PFTrack Tutorial - 3d Camera Tracking

everybody it said one year from tunnel-vision TV and today I'm going to show you guys how to use PF track one of the best tracking or camera tracking software out there and I've tried Buju I've played with a lot of other tracking software and I just find PF track to be the most superior camera tracker out there and I'm just going to show you guys how to use it so I'm using PF track 2012 and if you open it you'll see the screen and we're just going to create a new project on the project screen you're gonna click on create and we're going to give it a name I'm just going to call it tutorial and then you're gonna browse to a folder where you want to save it and I'm just going to create a folder on my C Drive video projects and I'm going to call it tutorial going to the folder click on choose and you don't really have to worry about these settings here because the video file that you're going to import is actually going to override these settings and then just click on confirm to confirm it and then he can actually browse the on the side to your video file or you can just open up your Explorer window and I'm just gonna go to my project file or my video file that I want to use and you can just drag this into this middle window and you'll have your video file show up here alright to start you just drag this video file into the node window on the side and then just double click it to make sure you have that selected and you at the bottom you will see all the settings for this video file so it actually picks up the framerate automatically it's 25 so that's correct just double check all these things and I'm not going to track the whole clip it's actually quite long it's about 300 frames so let's track let's do 200 frames so I'm just gonna set my I'll point to 200 see just click very make 200 it will only show up the first 200 frames and then a very important thing is your camera preset so if you know the sensor size of your camera you can actually save a preset let me to show you how to do that if you click on custom you can actually change the settings of the sensor and this was shot using the canon 5d mark ii and i know that the sensor size is 36 millimeters by 20.25 bla bla bla so just put that in here and now I can go save preset and I can call this Canon 5d Mk 2 and then the next time you can just reuse this preset if you don't know the size of the sensor or the camera that's been that was used to shoot the clip worth I don't worry too much but if you have the information that will give you better results in the end alright so to start we're just going to right click on this first node and we're going to click on image manipulation double click on that to make sure you've got it selected and we're just going to increase the contrast so we're going to click on color to activate that and we're going to increase the gamma and just lower the brightness just so we get a little bit more contrast if you toggle between that it will just give you easier or to make the features easier to track right so next up what you want to do is you want to right click on your image manipulation node and we're going to click on user track and this is where we're going to start creating user tracks to basically start the process so first of all you can press space and you'll see this green line going here this will just load the clip into memory so it will play back a little bit smoother so let's just do that quickly okay and once it's done you can scrub through it and you will see it will actually be really smooth okay so we're gonna start by creating some user tracks this is really important because the more user tracks you add the better your final result will be so double click on you use a track and then click on create here at the bottom and we're just gonna zoom in using the middle mouse button and just select a point someone you've seen like a high-contrast point or a spot or just something that's easy to track maybe like this dot here and you can resize this area the focus area and also the search area and we just need to set some settings for our trackers so you at the bottom we're gonna leave this on based accuracy and deformation is very important enable rotation scale and skew and we're gonna leave everything near default just enable illumination that will help if the lighting actually changes in your scene and we're gonna set this as the default tracking settings so you just click on set default click it again to confirm and then when you create new tracks will actually remember those settings alright so make sure and if on the first frame and then click on this little button here to track forward so you can actually see it's running and you can click the center view that will actually keep that in the center of the screen and your on the side it gives you the score 98 obviously the higher that number is the better the track will be and it will go off and another thing that you can check you at the bottom it will give you like a zoomed in preview of that track and will also have the score right below that or next to that 98% currently and if you scroll through that you can see that is a very good track and just before it goes off the screen what you want to do is go to a good track maybe that one is fine and then you want to make sure that all tracks after that's been deleted so we're gonna click on the R plus here to remove those frames and also H plus just to hide them if it actually created some blank keyframe state alright so we're gonna go back to the front we're gonna zoom out again and with the right mouse button you can click and drag so just drag that into the middle again and we're gonna add another track so let's try and add something here in front click on create maybe zoom in there just drag that around make sure Center views on and click on track forward okay that's a short one so just go and see if that's a good score so you see that last one dropped down to 87 so I'm gonna take that back to around there because that's 96 high school and I'm gonna click on our plus to remove all the frames this side and then also h plus to hide all the frames on this side okay let's zoom out again and let's try and find something maybe more further in the background so let's zoom in here maybe that spot right there ok and also try not to track any trees because they tend to move around and those are not very good tracks track forward here we go okay just have your eye at the bottom make sure the score is good okay it's looking good 97 still tracking nicely and a tractor right thru very cool track let's zoom out and just a trickier try as I said before try and track some features close to the camera middle and also far away in the background and that will just give