Boujou camera export / 3DS out of sync problem

[roel018]

Hey folks,

I'm struggling with a very annoying problem. I'm trying to learn the tricks of camera tracking (in Boujou v4) and exporting it to 3Ds Max (v9) .. My tracking works out just fine in Boujou (the test object renders and positiions in perfect sync with the footage, so all okay uo to that point. Now, when I've imported the camera sequence into Max and do all the stuff the online tutorials tell me to, I end up with the footage in the viewport background and my 3d testobject (in this case some 3d text) set up all correct in the scene.. Now when I test this in Max itself (so without rendering) it works out just fine and the 3d scene seems to align and sync perfectly with the footage.. The problem arrises when I reder the scene (with the footage set right the environment map).. It wobbles like I don't no what.. ! It's completely out of sync..

Now, I'm pretty sure I've set the right frame rate both for Boujou and for Max so I'm pretty sure that's not the problem.. The video footage is suitable as well (since it's the tga sequence that come with the Boujou tutorials).. But still.. I can't get it to sync correctly in the render output.. I'm trying to fix this for DAYS now but I'm getting pretty hopeless here.. I feel like a complete noob (wich in fact I am on thos subject) because other guys seem to get it.. But I just don't get it!!!..

I've included the Boujou Project file, the Camera export and the Max file (as well as the tga sequence) to see if some of you outhere can detect what the h*ll I'm doing wrong here.. I would definitely appreciate any help because this issue is causing me some serieus short of sleep..

Also, I found out that this could have to do with Aperture settings, but I'm guessing I set up evrything just the way I should

Boujou:
Film back:
Width: 0,79213 (inches, in mm it's = 20.12)
Height: 0.59409 (inches, in mm it's = 15,09)
Pixel aspect: 1.0667
Frame rate: 25
Ratio: 1,25
Resolution: 720x576 pixels


Max Render settings:
Width: 720
Height: 576
Aperture width (mm) : 20,12
Image Aspect: 1,334
Pixel aspect: 1,067


Hope someone's out there who'll be able to help me
Thanks all you kind folks for any suggestions / advice!

Roel.

The RAR containing the project files: http://www.roelkrottje.nl/3dsmaxfiles.rar

[ragupasta]

From first look your camera solve is questionable. The camera move in this scene is very, very broken. Its needs some serious smoothing. Its kinds hard to check the matchmove without the image sequence

I suggest smoothing your camera motion out inside of boujou before you export it.

[roel018]

Originally Posted by ragupasta

From first look your camera solve is questionable. The camera move in this scene is very, very broken. Its needs some serious smoothing. Its kinds hard to check the matchmove without the image sequence

I suggest smoothing your camera motion out inside of boujou before you export it.

Hi there! .. Well, the sequence can be found in the RAR file in the tga3 folder.. But about the smoothing, if I place a test object inside the Boujou environment it works out just fine.. It's in 3DS Max where the trouble starts. Besides, I follower complete Boujou tutorial instructions (in the help file) to track this tutorial-provided footage.. So it should have tracked it correctly I suppose.. I'm not sure..

Roel.

[ragupasta]

Hehehehe, I have a folder called tga's, so thats why I didnt see it. Ive got to go out now, but when I get back, i'll have a good look over the files and see what I can see. After looking at the image sequence the camera move is very shaky anyways, so the matchmove camera might not need smoothing.

Heroblob on this site is the matchmoving guru, although he uses Syntheyes, but im 100% sure he can help you better than the rest of us can.

[roel018]

Ok well thnx so much in advance!!!!
Btw, I dropped the guru you mentioned a note so I'm hoping he will show up in here to give me a hand as well

Thnx!!!!
Roel.

[Heroblob]

Hello Roel,

Unfotunately, I don't use Boujou or 3ds max, so I don't know how much help I will be. However, when things are not synching up, the first thing I check is if everything is starting from the same frame number because, sometimes, the footage might start at frame 0, and the camera animation might start at frame 1 or vice-versa. So have a look and make sure they're both starting on the same frame. If that doesn't fix it, can you post a video of the final render so that I can see what's happening?

Cheers.

[roel018]

Hi !!! Thnx for showing up in here =)
Actually, i shot my own footage yesterday and I did so by using all the right protocols, and it (how amazing) actually worked!!! .. So, no matter what I do, I can't get it to work with the by the Boujou tutorial files provided demo footage, but I can get it to work with my own footage. So what I ended up with is a meteor crater impact (I did the Video CoPilot Meteor tutorial) on top / inside of my desk .. It looks pretty cool really haha.. Anyway, the camera matching worked.. I'm guessing it had to to with a non-matching framerate because now I made sure I set everything to 30 fps (max -> boujou -> max) and this turned out to work fine.

Anyway, thanks guys for your advice!!!!
Roel.

[harold1261]

Hi there,

Finally i have found some help online over here !
However, I am also still having the same issue. and I have tripple checked all of the above. It is also my own footage.

Since this Thread activity ended, have you perhaps come to any other conclusions / advice you could help me out with?

Hope to see the activity rise again.
Thanks in Advance

[ragupasta]

Can you give us a screen shot from inside Boujou. I need to know what envirnment you shot in, and any other information you can give. Its kinda hard to try and solve issues without specific information. Your information and scene would be very different from the one in the above posts.

Cheers.

[harold1261]

Hey,

i`ll give you a brief rundown on my workflow.

- Put a slight blur on my footage & export as a jpeg sequence.
- import in Boujou, and select Track Features, in the options I`ve choosen to only track the green channel, And i`ve turned up the sensitivity a little.
- Check the Camera settings to match my Footage FPS (25fps)
- Select Camera Solve, and tick both checkbox`s for the Advanced Solve Refinement.
- Add my Scene geometry accordingly. (see screenShot attached).
- Select a couple of "flag for export" points (see screenShot attached).
- Then F12 (export) scale scene by 100, & check Flagged tracks only.

Scrubbing the timeline within Boujou, the track looks perfect,
But my issue is, Once i import my .ms file into 3dsMax 2010, the result is on the right path, but still wiggles quite a lot.

I have tried various advise aswell, like adding Target Tracks, Tracking all channels,Not blurring the footage, ect. but all with the same result.
Looks great in Boujou but shakes like mad in Max.

Thanks For your assistance, and look forward to your soonest response.
Cheers
H