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From: khdownes1
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  • my right ear...is...lonely now ;( why you soo evill!!!

  • Maya live plugin is not in the newer versions of maya :/ you have to use matchmover meanwhile :(

  • Great! but.... how to render all this? I mean, i've tried to render but i can't see the video in the background... also i dunno how to put the shadows... :)

  • Comment removed

  • it doesnt centre around the centre origin? any idea

  • Do you have any idea why the point constraint doesnt work, its rotated 10 in the z?

  • Maya just looses the track point after every 2-3 frames because my video is not deinterlaced, Can I track every point manually and get the same result ?

  • awesome THANK YOU God BLESS you....

  • well done thumps up :)

  • Dude. Awesome tute.

    I'm gunna have to go play now...

  • Do you happen to know how to import tracking points into Maya 2010? I dont know how to make it work with the video

  • Does Live come with Maya, or is it a plugin?

  • hey man, great tutorial. I've been trying to do it but mine always crashes before it finishes tracking, Any ideas why?

  • this work on maya 2011?

  • yes its seems Maya Live has been replaced. Its no longer found in the Plug-in loader. Matchmover is a standalone application that does Maya Live functions. There arent many tutorials yet about Matchmover. If you could make one on CREATING COORDINATE SYSTEMS, that part is a little confusing. been looking for tutorials but there isnt any...

  • Thanks for sharing this!

  • Still haven't found Maya live yet,

    but I want to ask,

    what would I do if the grid you put the box on wasn't where I wanted to put it?

    if I were to put it somewhere else besides the blue grid would it still work?

  • Maya live isn't in my plug-ins, where could I get it?

  • @ampcorp I'm pretty sure it should be. I haven't used Maya in a while (Have to use cinema4D for work), so I can't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure it comes with current versions of Maya.

    What version of Maya do you have? Maybe someone else here in the comments can help you.

  • @khdownes1

    Well I have the 30 day trial version of Maya 2011, so maybe that it's the trial version. I did however notice that when I installed Maya it also installed another small program (which is compatible with Maya) called Autodesk Matchmove. Maybe that does something similar?

  • @ampcorp Okay, it sounds like they've replaced the maya live plugin with Autodesk Matchmove. It probably works better and easier than maya live, I'll have to look into it myself some time.

  • @ampcorp Okay, it sounds like they've replaced the maya live plugin with Autodesk Matchmove. It probably works better and easier than maya live, I'll have to look into it myself some time.

  • @khdownes1

    kool thanks! ^^

    hope it works the same! this is a great tutorial!

  • well nothing much to say than good work done

  • @khdownes1 Where do you work?

  • were do you get maya live for maya 2011 this is not included in software?

  • really useful tutorial. thank you... I've a silly question... why, when i upload the image sequence, if i move between frames i see only the first frame of the video?? thanks a lot

  • Thank you - This is the best tutorial I've found on Live. Recently, Maya has been crashing when I do a final solve for the point constraint. It crashes at 10% progress, the window reads "smoothing" . .. I can't figure this out. Running 2008 on Windows XP. Any ideas?

  • nevermind! Got it working now. Thanks again for this!

  • Thank You

  • good tutorial :)

  • How can i render my tracking?, when try it it simply disappear!!. Help please!!

    Greetings and great tutorial

  • hey dude pm me me back, for one! How did u move the grid around, and when u pressed solve how did u enlarge the top right screen, how did u choose one point at a time, it wouldnt let me, it chose just one then if i chose another it just switched to that one, and when i finished it, the video screen moved around but the the graph plane point thing didnt move at all.. please help!

