I calibrate just like the guide says, then I go to the T position. I align the character with the video. If I do "Analyze Appearance," it seems to work as it should. Then, when I click "Refit Pose," and everything goes crazy. The character will move into a folded position or into a giant "x" or some other weird pose.

I read on another thread that if the character's feet are below the ground plane, it will cause these problems, but lately I have been positioning the character a hair above the ground plane, just to make sure.

I follow along with the video tutorial, and everything works exactly the same for me, until I hit "Refit Pose."

Any ideas?

Thanks--
Mac

Possible causes of this problem:

1) Incorrect calibration. Please check your calibration video. Do you have more then 50% good (green) points?
2) Do you have a ground plane defined during calibration? If not then you need to turn off "Enable foot tracking" check box. Foot tracking requires correct ground plane for foot-to-ground collision.
3) Incorrect scale. Please check the scale of your camera configuration relative to actor height. Is it consistent? You can try experimenting with different actor height to fix the problem.
4) No clear background in captured video. First 1-2 seconds of video should contain clear background (no actor). This is very important for tracking to work correctly.

I recommend that you send me your video so that we could debug the problem. I promise that we'll only use your video for debugging and will not disclose it to third parties.

Thank you for your quick reply. I will send you the video and other files. It will be tonight (CDT) or in the morning before I can do that, as I am moving studios today. But let me try to answer as many of these causes as I can:

1. CALIBRATION -I got 100% green points on my calibration (I can send that as well, if that would help.)

2.GROUND PLANE - I do define the ground plane, but as my character has no legs, (the final character for the actual project. The character in ipi does have legs) I do not enable foot tracking, since that information will be discarded anyway.

3.SCALE - This may be the problem. I just make the little man in ipi the same size as the person in the video (the actor).

4. BACKGROUND - I hung a solid backdrop behind the actor in all 3 camera views. He (me, actually) is wearing red gloves, a dark gray T-Shirt with a green, long-sleeved shirt underneath, blue jeans, and black shoes. So the background is a solid color, and each body part is a distinct solid color as well.

Thank you so much for your help.
--Mac

No no no. We are talking about different things. No matter what backdrop you use, you still need to have first 1 or 2 seconds of video to show clear background (no actor). Please see our tutorial video for an example of how it should be: http://www.ipisoft.com/animation/tutorial-src.zip

When actor comes into view of cameras on your video?

That is exactly my problem. On this captured video that was for production, I DO NOT have the 3 sec. of background plate. I have that on all other video I captured, but this footage is lacking it. I am now beginning again, srtup, calibration, - all the steps exactly as written. I will post back the results.

Thank you so much for your help.