Icarus Import Script for Blender 2.41

[Deep_Thought]

Hi All

After many messages requesting the script, and permission from the creator, Alfredo, I have uploded the script!!!

It is here:
http://members.dodo.com.au/iaina/ICARUS_import241.zip

Please have fun with it.

With Love

DT

[solhex]

Hey DT how's it going with Icarus, done any testing yet? I'm keen to find out how folk are getting on with hand held shots in Icarus. I've done about 20 tests ranging from genteel camera movements to frenetic camera work and I still haven't finalised a method. I have a tremendous problem rendering motion blur on a camera with 3d motion data. I'm wondering if the same has been true for any other users.

[Calvin]

Wow, Finally someone updated the script. Thank you so much!!!

Hey DT how's it going with Icarus, done any testing yet? I'm keen to find out how folk are getting on with hand held shots in Icarus. I've done about 20 tests ranging from genteel camera movements to frenetic camera work and I still haven't finalised a method. I have a tremendous problem rendering motion blur on a camera with 3d motion data. I'm wondering if the same has been true for any other users.

Tip of the day...
Cheap cameras don't have a constant focal point, if you switch the settings to variable focal point, IT will help allot when calibrating.

As far as motion blur goes... I've also had problems with it. The reason why is because icarus gives off TOO much data. If you know that the camera doesn't tilt or rotate or zoom or doesn't move a certain direction go into blender IPO and delete all the extra curves. You could easily tell which data is useless, because the curves look pretty constant. That should solve all the motion blur problems. (well, at least it solved all my problems)

[solhex]

Thanx Calvin that helps a lot. Blur we go again.

[Friday13]

Originally Posted by Deep_Thought After many messages requesting the script, and permission from the creator, Alfredo, I have uploded the script!!!

Note that you can also contact the creator (Alfredo de Greef) here (see eeshlo) instead of e-mail. Thanks for convincing him to update.

(can a moderator move this into Python & Plugins? it might be nice if others knew of the updated script)

[Excitron]

I've been curious about something for a while. How do you use motion track data in blender when you can't define a film back in blender? I recently got Syntheyes, which has an export script for blender, but I don't understnd how you go about calibrating your virtual camera in blender to match your real-world equivalent. Any help in clarifying this is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[Deep_Thought]

Hi there Excitron

I haven't really tried using Icarus much, But when I use Voodoo, I just import the .blend file that it exports into Blender, and It seems to work pretty well.

The exported data seems to make the camera the way it should be, but I do get some problems sometimes, which could be attrubuted to that. Especially from Icarus, which seems more acountable to that sort of thing.

Lots of people have asked me for the new Icarus Script, so someone on here should have some tricks up their sleeves......

Having said that, when I used to use Maya a bit for this, I set the film back (for DV footage from my canon camera) to 1.333 x 1.000, which is just the aspect ratio of the footage. I found a tutorial somewhere on the net about how to set a DV camera up in Maya, which is actually quite difficult.

It would be great to see a few more high-end VFX-friendly features in Blender. Maybe a bunch of us need to lobby the developers.....

[Calvin]

Originally Posted by Excitron I've been curious about something for a while. How do you use motion track data in blender when you can't define a film back in blender? I recently got Syntheyes, which has an export script for blender, but I don't understnd how you go about calibrating your virtual camera in blender to match your real-world equivalent. Any help in clarifying this is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Actually you can define quite a bit in Blender. The Frame Rate, Aspect Ratio, Frame Size. (Note: Icarus does alot of this stuff for you.)

As far as calibrating your virtual camera, the whole point of icarus to figure out how the camera moved and translate that info into a virtual camera in Blender for example.

[Excitron]

>>As far as calibrating your virtual camera, the whole point of icarus to figure out how the camera moved and translate that info into a virtual camera in Blender for example.<<

It may be a moot issue for reasons not obvious to me at this time, but technically if you can't replicate the film back, you shouldn't be able to realistically lock your 3D scene up.

The reason for this is the relationship of the optic to the film back. While it can be argued that, say, a 5mm focal length on a video camera with 1/4-inch sensors would be the equivalent field of view of a 35mm optic on a 35mm camera, and while they would create similar fields of view, the images would be optically distorted differently. This would complicate an optical lock.

Hence the need to match the virtual camera's film back AND it's virtual focal length to the real McCoy. While this can be done in programs like Lightwave and Maya, it cannot be done in blender. Technically, just setting the aspect ratio and the focal length (which is all you can do in blender) should NOT do the trick. After all, what film back is blender assigning it's virtual focal lengths by?

Now as I said, there may be something I'm missing here that makes this argument moot, for as I said there's export scripts for various matchmovers for blender, but I wonder if you can hit a brick wall with certain processes. Specifically, set extensions, and of course moving ones at that.

While I haven't had an opportunity to try all this out yet, I'll be getting up to speed soon on a project, so I'll face the music and dance, and see how well I can boogie with all this. I've heard nothing but good things about Syntheyes, and hope to put it through all it promises to do.

I would be interested in knowing what kind of matchmove projects you folks have done specifically with blender and (whatever) matchmove software, and what success or compications you've run across. Info like what types of matchmove scenes you were/are working on, what cameras used, etc., would be helpful.

Thanks for your replies.

[tom_soderlund]

Hi,

Is there any documentation on how to use Alfredo's Icarus Import script, and has anyone used it successfully with later versions of blender (I have 2.46).

Regards,

Tom.

[Roger]

i think colin levy has his documentation still on his website peerlessproductions.com

[chin24]

Is there a python import file for Blender 2.48?