  • hello please help me achieve and get the images in Maya now happens to me when I give Star Track brings me this error "/ / Error: / / Failed" in the scrip editor and get a window tells q progress and then closes What should I do? please help me (I do not understand English very complicated speak Spanish and I've been trying to understand the tutorial more than 1 month and stay in certain parts I'm there, thanks for the help

  • in your video there was a tape(radio) on the the table, can you plzz tell me how can i put my 3d image at the back of that tape..... plzzzz reply i am very confuse about that

  • hello I put the images in Maya now I have the problem with the move trakedpoint1 not left I can do? thanks

  • hello, I have a problem do not know how to put the video, which is supposed to verce the video look a green box with a yellow x in the middle and not see the video, which I have q do? (I have a little bit difficult because I speak Spanish and do not quite understand the video that I did it with google translation lol) thanks for your help =)

  • thats alot of work to do compared to after effects, bojou is much better i guess...

  • hello, I need your help, what happens is that when I put the video in Maya is not only looks a cuadroverde with two X-shaped lines of yellow and only displays the video at frame 63 said please thanks

    hola, necesito tu ayuda, lo que pasa es que cuando meto el video en maya no se ve, solo se ve un cuadroverde con dos lineas en forma de equis de color amarillo y solo se visualiza el video en el fotograma 63 responde por favor, gracias

  • Omg is this Alex Ritvetski?!

    omg if it is this is such a 1 in a million coincidence

  • hey khdownes1, great tutorial. I have a problem uploading a video at the beginning. I have the avi file ( video ), but it comes up as an error. Might you know what I am doing wrong

  • @catsolo9 You can only load in an image sequence, read through the comments on this video, I've explained it to like 50 other people how to do it.

  • @catsolo9 Hey, I just wrote an explanation of what you need to do in the video description (although it doesn't seemed to have updated yet)

  • @khdownes1 Thank you. Don't know why I couldn't figure that out, when in fact I did, but there was a glitch in two of my folders. Went ahead and executed the same, and the sequence was there. Thanks again, sorry for the bother.

  • Great video

  • hi, i have a question plz when i track , maya only track me like 3 secs of 17 secs, how can i track all the video plz =) ?

  • really cool tutorial, just wish the video was a little high res

  • wow dude, your voice is really good voice for tutorials, its not boring and i kept with it and never dozed off. good job, great tut :)

  • haha, wow.

    I cringe every time I hear my voice in the video, it's so croaky sounding.

    Maybe it's the Australian accent that helps.

  • Hi,  thanks for the tutorial. Im using matchmover 2010. I already autotrack the movie, send it to maya.. open it.. place an object but when I render it.. only the object will move along with the camera (the movie will not play) do you know why? what am I missing?? thanks

  • Comment removed

  • Thanks for that great tutorial. Could you post the project file. My files are not working.

  • ive absolutely gotta try that. wow i hate it when something that is crucial to be tought in school isnt. and then i just surf maya and find something as amazing as this.thank you very much

  • Can anyone help me? I followed this tutorial and it was great. got exactly what it would look like. i added a cube then rendered out the frames and composited them in after effects.

    heres my problem, when i play it through maya it looks so perfect like theres no problem with the tracking or camera what so ever but when i composite the frames its jumpy. as if the camera is jumping around. not a lot but very noticable. anybody know why? did i render something wrong? please help

  • I had a similar problem originally.

    If you are working in PAL format (ie. your comp settings are set to 25 frames per second), After Effects still defaults to NTSC (30FPS) every time you import something.

    Right project assets, in AE, right click on the image sequence you have imported and click on the interpret option.

    You need to make sure the frame rate is set the same as your comp settings.

    Alternatively, it may be that your maya settings have been set to a different FPS.

  • thank you for the reply it helped a lot. great video btw it was really helpful

  • Thanks for the great tutorial! But I've got a problem, when I create a trackpoint, who do I move it? Because I can't move it with the move tool. (uses mac os) Can you give me a tip? Thanks!

  • Class Video. It took me 3 days to figure out that you need to use certain name file for Maya I use this NAME.#####.iff NAME is the name of the file you are calling it then a dot . then the hash symbol to represent the number of frames, then dot again and then iff or png or gif or whatever. If I render a frame here in Maya, I can't seem to get anything on the render shot except the square that I added!!! Help. I have After Effects.
  • Hey Guys can someone help me, how do i render it with the image sequence?

