ZBrushCentral

Tracking Artists needed !

Community
#1

Meteor Studios, Montreal’s largest visual effects facility, offers a stimulating work environment; a milieu for creativity and productivity, and design allied with the latest technology from which emerges images of superior artistic quality.

We are currently looking for Tracking Artists for a live-action stereoscopic feature film project.

Contract dates : NOW to June 30th, 2007, with a possibility of prolongation

Requirements:

  • Strong experience with Maya and Renderman
  • Knowledge of particles and MEL scripting
  • Stereoscopic and feature film experience an asset

Please note that Canadian citizenship is not required. We will cover the cost of your work permit.

Please submit your resume and demo reel to [email protected]

You can alternatively send a copy of your demo on VHS or DVD to the following address:

Att: Recruiting
Meteor Studios
1751, Richardson – suite 7200
Montreal Quebec
Canada
H3K 1G6

#2

Hi, if you don’t mind me asking. What is a tracking artist?

Thanks!

#3

Motion tracking/camera tracking. You can use that also for set extensions which I was involved in. Like extending a the back of a garage into an airplane hangar. I did a whole lot of tracking with Syntheyes recently. Check out http://www.ssontech.com/. Maybe I even help out on the booth this year at Siggraph. Unfortunately I don’t know MEL good enough to be confident to sign up with ht eguy’s here 8(. Darn. If it would have been XSI or C4D you’d see my vapor trail 8).
Lemo

#4

Is that the same as matchmoving?

#5

Ditto to what Bill asked???

#6

Yes it is. To bad I never learned mel…Boujou is the Bomb, and I have long debated about buying syntheyes. I don’t really need camera tracking at home though.

#7

Just don’t confuse it with motion capture (MOCAP).

Mocap is used to capture the movements of an actor, and to then translate that data onto a CG character for animation or other purposes.

Match moving, camera tracking, etc., are names for a process that takes 2D- footage (either video or film) and creates a virtual 3D camera based upon the original real camera. This Virtual camera and the 2D footage can then be imported into a 3D scene for set extension, matte painting, anything 3D that has to be matched to a live action plate.:wink:

#8

MOCAP is actually nothing else than a twist on Matchmoving. I am referring to the optical MOCAP. There is also the motion capture technology based on gyro’s and angular encoders, that’s not the technology I am thining about. Basically all optical methods fall under the term ‘Photogrammetry’. Photogrammetry is geometry on steroids. The difference of reference points (trackers) along a few shots and their relationship relative to each other is used to calculate(solve) a 3D set of values representing their real location in 3d space. If you add real measurements for one edge, you can actually measure anything visible on the frames you fed into the system. Also cool for accident lawyers… I use Syntheyes a lot to integrate 3D objects into photo’s. I just take three photos. Then I load those as image sequence into synteyes, manually set some trackers and the system generates a 3D scene with Nulls where the trackers are located. All takes about as much time as it took to write this sentence. Using the nulls/trackers I can set a floor, identify corners in 3d space. All without headache. Of course the system can devour hundreds of frames to enable you to have a monster fly through your living room. But just using it to establish correct perspective is great.
Now, if you apply two different cameras and their footage then you can use Synteheyes as MOCAP system as well. I contemplated using Boujou but the company was a pain in the neck during evaluation and Russ from ssontech.com is bending over backwards to get you going. Easy choice there. And… did I mention the fact that syntheyes is actually about 30 times cheaper than Boujou…
Lemo

PS:Here is another cool product working on the same principles:
http://imagemodeler.realviz.com/products/IM/index.php?language=EN

#9

And photomatch of the free Google Sketchup can’t make the trick also?
Video 1 2 3 :rolleyes:

#10

It’s a neat toy Frenchy Pilou. The moment you have any sort of lens distortion (99% of the time in reality) all those simple tools fall over backwards and run away scared.
Lemo

#11

Sorry to hijack this thread, but I have some YouTube vids of examples of what I do with motiontracking (for those that don’t understand what it is):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7ojP6OoHfg

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpbthhJen3A

Many of the models were built with zbrush, and then animated in Maya (tracking in Boujou, compositing in after Effects)

#12

Thanks everyone - now I understand. I’m just now wanting to start into animation and I’d been baffled by some of the terminology.

Thanks Meats :+1:

#13

Meats,

You made my day :+1: Awesome stuff :+1:
I’ve got a couple of extra cats laying around if you need them - My wifes cats that is :roll_eyes:

#14

I was the original hijacker. :slight_smile: Hopefully the fine people of Meteor Studios won’t mind us keeping this thread at the top of the forum.

Thanks for the info Meats.

#15

…the place! :smiley:
(there are also some meat’s video on the right :cool: