Using the latest builds with a new computer

Greenlaw · **Posted:** Sat Nov 06, 2010 11:49 pm

Re: iPi Recorder 1.4.0.75 and iPi DMC 1.0.0.109, awesome updates! Congratulations to the iPi team for releasing another pair of amazing builds for iPi Studio.

Earlier this week we got to use iPi Recorder for a real production session (as opposed to doing another test session.) With the new software and our new computer (an HP Pavilion Elite quad core system with a Geforce GTX 260, two onboard USB 2.0 controllers, two USB 3.0 cards, a separate internal SATA 3 dedicated to video capture, and running with Windows 7 Professional) and four Playstation 3 Eye cameras, we are capturing 640 x 480 at 60 fps with absolutely no dropped frames. Yay!

This makes me want to get two more cameras and try the six camera setup but that will have to wait until we're done with this film. If we really want to get it done by mid-December we just can't afford any more distractions.

Today I was able to start tracking the performance video data. My calibration footage is about 3000 frames, and the new DMC tracked it in about five minutes. Even better, every single tracking point got the 'good' green rating, a perfect calibration! I remember when calibration with the first beta releases could take several hours, often with mixed results, so this feature has definitely come a long way since the early days!

Lots of wonderful workflow improvements in this version. Timeline snapping, setting In and Out points using the 'i' and 'o' keys, being able to step frames using '<' and '>', and toggling Play and Pause by using the spacebar are simple but significant features. They make DMC's operation more efficient and consistent with many video editing and 3D animation packages. It’s all about the ‘small things' isn't it?

'Takes' is another great feature. It was actually introduced in a previous build, but it's worth mentioning again because I'm making a lot more use of it now.

Right now I'm tracking one of the performances, and it's taking about 2 to 3 seconds per frame. This is a little slower than what I was getting before (about 1 to 1.5 seconds per frame) but I think the new shoulder tracking and improved accuracy accounts for the longer tracking time. I'll do a small test later but I'll bet if I turn off Shoulder Tracking, I'll get something closer to what I was getting before. (At the expense of improved realism of course.)

So far, the track looks quite good, and it appears I won't need to rerun any portion of it for corrections. I see jitters when I review the progress but I know that will go away when I click Jitter Removal after the initial tracking is done. FYI, ever since I set up our indoor capture stage, tracking errors haven't been much of a problem. If you are able to set up a controlled workspace (plenty of room, uncluttered background, and good lighting,) I highly recommend it. I'll post a short video tour of my workspace with specs very soon.

Some requests:

- Could we have a duplicate of the Refit Pose button on the Actor Tab panel; when setting up the T-Pose, I often switch back and forth between Refit Pose and Analyze Actor, and it would be more efficient to have these two buttons on the same panel.

- Batch Processing. I asked for this before and would still like to see it. Currently I'm tracking a 6200 frame sequence, and it looks like it will take about 4 hours. Granted, this is an unusually long session (and realistically, I could set Tracking Resolution to Low for most of it and just switch to High for the bits I really want,) but it would be nice to be able load several saved projects into a queue and run the job over night.

Thanks for listening, guys.

Can't wait to see this stuff targeted to the actual characters. I'll post more updates as we make progress.

Greenlaw · **Posted:** Sun Nov 07, 2010 12:23 am

Auto-saving at intervals during tracking might be good feature to add. Currently I'm pausing tracking about every 45 minutes or so, to check the quality of the track, and then saving the project before resuming the tracking. I don't think I've ever had iPi DMC crash on me, but with long sessions like this one, auto-saving could potentially save hours of tracking data when I'm unable to supervise the process.

G.

Michael Nikonov · **Joined:** Tue Mar 31, 2009 9:13 pm **Posts:** 805

Greenlaw wrote:

Auto-saving at intervals during tracking might be good feature to add. Currently I'm pausing tracking about every 45 minutes or so, to check the quality of the track, and then saving the project before resuming the tracking. I don't think I've ever had iPi DMC crash on me, but with long sessions like this one, auto-saving could potentially save hours of tracking data when I'm unable to supervise the process.

You should not bother clicking "Save" manually during tracking. iPi Studio auto-saves your project every 10 seconds during tracking. Auto-save was implemented from very first alpha version of iPi Studio.

Greenlaw · **Posted:** Sun Nov 07, 2010 2:06 am

Excellent! Nevermind then. :)

G.

Greenlaw · **Posted:** Sun Nov 07, 2010 2:22 am

You can see a silly pic from the iPi Recorder session in the November 7 entry of the Little Green Blog titled Acting!

G.

Greenlaw · **Posted:** Sun Nov 07, 2010 9:40 am

Hi,

Quick question.