  • @Itachigreeneyes In Maya, press f6 for the Render Tab, then go to Render-> Batch Render. Before that u need to set the settings in render settings. First go to the render settings, change the Frame/animation to "name_#.ext" then set the starting and ending frames. Maya will the save the sequence wherever u set it to save. Hope this was helpful

  • hey thx alot that was helpful

  • sensational tutorial

    thank you....... thanks a looooooooot

  • download cs4 torrent and use adobe media encoder

  • Hey Guys! Does anyone know how to render an image sequence? I only see my 3d objects not the sequence when rendering :C Help pls!

  • Check your manual but I believe maya will render your alpha with the 3d sequence and you will need a video software to compose them

  • Thx, that helped, I use after effects for compositions now

  • To create an image sequence you'd need to open your video file in a program like Adobe After Effects and export a file sequence. PNG is a really good type, though jpeg is good, too. What programs do you have? Send me a message and I'll help you out :)

  • thank you man!

  • Yeah, I'm new to this, um image sequence? how is that made, what type of file is that?

  • if we need a character to walk on the road or bushes do we need to track the background first then animate the walk or animate the walk then track the footage background could you answer plz thanks

  • Comment removed

  • Thank you very much, I don't have After effect. But this tutorial is very helpful. Thank you!!

  • after effectS

    :)

  • I know, I forgot to put the "S".

  • Excellent!

    Thanks very much!

  • awesome tute, thanks

  • Is Maya Live smart enough to fill in the gaps when tracking points go off screen and new points come into shot? I need to do a shot where the camera tilts down in a doorway to reveal something on the doormat.

  • Also, this tutorial is fantastic! Thanks!

  • Yes you should be able to track a panning shot like that as long as you  always have at least 10 or something track points on screen at any one time.

    I guess all you can do is give it a try as best you can, and see if it works.

    There have been some shots I've tried that I couldn't get to track properly, and just could not figure out why it wasn't working.

  • Oh, nvm, Sony Vegas exports like this.

    lol. "too-torial"

  • how do you split a video into images, and at what fps? I find it very sloppy of them to only accept images instead of reading the video and treating frames as images...ugh

  • It is not sloppy to require image sequences, it is quite the opposite.

    Whereas still image formats like jpeg compress an image by grouping pixels with neighbouring pixels etc., video codecs compress pixels by averaging them across time as well.

    This can cause big problems with tracking.

    Also, with an image sequence you don't have problems with interlacing fields and stuff.

    Theyre actually forcing people to be less sloppy with their workflow.

    Remember: it's not sloppy just because its unfamiliar.

  • Great tutorial, but I have hit a snag.. When I solve I do not get the same results as you. The plane, the trackpoints and the camera all shit to a different position but draggon across the timeline doesn't show the camera and the plane moving around.. just the trackpoints.. any idea what I am doing wrong?

  • Ok never mind, solved it. One question remains though. Are you suppose to render the scene WITH the image plane? And if so, how do i include it to the renderer? Cus im not getting the plane in there.

  • No, you should never render out with a background image.

    You should instead render out just the 3D elements as an image sequence with an alpha channel (apply a "use background" material to the floor plane, to get shadows with an alpha channel), then use after effects to composite it over the top of your original video footage.

    That way you have the freedom to adjust the colour grade on the 3D elements to match the footage more or render out an occlusion pass and multiply it on top, etc. etc.

  • Ok but what if im using a glass? Without a background image the glass is almost completely black.

  • I'd suggest rendering it without the image plane, then composite the two together in Aftereffects.

  • ok i couldnt get this to work at all... When i press solve the first time my camera just moves to a random place and it doesnt simulate at all. Its exactly like the initial1 but at a different location.. help anybody?

