So, I've got 3 seperate videos, how do I put them all into the program and set them up?

Since you provided very little information, I'm going have to assume you shot the videos using three separate DV cameras, without using iPi Recorder. To get the videos into iPi DMC, you will need to composite the three movies into a single movie file using a layout and format that iPi Recorder outputs automatically.

I've done something like this in the past using Eyeon Fusion (to rearrange to order of video cameras, to clean up floor reflections, and other problems,) but you can do it in After Effects and most other compositing package. For specifics about the layout and format, you can download their sample movie and you can match that. (I think it's basically three to four videos side by side at 640 x 480 or 320 x 240 pixels). You should use a codec wth Motion JPEG to save whole frames of data.

In my opinion, you may run into too many problems to make doing the above worth the effort. For example, unless you used special hardware, the video streams may not be perfectly synchronized to frame accuracy, and unless you shot progressive frames you will have video fields to deal with. These are some of the things that can make motion tracking more difficult.

It's much easier to plug in inexpensive PS3 cameras into a computer and let iPi Recorder do all the hard work for you, and the result will be superior data (at least as far as iPi Studio is concerned.) In my experience, the PS3 camera work significantly better for iPi Studio than more expensive web cameras.

Hope this info helps. :)

Greenlaw

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Greenlaw
Artist/Partner - Little Green Dog | My Demo Reels (2013,) (2015,) (2017,) and (2019)

Watch a one minute excerpt on Vimeo now!

I can only say that I totally agree with Greenlaw.

Thank you so much. Would you suggest that I buy a PS3 camera, or something else?

Use the PS3 cameras. I looked for others but nothing has the possible frame rate of 60 per second. Most cameras only have 30 or less which is good for web cam use where you want to see very clear skin tones. And some have auto focus which will make them unusable. The only thing that I did find is high speed lab cameras that go up to 240 frames per second at like 2 grand each.

I agree; the PS3 Eye camera is excellent and, amazingly, it is the least expensive choice. When I first started using iPi Studio over a year ago, I was using the Logitech camera which was recommended at the time. It worked well enough, but it was a lot more trouble to set up with multiple cameras and it cost two to three times more than the PS3 camera. Even worse, the resolution and frame rate was much lower than what you get with the PS3 Eye Camera.

On my current system using four PS3 Eye cameras, I am easily capturing four synchronized streams of video at 640 x 480 at 60fps, with absolutely no dropped frames. Compare to the Logitech cameras: 320 x 240 at 30fps with occasional dropped frames. To be fair, I was using an older computer back then, but I also wasted a lot more time tweaking the Logitech cameras for best performance; with the PS3 cameras, it's literally plug-and-play.

Trust me, at $30 per camera, the PS3 Eye is an unmatchable bargain!

I'm seriously thinking about adding two more PS3 Eye cameras as soon as I'm finished with my current iPi Studio mocap project.

G.

_________________
Greenlaw
Artist/Partner - Little Green Dog | My Demo Reels (2013,) (2015,) (2017,) and (2019)

Watch a one minute excerpt on Vimeo now!