys for pan and past them for your PIP tracking ,the motion will be constant for your PIP and RADIO
Greenlaw wrote on 6/21/2009, 11:33 PM
As a post effect you should also add some animated grain or noise to the still image that matches your moving video footage. Without this effect, stills tend to look like still images even with panning and zooming added.

Greenlaw

--
Greenlaw
Little Green Dog
www.littlegreendog.com

Greenlaw
Senior Digital Artist
Rhythm & Hues Studios - The Box
www.rhythm.com
Horsefly wrote on 6/23/2009, 11:11 AM
Thanks indeed for all your advice,
I will look at some of the stuff mentioned in detail,
Problem with using a still is that the actors hand is twiddling the knobs in the shot, and as I am only using a SD camera, the closer I crop, the worse the picture is. The bit I sliced sown with the velocity would be great , but even dropping down the opacity of the digital layer over the radio plate, still looks like itsa stuck on.
I could not get on with the trial of Boris, but after effects is slightly more appealing, I have CS4, so I am intrigued by that idea.

Again, thanks.

Its only a small scene, but a big learning curve.

Glenn
jabloomf1230 wrote on 6/23/2009, 11:15 AM
But since you have CS4, why not try Mocha and After Effects. Mocha is a planar tracker that comes free with CS4.
JohnnyRoy wrote on 6/23/2009, 11:37 AM
> But since you have CS4, why not try Mocha and After Effects. Mocha is a planar tracker that comes free with CS4.

Ditto... if you have After Effects CS4 and Mocha this is the best way to pull this off. Go to the Mocha web site and watch the tutorials. It takes some getting use to but it will do amazing planar tracking that point trackers like those in Boris and AE native can't touch. I've changed the sign on the front top of moving school bus as it rounded a corner and Mocha maintained perfect aspect as the sign turned. I've also added labels to objects in a scene that I shot hand-held and you would swear the labels were stuck on the objects. Prepare to be amazed!

~jr
jabloomf1230 wrote on 6/23/2009, 7:31 PM
JR,

Did you upgrade to V2.0? Mocha is easily the most impressive piece of video software for the money. It's too bad someone can't figure out how to use the Mocha AE tracking txt files in Vegas.

JB
JohnnyRoy wrote on 6/24/2009, 7:17 AM
> Did you upgrade to V2.0?

Yes, I couldn't resist the offer. Mocha is just pure "voodoo" when it comes to motion tracking.

~jr
jabloomf1230 wrote on 6/24/2009, 10:10 AM
Yeah, me too. Unfortunately, I've gone off on tangents with it, because you can 'erase" unwanted moving items from your video. I've yet to figure out all that it can do. It's funny, when you watch some of the tutorials, even the "tutors" seem amazed by Mocha's abilities. The other thing about it is, it doesn't bog down a quad core PC too much, with all it's shenanigans. And it has hardly ever crashed or locked up on me, at least under Vista x64. I suppose that you could use the Mocha standalone version in tandem with Vegas, but the price is bit steep for that version. SCS should look into whether Imagineer Systems would develop a Vegas version, if the Vegas SDK even allows it.