  • i've created a new tracking point but the problem is i couldn't select the tracking point and put it in the desired place. Can any body help me please.

  • you have to press the green button with the red arrow on it in the tracking meny

  • thank u dude. went further the exercise according to this tutorial but while tracking am not getting the blue plane surface as if shown in the video.

  • maya live is the best for tracking...

  • where did you get the program.

  • there will be in maya 2010 an integrated high end matchmove

  • I've gotten red yellow and fixed the points to green. I've gotten plenty of Blue..... Does that mean perfect? is it better than green?

    Also i tried to solve when my bars were mostly green and blue with a little yellow here and there. and they all came out red. this was with only 5 points. should i use more track points? someone have any ideas?

  • that was AWESOME!

    thank you for sharing your knowledge!!!!

  • this is an useful material

  • man the tut is great , thanx , BUT there is a problem , THE image SEQUENCE DOESNT APPER IN RNDERING , only the objects , i tried to tun of the cache , it didnt work , only the objects apper in the rendering , but not the background (the plane ), help plz

  • That the Image Sequenze doesn't appear in rendering you can not change I think. But this should not be a problem. My proposal: Render the matching object with Maya and after that add the rendered images and the sequence (movie) together with a simple movie editor. The result is the same.

  • this was just extremely helpful thanks alot man keep up the good tutorials :)

  • Where would the tracking points be for "awesome" demo at the end?

  • ..and for image sequence, you can convert your mov or avi with the use of avi to png converter..just google it....and yes after effects is always there.

  • Hey Khd, thanks for the great tutorial, i'm having a problem and was wondering if you can help. I cannot move the track point. It's stuck.

  • Hey, sorry if I'm not super helpful here (I haven't had the chance to use maya in my job much lately, so I cant remember everything off the top of my head)

    But I think the reason you cant move the track point is because you are in object mode rather than vertex mode or something. I think this same thing happened to me and it took me a while to notice I had changed the selection mode.

  • You need to click the little green crosshair thing. Then you can move them.

  • Hi, great tutorial...

    i've tried importing an image sequence but it doesnt show up??! it just shows a green box with yellow cross in the middle...ive tried hitting 5/6/7 but nothing works...any ideas? cheers

  • make sure the files are saved correctly, 0001 , 0002 etc...

  • Hmmmmmmmm,good

  • Comment removed

  • Does anyone know a safe fee avi to png converter?

  • Okay i figured out that...

    #1 But now I can't render the motion  track..?! WTF? It wont render along with the animations,, why?

    #2 Whatever I do, the camera wont move around when i solve it. What can I do tp make it move?

    Please help me.

  • When i try to load my image sequence, the output window works fast as hell, and it takes like an hour to load each picture. Litarelly.

    Any help here?

  • hi.. i could not do it, im mexican and i do no understand very well english.. you can say me the name of a web site witn a tutorial.. thancks.. help please.

  • great vid. I do alot of maya but mostly use key framing to do the tracking. Glad to see a good tut on the subject.

  • I am having trouble, i have a wmv video and when i import it onto the camera it is just blank and see though, when i render from the camera i just see black and nothing else. I have also tried using a avi format but that is also not working. Do you have any idea what is causing this?

  • You need to use an image sequance. Open your Avi. or Wmv in After Effects and remder it as a PNG. sequence. Then you can import the first image and it'll come up as a movie.

  • is maya live a maya plugin, or a separate software? plz reply.

  • Maya Live is a plugin, it comes with Maya.

    You can see at the start of this video I explain how to load up Maya Live by going into the plugin manager.

  • Mayuh.. lol

  • LOL. ya its pronoucned my-ah! not mayuh!

  • maya word is a sanskrit word(indian) and it means illusion....everything you see has been created..just an illusion not real. For eg. earth, trees, animals..all are created by god. So that makes god an animator! :)

  • we are all like god in some way

  • Cool tut

  • Thanks for your help! Quick and easy for me in a pinch!!!

