Hi, I need a little help.
I have some real life footage, and I want to add an object into it. I have done motion tracking with Icarus and I have it all modeled and stuff like that, but I can’t figure out how to composite it.
All I want to do is put a video behind my scene. How can I accomplish this?
I rendered a screenshot to help answer your question but there is a javascript problem with the site right now that prevents me from loading any images.
Using the composite nodes you would combine a render layer node with an image node via an alpha over node. Since you want your geometry composited over the top of your movie then you would connect the image output noodle from your render layer to the bottom image input of your alpha over node and vice versa for your image node. If you want any of your movie to show in front of your geometry so that your model appears to be somewhere in the middle ground of your footage, as seen in Colin Levy’s camera tracker tutorials(www.peerlessproductions.com), then you’re going to have to use keyed or rotoscoped footage (maybe both). Keying is possible in Blender but as far as I’m aware rotoscoping is not although given time I’m sure the developers will integrate this process into the UV/Image Editor.
Sometime within the next few years I do believe that there will be a mass exodous of professional level animators and compositors to the Blender platform due to it’s sheer power, versatility, and PRICE.
Thanks!
Just one problem. Blender has suddenly stopped letting me import images for no apparent reason. I click ‘Load image’, select my file, and hit ‘Load image’, but it doesn’t load! Am I just retarded?
You may already know this but, sometimes it is a two-click operation (on the Load button) to load a file. The simplest way is to use the MMB to click the desired file and it will load immediately.
A very lot depends on how the animated objects need to interact with the footage. If the objects are strictly “in front,” you can just layer them over the top and you’re done. But if they need to appear to move in Z-space, that is to say, in-front-of and behind things, then some form of masking is necessary.
There are two ways to achieve the masking. One is the video/film technique of “chroma-key” or bluescreen, where a specific color is selected and pixels of that particular color are replaced with information from some other layer. Here, the masking information comes from the video footage.
Another way is to generate your own mask and apply it to the rendered material, shaping the mask (“by hand, if necessary,” and it often is necessary…) to fit the footage.
It is, no matter how you do it, a painstaking and exacting process.
Did you enable the movie button in the textures buttons? It’s located on the top right corner of the pallet labeled “Image”.
You may already know this but, sometimes it is a two-click operation (on the Load button) to load a file. The simplest way is to use the MMB to click the desired file and it will load immediately.
Not workin’.
Did you enable the movie button in the textures buttons?
Yes.
It is, no matter how you do it, a painstaking and exacting process.
Ya, I figured… Thanks for your help!
Have you tried rendering a single frame from your animation to see whether the movie shows up in the final output? Bringing a movie into your scene isn’t the same as using a background image. Since you’re only wanting to composite geometry in front of a movie file here is a screenshot to show you how to do this in the nodes compositor. Please excuse the blue halo around the spheres as I am using this image to respond to another post also. The spheres are the geometry node or “renderlayer node” and the buildings are the movie node or “image node.”
I forgot to put it in the screenshot but there is a button at the bottom right corner of the image node that allows you to use the image as a movie. Enable this and then adjust the settings in the dropdown menu that appears. You may have to play with it a little to figure it out, but this method definitely works and I have been using it quite a bit lately.
Apparently I didn’t make myself clear. Blender cannot load ANY FILES of ANY KIND at the moment. At the Blender.org forums someone said they saw this happening with other Macs. It’s not that they don’t show up on the render, it’s that they don’t load into Blender in the first place.
Seems like a rather unique problem. Have you tried re-installing?
You could also try one of the CVS builds.