you better results and more data for PF track to actually figure out your scene in 3d so that will just help a lot alright so let's go back to the beginning and I'm going to zoom in here to add another track yeah there we go make it smaller search area kinda like that and track forward okay this track might actually jump off there we go as you can see it actually caught on to that pole there which is not good so I'm gonna take it back maybe right up to about there and I'm just gonna click on the or plus to remove all those frames that side and h plus to just hide them okay cool and let's go back to the front just Center this okay maybe maybe let's try and track something from the back you can also do that so if we zoom in here we right at the end of our club I'm gonna create a point right there and I'm gonna track backwards so I'm going to click on this blue icon yeah there we go and it's gonna go out okay it's not a very good or very long track but it should be fine and I'm gonna go today and this time I will click on the R - to remove everything on this side and then H - to hide everything on that side okay and hit zoom out again and maybe let's go to the middle of our clip somewhere around here and let's maybe track this little house here create a track make it a bit smaller you'll find that it go at will actually go faster if you make this box smaller okay and let's track this way there we go looking at the score it's looking good 98 97 awesome right to the end and then what we can do is just drag it back to your starting frame that gold key there and then we can track this way so we're gonna click on this little button here striking to the left and the score is looking good 98 97 running through and that's another cool track because it's gone straight through so if we zoom out here and if we scrub through we can see that track just stays throughout all shot it's always good to try and get some some trackers that actually goes from the beginning right through to the end so that's always good okay let's try and track something maybe you're in the middle so let's track this one something like that should we find are we going to track backwards okay it goes off so it's gonna stop let's go back you see that last frame is 87 score not too good so there's a 93 and I'm gonna go our - delete those keys H - to hide them all good okay I think we're gonna try and get about 15 15 to 20 tracks user tracks that should be good okay maybe let's get this little rocky Oh so let's put a tracker their search area something like that and let's track the forward so actually starting in the middle you can do doesn't really matter where you start just remember to track backwards as well if you can do that and it's striking 97 school 95 it's looking good it's gonna go right to the end okay take it back to the gold key and track backwards looking good and that's another good track all right let's zoom out now I think we need some trackers in a background stole or let's check this little corner of this truck so let's put a tracker there and that should be fine drag forward and this one should go out there it goes okay let's just stop it you can press escape to actually stop the tracking and we're gonna take the last one that's kind of good that's a good 196 or plus because we want to remove everything on this side and in h plus all gone okay so we are tracking number nine we still need a few more let's see maybe something in the middle maybe this log so I'm just gonna put a track right there that should be fine and let's track backwards I don't think it's gonna go out but it's fine there we go and let's see that one is good so remove this way hide this way okay so we've got ten maybe let's track this house as well let's put a track right there try and get these trees out of the search areas because they move around track that way okay all good go back and then track this way and that's done okay let's remove hide okay so we had number 11 let's see where can we get more trackers maybe this brick yeah oops this brick here let's try and track that okay something like that should be cool track backwards it's looking good seven and it's still running 96 still good everything above 90 should be fine even 80 should be okay but I usually try and keep it above 90 and that's a cool one right through okay so we've got some stuff in the middle we've got some stuff in front maybe this little rock yeah create it on that and drag forward okay there it goes it's got a good school and just try and keep your eye as well to see if it's actually staying on that on your feature and this one's gonna go out there we go let's take it back maybe it's gone into the 80s here but that should be fine it's like 88 or 89 and let's remove trackers that way and let's hide them okay so we want 13 few more let's eat maybe this little rock right there mmm okay create on that dot that should we finally strike that way first and let's track this way okay that's it 95 that's fine just all - H - okay almost done with our user tracks hmm see what else let's direct this rakia it's a nice contrast feature track forward and track backwards looking at the score it's looking good 98 okay good track right through 15 track so far let's see if there's anything else probably good maybe this little corner yeah yeah let's do that one create try and get the power lines out here because because they far in the background it must cause some parallax issues they so just do that track this way good school 99 and I think it actually freaked out at the end you can see it actually jumped off that corner so you can use your arrow keys on your keyboard just to run through and that's a good track there so remove everything after that hide him as well go back to your gold key and track backwards okay that's cool 16 mmm I think that's two one more just to be safe so you just want to try and spread the trackers out through throughout the scene close nearby metal far maybe let's get these little dots in front and you don't really have to select one specific feature because PF track will actually use patterns to to track okay there it goes and it's for good and let's go this way it's gonna go out right then it's jumping around press escape to stop it and let's go to that one should be fine and remove everything before that and hide everything before that alright so that should we find 17 tracks 17 user tracks so your user tracks as I said before very important because you're actually telling PF track that these 17 tracks are really accurate and if you use them you should be able to get a good solve at the end but we're going to go a little bit further and we're going to add some auto tracks as well alright so on your user track just right click and click on Auto track double