Attached Link: http://www.travisbain.com.au

Hi folks, I want to make a "Sky Captain"-type short film, i.e. I want to shoot my actors against greenscreens and composite them into a virtual restaurant set using After Effects and a matchmoving program (maybe PFHoe or Syntheyes). Vue 5 Infinite looks like a good program for me to create my virtual set. Any tips/thoughts on how I should go about creating my virtual set?

Unless you will be using locked-off camera angles (and by the sounds of it you're not) then you will be needing another application to juggle camera movements about. None of the camera matchmoving applications offers Vue scenes as an export option, you will need to have Lightwave or Maya or somesuch and use one of the plugins to transfer camera moves from there. If you're very, VERY lucky, you MIGHT find that the demo version of Lightwave might suffice. Say matchmove in PFHoe, export to LW scene, open the scene in LW Demo and use the plugin to synchronise cameras. You never know ;)

What if used a locked-off camera with no pans or dollies?

Then you have no need for matchmoving software, and your job is about 300% easier :D

Message edited on: 01/07/2006 19:03

So say I wanted to use a locked-off camera and Cinema 4D to build my virtual set, where, in your opinion, would be the best place for me to get my models and textures? Turbosquid? Dosch Design? Marlin Studios? Any suggestions? I want to aim for photorealism, so I'll probably use Maxwell to render the whole shebang.

maxwell will kill your render times travoose, its seriously slow just so you know, great realistic looking renders but the slowest renderer of them all.

Haven't looked at Marlin Studios (I'll check it out after this) but both Dosch and TurboSquid have good models. I'm sure you could also enlist someone in the "Jobs" forum to help make models and sets - just be up front about pay-or-no-pay (guessing no-pay). If you do VERY SLOW and CONSISTENT dolly left or right, even a little in or out, you can move your background in After Effects very convincingly without matchmoving software. Just don't try handheld or you'll drive yourself nuts! It can be done, but that's a LOT of Advil we're talking about! And about Maxwell - seen stuff on their site, looks great - but what if you already have the Advanced Renderer? Maxwell isn't Earth-shattering compared to stuff I've seen of AR... Shouldn't Maxon's AR be the equivelent, or is there something special about Maxwell that AR can't do? I only ask because I have the XL Bundle now (w/AR) - though I realize this is about to throw this thread off topic, so maybe if someone could tell me in a PM that would be great. I think I'm gonna throw this one into the C4D forum as well...

If there's not THAT much difference between Maxwell and AR, I'll probably use AR so I'm not in a nursing home by the time my renders finish :) Depends on the results of my test shots.

Rather than risk matchmoving slow pans by hand, I would render a scene wider than I need it, then pan that scene after it's finished, using AE to scan across the larger static image. As for the initial rendering/modelling, any of the big names will do this satisfactorily, its purely a matter of preference and familiarity. Some renderers might be slower, but overall if you're familiar with the package you will get the total job done quicker just because you know the rest of it so well. Also, don't forget for most static shots you'll only need to render out one image rather than one per frame.

That's what I meant for the AE work - just make a wide still frame and you can match it pretty well to a steady dolly shot. Hand held matching (again, using a rendered still shot in AE) is much more difficult, but can be done. Locked down shots - easiest on the planet!

Sounds good to me, although in a future film I'd like to try compositing live actors shot handheld into a fully matchmoved outdoor 3D enviroment created with Vue. The rendering times would be diabolicaly but I'm sure the results would rock if done correctly. Oh, and DMM, I just took a look at the Syntheyes user manual and it CAN export to Vue (albeit with some difficulty).

Actually, what you COULD do is make a static shot (locked down camera, still frame 3D matte - even animated environment but a still camera) - render it wider to give yourself some room on all four sides as mentioned before, composite your characters in the environment, and create the handheld jitter in AE. That'll save you the headache, and you still get the handheld feel.

"I just took a look at the Syntheyes user manual and it CAN export to Vue (albeit with some difficulty)." Oh yeah it can be done with any of the matchmoving programs - with difficulty ;) Its usually a matter of exporting camera data to Lightwave or Maya or something first, then using that to synchronize camera movements.

hehe - I'm reaching for the Advil just THINKING about doing that process.