HTC Vive Mars Camtrack - Virtual Production camera tracking for $5000?!

so then they found out that you know there there's a lot of things that um required in Virtual production that pretty much weren't there and and especially uh yeah it either even in the current market there's a lot of things that like uh long setups or you know you need a whole team to to to assemble and so then basically the mar team challenged themselves to create this product it was it would be simple to use easy to set up and then it would be Port uh it be accessible so then it would be afford so everybody can get their hands on that want to try out virtual production so then this is what they came up with you can zoom in there uh this this is the Mars uh Hub and then so right here you can see you're familiar obviously with the tracker and then you know the base station it's off same uh vrtech but then uh the Rover here is basically um giving it power but also this whole thing is um is IP bit so then here you as you can see ethernet is basically um they're sending the tracking data to the the Mar's M Hub and just like you were saying you know Bluetooth giving like yeah absolute pain basically everybody was begging to hardwire using Po and then this it's is plugged in straight to the computer everything's wired so so so then there the ethernet cable that goes straight into the e uh ethernet that goes straight into the uh the computer so as you can see it's really plug andplay because steam VR is in here so now you're offloading all that Computing off so say say it again steam VR is in there steam VR is in here it's customized so we strip away from you know hmd connection you know room calibration all these things that you don't need for um camera tracking Tri it all way and you don't need to update the MVR just kind of walk you through the features so you come toward me um so as I'm sure you observed right we have a gen lock signal and a Time code signal here and uh This Is the Gen loock cable uh that is coming from our gen 10 and then we uh we don't have a a Time code generator but but you could plug it in here and it will sync up the time code right so um yeah so that's that's like one major Missing Link of our tracking system we don't have the time data we don't have uh time not available right we we can't J lock in so now it's available right so um yeah we got that to work and then um so how does it work in in in your unreal so when you open a project right you you would want to you know you get the live link right so here's a if you do an ad source and click uh select message bus Source you'll see the ID for Mars The Source machine and after you click on that right you you'll see the three Rover signals that's coming in from the mar system so basically you don't there's nothing you need to do on your PC unit that's awesome yeah yeah and then so you don't have to run Steam VR at all you don't have to have installed nothing nothing yeah so that yeah that was that one major pain thing because steam VR took up a lot of CPU yeah right so it's going to like it's going to rob your frame rate for in your real engine so yeah so that that that was something that we wanted to do for the community and so let me show you how uh how how it works so right now we have in our scene there is a virtual camera and we already assigned a a robber this rer to the scene right so if you can look at the composite view in in the on the TV right you'll see that it's actually a line right so you me yeah it's okay I'll just move it around so is and if I set the camera down see it's it's very stable it's not jittering right and that's uh that's due to this uh very uh stable connection and also uh we also you know improve the tracking right with some additional layers so um it will meet more production needs right okay so let me show you how it works with the camera on the camera we also uh you can connect the lens encoder to the Rover so so you could uh pull Focus right to align the focus of your of your camera l to to the virtual camera so you can see in the scene if I if I if I change the focus here that's going to align in the in my map so there are three ports on the drover that so you could you literally you could assign uh install up to three three uh lens en coders on these 15 M 15 mm bars okay so so for just for Zoom focus and Iris yes yeah yeah so they have its own respective cords on for the USB so now it's on the focus focus Port got it so this so lift up this is this is the focus the focus Port yeah that's Iris and this is the each had an allocated yeah yeah yeah so that one is the what is it focal length the zoom yeah awesome okay so now when we're ready to right so what was the the first challenge when people start like aligning the their stage with a virtual scene you remember this when when when you would align you would just like kind of eyeball like I think I'm here no let me uh I do remember that right this right no no no no and then so you know that kind of archaic and a little bit uh that oh actually I line though pretty well but you know you you're never that lucky when you're on a set in in the rush so Johnny would teach show you something cool that has uh if you have multi track track so besides just tracking the camera you can also use it to align your scenes you put on the a chair surface for your ACC ACC to interative and just align it to the virtual seat of where the chair is it's about here here about right yeah about right it's about right okay so if I sit down and when Tim move the camera my butt is not going to move around I'm here in this space yeah so so that's myad make the scene believable like merging the real virtual scene right okay so that's one one application of it another way you can play around with it is yeah hold it so what we did here let me just explain first I rigged a uh virtual light in so if you look at the comp composite view you'll see a light that's moving yeah okay let me get back here so we can see both do it again do it again okay so now if I turn on this light here that's supposed to mimic that the same same direction of the virtual light let me turn it on first no that's not can you hold it just kind of swing it around I'll give you a better angle yeah like maybe something here Shine Your Light so that it goes on to the the side of the train yeah so so yeah lighting lighting the actur is important right and it it sucks like one of the things that makes the scene unbelievable I mean is that the virtual light source is different from the actress light source so yeah you could align it this way yeah so yeah that's that's um that's some of the things you could do with with Rover and you know we're excited to see what people do with it how many how many trackers can you have you could uh you could attach up to three robers okay up to three yeah yeah yeah so three trackers three trackers and how many base stations uh uh is there any we can support up to uh four play stations okay yeah okay okay later tell you what in the box but yeah be two and then it can p it up to four got it got it if you had four you could use them yes so I'm I'm rotating the the anchor press that and press this just reoriented world based on where you put the tracker yeah and whatever like garbage ma CHR like you know that or same orientation you have buil already you don't need to change so I mean I'm sure if you have done any kind of virtu production you you notice um we we had the lens file align to the virtual camera so ACCC also provide the tool to help you do that so you don't have to uh sip through the online documentations right so if you if you turn around and look this way it comes with a calibration board that uh is part of the set and in the bottom here there's interface to Mount Your R what what it does is uh is you can fix a Rover exactly with the relative position to the checker board so um you know the exact position of that relative to your to your camera so it replaces that pip messy pipeline of like getting putting the track around the checker board and having another person by the PC trying to like click the on these LEDs right and so that take two people it take you from like 15 to 30 minutes you set that up with this you can get it under five minutes and taking away that like the human let me play the video for you sure yeah taking away the human error that can that can that can come with all this like lens C calibration and offet so the the UI kind of looks like this and they'll like you have these hit boxes that comes up and autog generates the next one when you get a good capture so you're not like always going back and forth does it remember what lenses you have uh right so uh after the calibration it'll output a file of all the like the rotation values the transform values and the Distortion values and then you'll have to assign that to the lens file in that real like they have have their own calibration so then essentially would be there you wouldn't have to do it more than once if same camera same lens yes yeah yeah yeah cool um and the file is just like a um not the python but the text file that you have to manually type in or copy and Page yeah yeah no that's fine but and the that's a standalone app oh yes yes it's a Windows app yes it's a Windows app cool so you're probably wondering the most important thing is the price right yes yeah okay I'm going jum bom the the Mars contract is uh good but the total package is $5,000 um and that includes the the Mars Hub and two base station uh wait three Rovers three Rovers two base station and two tracker and then also the calibration uh kit and we have a a dedicated limited amount but we want to you know get it out to our to the community so on May 25th we have a ear bird program so if you go to mars. vi.com you can sign up to register goodbye allad

Channel: Alex Pearce

Views: 14,516

Keywords: Virtual production, Vive, mars, Camera tracking, Virtual, Production, LED, Green screen, Unreal, Unreal engine

Id: AN3S3Nk8zpI

Length: 11min 42sec (702 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 25 2022