Forum: Vue


Subject: Please explain Matchmover uses and limits

joemccarron opened this issue on Nov 30, 2006 · 11 posts


servo posted Thu, 30 November 2006 at 11:57 AM

Matchmover isn't designed to be a photo-modeller, it's a "match mover"... in the industry, this means taking real-world film or video footage, tracking a large number of 2D points on that moving image, and the using the data from those 2D tracks to mathematically compute a "virtual camera"  that closely approximates what the "real world" camera that took the background footage was like in terms of position and movement.

This is useful to have because once you have a matchmoved "virtual camera", you can then add rendered 3D objects of your own that will seem to be in perfect synch with moving backround footage.   You would most likely use it when attempting a special effects shot merging foreground non-real 3D object(s) with a real-world moving image background.
Without a proper matchmove, your fake foreground objects would "float" ... not moving in proper synch with the motion present in the background footage.

You provide the models and the rendering engine of your own, usually through a package like Maya, Max, Lightwave, Vue, etc.  What matchmover provides is an amazingly good 2D tracker and 3D camera calculation for them.