  • The guy helps you out and you make fun of his accent. Classy.

  • Glad it didn't work perfectly the first time so that, we could see what to do when certain problems arise.

  • do you or anyone else have problems with image sequences in Maya for Mac?

  • I kinda did until i used JPEG

  • my suggestion for you that you should use TIF file format so maya will show up properly.

  • WOW! Great tutorial. Very interesting and useful. Thanks a million.

  • Fantastic man, you should create a proper quality tutorial on Live track like digital tutors, digital tutors didn't create anything on live track yet.

    Jay

  • You really know your stuff. A superb tutorial! Thanks.

  • how do you convert the movie to maya?

  • OMFG THAT WAS AMAZING at uni we been using Max and Syntheyes but what concerned me was getting the ground to stick properly I mean we track it and stuff but like I wish I knew about this before that seemed so good considering I'm a Maya guy

  • Nice tutorial dude... But i am using 3ds max to track and i am still not getting it right... I am really frustrated... can you help me get some good tutorial links ..... Please

  • wowowowowo

  • what type of file is the video you import into maya because i try to bring in either a wmv or avi but it wont let me

  • read the other comments on this video, I've explained it 10 times already.

  • hey can u tell me what r the minimum requirements for PC to do this (so that it render smoothely n easily etc etc)

  • Sorry, I can't really tell you what minimum requirements are appropriate.

    I mean, it all depends on how you're rendering (ie. using hardware rendering, or using mental ray, global illumination, ambient occlusion etc.)

    At the moment, I'm using a e6600 core2duo processor with 2gb ram.

  • that helpd me.

    :)

    well i have 2GB RAM.

    but im using old processor hehe.

    what if i wanna make somekind of..

    erm.

    very realistic 3D animation.?

    4GB.?

  • As I said, I really can't tell you.

    I doesn't matter that you have a slower processor, all it means is that it will take a little longer to render.

  • aigght man thanx a lot.

  • hey, thanks. I'm about to use maya live for my first motion tracking project for school, so i'm just orientating. This is very usefull.

    Cool voice and accent by the way :D

  • Hi Kyle!

    Great tutorial! Thanks! I followed it successfully. One question: can Maya Live be used successfully to bring live action (subject/people on a green screen)into a 3D world, like in Sin City, or Spy Kids, as opposed to animating 3D objects in the "Real World"? Any suggestions on how to do that with Maya Live would be great. Do you think it's only possible with Boujou added?

    Thanks!

  • I don't see why you'd need to use motion tracking to place people in a 3D world.

    Unless you wanted to camera to move I suppose.

    In that case I guess it would be done exactly the same as in this tutorial. Film the actors on a big green screen and put some white bits of paper or something all around the greenscreen for tracking.

    Then just create the 3D environment, instead of a 3D object, render it out, and plonk the actors in there using After Effects or Shake to key out the green.

  • my maya live does not take in mov format. How come i cannot import a video ??

  • Read all the other comments in this video, I've explained exactly what you need to do to like 10 other people. Hope it helps.

  • Thanks, man. This was a big help. I didn't even know Maya could do that.

  • Thank you very much

  • Also, it's like I can't select the "image plane" where the video is, only the camera. Can someone send me or post a simple MB file with video or something??? I'm at my wits end here...

  • Also, when I render, I can't see the Maya Live background (I only see the cube). What am I doing wrong?

  • I think there might be an option in the image planes/backgrounds attributes.

    Try open up the outliner and select the maya live image plane (I dunno what it is labelled), and look for the render options for it.

  • I know it's something stupid...I just can't figure it out....Maya is so frustrating some times.......WTF...I just want to render my stupid scene.......

  • in your live controls :: left drop down, change that to 'Setup' :: click the radio box next to Cache :: then uncheck 'Use Cache'

  • Is there any perferred diagram/design that the tracking points need to be? They are tough to see in this example? Do we just pick 9-10 points arbitrarily?

