Camera Tracking

Camera Tracking is a process in visual effects which allows you to match the movement of the recorded camera and recreate it in 3d.This allows you to add CG elements and make them look like they are integrated in the video.

The software i have been learning to use is called PFtrack by the pixel farm. This is the software i used last year when we had to integrate 3d with live action.

Here are some screenshots of the step by step process to a basic camera track.

In this screenshot you can see three different windows, one is the file browser on the right. The middle is where you import all your videos files into and the far left it your work space area. This is where you add different nodes like auto track, camera solve and so on.

This window shows you all the different nodes you can choose from like auto track and camera solve. All you have to do is click one of them and it will link its self to the video file in the workspace area.

This is where you mess around with different parameters inside the node, this one is auto track. I can go in and change how many tracking features i want and do i want better speed or accuracy.

This window is just an enlarged view of the setting on that node.

Once i have tracked i then insert and camera solve what will go in a use the data from the tracking features and recreate a camera that matchs how i video in the real world.

This is enlarged view of the parameters.

The next step is to go in and orient the scene this is very simple in pftrack and there are many different ways to do it.

This shows you the different features of the node

This window shows you how to orient the scene you can do it by using translate, rotate and scale. All you do it click the edit mode and change to a different tool. You can all so click and a point and make it the origin which is a must to orientate the scene and get better results.

The next and final thing to do is to export to a 3d software or composting software of your choice. Just go in a create a export node and export the right format.