I previously asked about the difference between Jitter Removal and Trajectory Smoothing, and the response I got was this:

Trajectory Filtering is on-the-fly smoothing:
0 - no smoothing
1 - slight smoothing (recommended for fast movements like box or run)
2 - medium smoothing (recommended for slow movements like walk or Wushu :))
higher values are not recommended (such hard smoothing kills original movements)

My question: When does Trajectory Filtering take effect? Is it applied during Jitter Removal, Tracking, or with either of these commands? In other words, if I change the Trajectory Filtering value, do I have to run Tracking or Jitter Removal again over my ROI to get the desired strength of Trajectory Filtering?

Thanks in advance for any help.

G.

Edit: I just found this info in Ian Chisolm's document:

Quote:

Should you get a decent capture, after of course saving the mocap file as a “final” version, you can now alter the “Trajectoy Filtering” value.

In the Tracking tab you will find two Trajectory Filtering buttons – Sharpen and Smooth.

These are instant settings, and are applied to the entire region of interest you have set. It doesn’t need to be “applied” to a section or be set during rendering or anything. You can see the results immediately by viewing the capture results on a setting of 1, then smoothing it to say 10 and viewing the results again. A setting of 10 makes a significant difference in the smoothness of the animation.

I guess this pretty much answers my question. :)

G.

Greenlaw · **Posted:** Sun Nov 07, 2010 1:35 pm

Tip: Make sure your pants aren't so long that they cover the heels of your feet. In the session I just completed, the toes were firmly locked to the ground but the heels would swing side to side a little.

Fortunately for Act I of the short, the characters aren't walking around much and the problem should be easily correctable. In our next session, I'll have to remember to roll up my pants cuffs a fold or two to reveal my heels.

G.

Edit: Rats! It's worse than I first thought. The swiveling heels caused by the 'long cuffs' occlusion is causing joints in the whole body to swivel. It's back to the stage for another session. Fortunately I have all the performances very well rehearsed by now so it should only take about half hour to recapture everything I need for Act 1. I'll post another progress report tomorrow.

Greenlaw · **Posted:** Mon Nov 08, 2010 7:42 pm

Had to reshoot the session twice this morning though. The first time I thought everything went well but then I realized that I shot the whole session in Calibration mode, so everything was underexposed. Oops! Shooting it the second time went very quickly though.

It was worth the effort: I learned that rolling up the pants cuffs to keep my feet fully visible definitely fixes the swiveling heel problem.

For Michael or Andrew: would custom rigs work better for different body proportions?

The reason I'm asking is because you have recommended scaling the default rig slightly taller than the performer's actual height, but when I do this I think I'm seeing more jitters in the result. Could this be because my torso is a little longer than average? I might be imagining all this so I will do another pass with a shorter rig and see if there's anything to this idea.

When I get a chance, I'll do a motion capture comparison test with my wife, who is the same height as me but has much longer legs and a shorter torso. Let you know how that goes.

Greenlaw

Edit: Nevermind. I completed a test using a larger rig and an actual size rig. The result was that the two rigs fit the performer differently (slight differences in joints placement,) but the tracking was no more or less stability. In fact, I think the joint placement for the slightly larger rig actually is a little better. So there you go. :)

Feet are pinned very firmly. Slight jitters when character is mostly still, but I don't think it's going to be noticeable in context of the shot. I did lose some subltle motion in the arms for part of the animation, which will be important because the motion was timed musically, but I think I can fix this in Animeeple or LightWave.

Greenlaw · **Posted:** Tue Nov 09, 2010 7:16 pm

I wanted to share an observation: Tracking forward seems to get you the broad strokes in a performance, and then tracking backwards picks up the details. Anybody else feel this way?

G.

Edit: Confirmed! Tracking backwards through parts of your performance definitely picks up small but important details, notably small quick arm movements like when playing a guitar, cowbell, and harmonica. Very excited as the quality of my tracking has really gone up today. :)

McWannabe · **Joined:** Sun Aug 02, 2009 10:57 am **Posts:** 107

I notice in your blog you are wearing what look like very white shoes (maybe white socks?)

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_B5Yf9kW35yg/T ... 105019.jpg

They really look white here:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_B5Yf9kW35yg/T ... Weirdo.jpg

Does that work better than black?

Are you wearing some kind of gloves also (in the 1st image) As we can set the color of the hands, maybe that would be a good idea (to wear white socks on the hands or something that would contrast with the long sleeve shirt?

I don't have a full green screen around the back (only partly), so ipi is going to have more of a problem trying to separate my body from the other stuff in my house.

I'll try in a few hours with my cameras lowered and in a smaller box, but maybe I should be trying for just getting the front, left and right (with all 4 cameras bunched together to capture a smaller angle) rather than a box where I could capture all sides?

Using the latest builds with a new computer

Who is online