  • You need to pick a point that is well defined/high contrast from surrounding areas.

    Thats why I chose to film this on a patterned table cloth, because it has a heap of spots like that.

    Track points usually also work well on the corner of things, if it stands out fromt he background.

    Just keep playing around with it, you'll work out what works well pretty quickly.

  • must it be an image sequence? What format can Maya live import?

  • Has to be an image sequence, to my knowledge that's the only way to import the video to maya live.

  • is there another way to import avi, mpeg, wmw file into maya without using Maya Live? But still can use motion track maybe in another mode?

  • no.

  • cool stuff. i prefer using Shake or pretty much anything else for camera tracking but it's good to know this i suppose.

    Head over to my youtube account or website for the start of an entire series of 60+ vids covering Maya from interface to advanced topics if you like. : )

  • Hi

    I forgot to ask,

    when you're doing realistic 3d integration, which renderer do you use?

    Mentalray? or you try to accomodate with maya software?

    Could you give any advice, because whatever I try I just can't get the right rendering and lighting effect...

    I watched a couple of studio max and it seems so easy, omg.

    :P

    thx mate

  • For the quickest and easiest method:

    Use mental ray, set it to production quality THEN check Final Gather. Then create a plane with the use background on it.

    A better way:

    Render out as render layers render it normally, then do an occlusion render, and do a geometry matte render.

    Then combine them together in after effects/photoshop using track mattes/layer masks, overlays and multiplys etc.

    I might do a tutorial on that once i've finished my major project.

    Till then cant explain much more.

  • Thank you soooo much for that tutoriiialll! :) it's awesome and saved my life :D hAhah incredible :) thanks a lot pal!

  • It's weird, I tried setting different track points on the footage but Maya seems to stop trakcing and lose the point after a few frames, even when I keep clicking 'start track', it won't go further.

    is it possible that a poor quality of footage (old camera) might interfere with the tracking quality?

    thx

  • There are a few possibilities I think;

    -The footage is bad quality (too dark, not enough contrast or something etc.)

    -could be to do with interlacing confusing maya, try deinterlacing the footage.

    -You may be moving the camera too fast when you filmed, so motion blur is causing the image to distort and maya is no longer able to make out the track point.

    You can overcome some bits by positioning the trackpoint yourself for a few frames, then let maya take over again.

  • Thanks for the headsup, I filmed another shot and it worked not so bad

    But now one more little question if you don't mind (see next comment post, Im exceeding characters limit)

  • I tested a simple sphere on a plane (which has Use Background material assigned

    WHen I do the preview render, the plane which is supposed to be 'invisible' is still a white plane in the preview render; however, the alpha channel preview indicates me that the image has correct alpha, so it will be alright after then final rendering.

    But I would it to key out the alpha right in the preview window so I can adjust the object material to match the environment. How can I do that ?

  • hmm, that's interesting, I don't think I've ever had that happen.

    wait...

    I think I might know: Use Background materials automatically have reflectivity on them. You need to turn "reflection limit" down or something like that, if I am remembering right.

  • I believe (if using after effects) if you import your .tga sequence (or whatever), you should import it with the options: Premultiplied, matte with a color of 100% black... That's my guess any-who?

  • yep, pre-multiplied with whatever colour matte is appropriate.

    Also, one thing to keep in mind; After effects always defaults to American ntsc settings. So if your video footage is PAL format, you will need set it to interpret the footage as 25 frames per second.

  • Thanks for the assurance... I'm mostly a 3D artist and have been beating my fucking brains out wondering why I always had to import 2 layers per image sequence... My dumb ass (until yesterday) would import it once normally, then again with alpha flipped (some shit like that?)...Anyhow, this damn issue has came to an end! Yippie-Yay! It was really nerve racking and looked WAY fucked up if I imported chrome or other images with an HDRI reflection... AGAIN, Thanks for setting that in stone..!