neil poppleton Posted December 29, 2009 Share Posted December 29, 2009 We have a new project in the New Year where we need to shoot over a town with a camera fixed to a helicopter and then montage a new structure into the footage. If anyone has completed such a project and would like to pass on any tips / mistakes to avoid, when getting the initial helicopter footage I would be grateful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommy L Posted December 29, 2009 Share Posted December 29, 2009 Oooooo, Im not jealous at all. Do you get to go along for the ride? (sorry, no tips, except to make sure its on a steadycam rig or something similar) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neil poppleton Posted December 29, 2009 Author Share Posted December 29, 2009 We do get to go but I will be sending Stuart. I went on a helicopter earlier in the year and do not enjoy flying...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommy L Posted December 29, 2009 Share Posted December 29, 2009 Lucky Stuart. I shall be expecting a 'Photo of the week' contribution... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chad Warner Posted December 29, 2009 Share Posted December 29, 2009 One of the best tips that someone gave me was "limit your shots to 10 seconds or less." Unfortunately for us, we've had clients that want one continuous shot that lasts for 30 seconds or more. It's much easier to get a good track from footage that is shorter in length and doesn't cover a whole lot of ground, so what we did as a workaround was create different segments of camera tracks from the same overall footage and fade the different sections together, that way the new building stays in place, but it looks like it's one long constant flight path. Also, try to get the highest resolution footage you can even if you know you won't render at that resolution. It makes it much easier to track. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
strayrender Posted December 29, 2009 Share Posted December 29, 2009 I have worked on night and day tracks, so hopefully I can give you some advice. - Are you planning on doing zoom shots?. If so they are trickier to track, I would keep them to a minimum. - I prefer my footage to not be interlaced, by that I mean no fields. - The footage does not have to be completely steady. Of course if you can that's ideal but you can always stabilize the footage right at the end. Remember never use software to stabilize footage beforehand. Always do it on the tracked and comped clip. - What software are you going to use for tracking?. Remember when tracking to take into account lens distortion. - As mentioned HD footage is the best to track even if it's not the final deliverable format. If you have any questions along the way do not hesitate to ask. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ky Lane Posted December 29, 2009 Share Posted December 29, 2009 Yeah, make sure you hire a camera/camera person who uses the highest def possible, and get them to open the frame by 10% (meaning zoom out a little bit) so you can steady the shot later and not lose edges. Whatever you do, insist you go up i the chopper too, it will give you a great perspective, and if you can, take a GPS logger with you and record the choppers track.. its cool to place it into the scene later to guage things. Can make things one helluva lot easier later! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neil poppleton Posted December 30, 2009 Author Share Posted December 30, 2009 Thanks for the tips guys.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT Posted December 30, 2009 Share Posted December 30, 2009 tips as mentioned already really. we've just completed a sequence like you're going to attempt. we had aerial footage over a derelict site in the middle of town, where we had to montage and match in the new development onto the site. try get the highest res footage you can (ours was 1920 pixels), using the best camera and smoothest action you can. luckily for us the footage was shot on a nice sunny day, where wind buffeting was an absolute minimum, and colour/contrast was superb. limit your long shots. intersperse them with shorter sequences if you can. try to avoid zoom shots to make your life easier. you then need a program like syntheyes to camera match your footage to your animation path. then you need excellent rendering/lighting skills to get a perfect visual match of your development to the footage. all this takes a fair bit of 'on-job' testing, but can work wonders if done correctly. we're most happy with our results and will post them up in the beginning of the new year with a tut possibly. but whatever, you need a fair bit of testing, experimentation and accuracy to pull it off convincingly. if your camera paths dont match even close to accurate then the whole thing will look obviously wrong. it all gets amplified. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neil poppleton Posted January 4, 2010 Author Share Posted January 4, 2010 Thanks Strat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hie5 Posted January 4, 2010 Share Posted January 4, 2010 tips as mentioned already really. we've just completed a sequence like you're going to attempt. we had aerial footage over a derelict site in the middle of town, where we had to montage and match in the new development onto the site. try get the highest res footage you can (ours was 1920 pixels), using the best camera and smoothest action you can. luckily for us the footage was shot on a nice sunny day, where wind buffeting was an absolute minimum, and colour/contrast was superb. limit your long shots. intersperse them with shorter sequences if you can. try to avoid zoom shots to make your life easier. you then need a program like syntheyes to camera match your footage to your animation path. then you need excellent rendering/lighting skills to get a perfect visual match of your development to the footage. all this takes a fair bit of 'on-job' testing, but can work wonders if done correctly. we're most happy with our results and will post them up in the beginning of the new year with a tut possibly. but whatever, you need a fair bit of testing, experimentation and accuracy to pull it off convincingly. if your camera paths dont match even close to accurate then the whole thing will look obviously wrong. it all gets amplified. Sounds like Sound advice to me Cool! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noise Posted January 4, 2010 Share Posted January 4, 2010 I think there is a section on this in one of the 3DATS books. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leed Posted January 5, 2010 Share Posted January 5, 2010 As Strat mentioned we have just finished a shot like this... Have e read of the tips for shooting here. http://www.ssontech.com/learning.htm there is a lot of good advice about sooting tips to make tracking easier..... We found the Zooms are difficult.... and subtle movements (where there is a small amount of Paralax) can take a bit longer to get a good track out.. Always get the best footage you can though ... as mentioned HD progressive, from a steady cam... if possible... If you can get on site before the flight try setting up some large grid on the ground... some markers that are measured out..... big bits of cheep white cloth pinned to the floor or something... to help with distances and object origins and axis of models ... or if there are trackable bits on site get in there and measure them.... the more info you have the better... Good luck Lee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neil poppleton Posted January 5, 2010 Author Share Posted January 5, 2010 As this is a tall structure I did think about a weather balloon, on site to judge the height and make sure we did not clip the top of the structure. Having never commissioned such a balloon, does anyone have any contacts, experience. The site will be in the North of England, but I guess any company in the uk would be helpful, thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leed Posted January 5, 2010 Share Posted January 5, 2010 As this is a tall structure I did think about a weather balloon, on site to judge the height and make sure we did not clip the top of the structure. Having never commissioned such a balloon, does anyone have any contacts, experience. The site will be in the North of England, but I guess any company in the uk would be helpful, thanks. I would not use a balloon it will wave about.... you do not need the height info really ....you need a good lock to the floor.... the height will be the model.... I guess it may be worthwhile to test the paths first on a block massing type model in the computer... there is no saying you will be able to recreate the path exactly in the helicopter but it might give you some good guides as to best views and paths needed... take the test along with the pilot to talk through your requirements... But I would concentrate on the lock on the floor. or the relationship to other buildings if you can not see the floor.... again get as many measurements as you can. it will help the alignment and scale of the tracking Lee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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