TOOLS/ KNOWLEDGE

Dive into the world of 3D tracking, where multiple cameras work together to precisely follow and locate objects in your scene.

Our script is a fork of this script from Uwe Sassenberg. But it did not always work correctly and we tried to fix it + we added Focal Distance to the camera lens and then rewrote it to Focus Distance.

You need to specify the Focal Length attribute for the search, if it is not automatically detected or not as it is in reality.

3DEqualizer`s Script Database has a similar script, but when testing it with different footages, we get some errors, as well as some functions were not very convenient. We wrote our own version.

The interface and functionality is exactly the same as in the metadata tab of Nuke, so you won’t have any trouble using it.

 

When you change a frame, the data is updated automatically, no need to restart it, you can check if any parameters have changed (for example, focal length or focus distance).

The Search works, you can choose where to search in the drop-down list.

 

The script can be found in the Options tab. You can also add it as a panel via the Config tab.

The idea for this script came at a time when it was necessary to make edits to different projects that are in different folders.

The script is located under 3DE4 → Favourites Project and presents three options:

– the first item opens the main window of the script

– the second item adds the current project to the saved list

– the third item opens the last project from the list (it is important that it is from the list, not the last project that was opened). It is convenient when you remember what project is there and open it immediately

 

The main window of the script looks like this:

The list shows all the projects that are saved to the “database”.

 

This part of the window allows you to work with the list.

You may find the necessary project (by name or comment). Open the selected project (opens with a buffer by default, but you may disable it) and delete the selected project from the list (not from the hard disk).

 

This part of the window, allows you to save the current project that is currently open. It is also possible to specify a comment (saves to Project Notes and the list).

When the EXR section is added to the camera, go to Curve Editor → Edit→ Extract Focus Distance from OpenEXR Metadata.

 

A new window opens, where you need to enter the attribute that contains the focus distance.

 

The script itself will initially try to find it if the attribute is called focus or something similar. But sometimes the name can be different, so you need to check the metadata itself in Nuke or any other software and make sure everything is correct (especially with new material when you don’t know exactly what the attribute is called). If the script didn’t determine the right attribute or determined it incorrectly, then we write it in manually.

 

Also it is necessary to check in what units the focus distance is specified. By default, this is meters.

After you press OK, the old curve will be deleted (if there was one) and the new one will be written.

To check, you can check a couple of frames to make sure everything went well.

Basic data – parsing from vfxcamdb

 

Select the desired camera in the list. You can use search.

You can also try to get the camera model data from metadata (at beta-testing stage)

Then a new window with the size of the sensor will open.

Choose the one you need and insert the height or length. Before that, it is important to correctly set the pixel aspect for the correct calculation of the Passive parameter.

It is possible to update the database, so we propose to update it with all possible cameras, including phone cameras.

Send us checked data to e-mail – we’ll add them and assemble the coolest and most complete VFX Cam DB!

Located in the viewer

 

Change Calculation – When clicked, disables or enables the point(s) for calculation.

Change Direction – When clicked, changes the tracking direction for the selected point(s) to the opposite direction (without affecting Forward&Backward mode. From Forward→Backward and backward).

You can set shortcuts to these scripts

 

The script is located in Export Project → Nuke Camera and Lens.

Simply performs two actions at a time, first exports the lens, then the project itself (using the standard scripts from the package 3DE4, no changes).

 

In the Path field, specify a folder where to save and the same specify the name, using the pattern “name_version” (without extension).

The result will be two files: name_track_version and name_lens_version.

 

Important: The first frame is set from 3DE4, from the field First Frame is Frame, you can not specify manually, if you need something else, then change there.

The script is located in the main program window.

 

It works simply: the script window displays a list of cameras for which the replacement will be made (only Camera Type – Reference Frame).

Choose a new path to the folder with the files and click Replace.

Awesome!