Forum: Poser - OFFICIAL


Subject: Using video to help with animation/keyframing

Danakinobi opened this issue on Apr 26, 2013 · 9 posts


Danakinobi posted Fri, 26 April 2013 at 7:57 AM

Attached Link: Animate with keyframes

Not sure where to start.  So I thought I would start here...   I want to use video footage of a model dancing to help with animating my character in poser.   I saw part of a tutorial that shows someone super imposing video footage of a model moving around and the animator using this to keyframe the character they are animating.

Does anyone know how to apply the video footage either to the background or super impose it.

Here is the youtube video that shows this technique... 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9LjalYLGQE

 

But they don't explain how they get the video footage in the scene or superimposed in the background.


markschum posted Fri, 26 April 2013 at 9:46 AM

There is a movie node in poser that will do what you want. I dont remember if it will show in preview though.

 

There are a few free apps that will pull a still frame from a video. You may need to make some still images to apply in poser .


Artelis posted Fri, 26 April 2013 at 10:00 AM

File / Import / AVI Footage...

You'll probably want to switch off the ground plane, or it'll obscure half of the video.

It also seems quite fussy about the AVI you choose, you may have to experiment / convert your footage to use a supported codec (no clue which those are, sadly).


PhilC posted Fri, 26 April 2013 at 10:47 AM

If you can not get Poser to display the images frame by frame in preview you may want to consider this Rotoscoper utility.

http://www.philc.net/Rotoscoper.php


Danakinobi posted Fri, 26 April 2013 at 7:47 PM

Thanks for the help everyone.   I had to use Sony Vegas to render the video into an AVI that worked...  

For anyone interested, I have attached a screen shot of my settings. 

 

I'm still going to tinker with the resolution a bit, but at least this worked and I did not get an error.

I'm using windows 7(64bit)

Poser is also 64bit


Danakinobi posted Fri, 26 April 2013 at 7:49 PM

OH, BTW, how does one switch off the Ground Plane or make it transparent?


PhilC posted Fri, 26 April 2013 at 8:16 PM

Select the ground plane.
Look in its properties panel.
Uncheck the visible box.


DarkEdge posted Sat, 27 April 2013 at 7:37 AM

Ctrl + g

Comitted to excellence through art.


Morkonan posted Sat, 27 April 2013 at 8:29 AM

Just a note:

Several years ago, there was a short discussion thread about a program that was used for "kinesiology" (Study of movement) in sports, particularly in training.

The program was free. But, it wouldn't be interesting, except for this little bit - It could import a video file and then create a BVH file from it.

I tried talking the developer into porting it over for use in 3D animation, but no luck. (Needed some extra capabilities, IIRC.) But, from what I saw and read of it, it could have been used for animating any Poser character, given that you have a BVH file editor. (There are several free ones out there, mostly used by the Second Life fans.)

I have the proggy archived, somewhere, but never messed with it. But, it'd be perfect for your project.

Also, there are "pay" programs that will render out BVH files from video feeds, without the need for a motion-capture studio. Yes, they'll probably require a bit of tweaking and, perhaps, some camera tracking stuff. But, if it saves you a lot of time, that's money! :D The workflow shoudl be relatively simple, I'd imagine. (ie: Load the vid and place your markers, name your bones, tweak as necessary, export motion-captured-animation. :D )