click on that you selected and we're just gonna change some settings here at the bottom first one is your candidate number make it 150 so we're telling PF track to try and look for hundred and fifty possible tracks your target number put that on 100 that's the amount of actual good tracks that you want to be attractive to accomplish and in your window size that's that little box we're gonna make it a little bit bigger change it to 40 and enable elimination it's just gonna compensate for lighting changes and then your very important your search mode change that to optical flow I just find that's the better option change your feature scale to large usually works a little bit better and in deformation very important rotation scale and skew switched on and if you click on preview it will actually show you a preview of what it will try and track ok there we go don't really like the small tracks here at the top especially if they're gonna try tracking the clouds even the trees in the background like those tracks I will delete all of them but I'll show you once this is done ok so once you're happy with that you're just gonna click this Auto track button and this will actually run right through the clip and it's gonna reverse back just to confirm those tracks so I'm just gonna forward through this quickly it's might take a minute or two all right so the auto track actually completed and as you can see created all these yellow dots and those little squiggly lines so now I'm going to show you how to actually clean up your auto track so basically we will now tell BF track which of these tracks are good and which are the more actually bad and delete the bad ones so first of all you wanna antique or just disable the show paths those are the lines just so you can see the dots and also antique guides because that's those pink dots and that's actually the user tracks and we know they're good so we don't really want to see them and then another trick is you just click on the D on the side to darken your image so you can see the dots a little bit easier and then a little trick that I found to actually try and figure out which of these dots are not that good is click on marquee at the bottom and we're gonna select a good track maybe this one year and just preview the little window at the bottom scrub through it and just see if that's a good track all right that's a good track and then what you do is you click on Center view at the bottom and then you just scrub through that section of the video looking at kind of all the dots and see if you can see something that actually slides around or moves around and those are the ones that you want to delete so just do it a few times kind of look at the ones here I usually don't like the ones in clouds so I'm going to select marquee select that one and I'm gonna delete it so press Delete on your keyboard and then enter to confirm and I'm actually gonna delete all these ones in the clouds cause I don't trust them and you just want to try and figure out and eliminate all the bear tracks that you can so you at the beginning let's look at that tracker there so it's on that power grid thing so it's looking good so I'm gonna Center it on that one and I was already centered just move it it's gonna jump in alright so there's another one in the cloud delete it just go back to which one was at that one and just look at all these other yellow dots let's see anything that's kind of sliding around even if it's just moving slightly funny then you want to delete it so what I'm gonna do is these ones in the trees I'm gonna delete them let's see what else it's actually looking quite quite good usually I find quite a few that's kind of sliding and jumping around okay here's one if you look at the dot here where I'm circling now you just keep your eye on that track I'm moving there that's actually jumping up and down it's not sitting on that exact spot so that's what you're looking for it's deleted okay let's select another track maybe this one make sure it's a good track now we've done that section already so let's select that track there just first make sure that's a good track before you use that one as you've seen the point okay so that's cool scrub through okay here we go here's a little dot here that's gonna appear that one this one now circling now and if you look at it it's kind of jiggling around it's not sitting as nicely as all the others around it so delete it okay let's select that one again to Center our view okay just see anything else it's quite difficult to get used to this but once you've done it a few times you'll find it very easy okay this one yeah that one there I don't think that's a nice one see it's kind of first on the truck and then it goes on to the gate so I'm gonna delete it and now I'm just gonna kind of scroll through I'm gonna Center this and I'm just gonna scroll through and see what we have you should be able to kind of visualize the whole scene in 3d with these dots and that's all that we actually want to do okay I'm gonna assume this is a good track all these trackers are good usually I will spend a little bit more time on this try and clean it up as perfectly as I can because the better you're gonna clean this up the better your final 3d track will be so I'm just gonna assume that's fine all right so the next step is we're gonna tell PF track to try and solve this scene for us so you're gonna right-click on your auto track and we're gonna click on camera solver and double click on that to make sure you're on it and then anything you need to do you're easy click on solve all and this is just gonna take all those dots all the user tracks all the auto tracks and it's gonna run it through some calculations and all these different kind of wonderful things and it will try and figure out your scene in 3d and also the way your actual camera moved in real life all right so our solvers completed and if we scrub through this we should see a whole lot of green dots anything red that's usually not a good sign that means that those trackers they weren't very good in the auto track so what you can do is you can go back to your auto track and you can delete them and then we can retry or resolve the camera solver so I'm just going to unselect these paths let's go back to camera solver so it's kind of this area a lot of pear tracks going on there and it's kind of difficult to see now but I think it is in this area so I'm going to delete all those tracks let's go back to camera solver and it's moving this area it's strange because that one is not that bad this one yeah all right that's fine usually you will need to spend more time cleaning up the auto tracks so I'm just going to go back to camera solver and because we deleted some tracks I'm just gonna eat on solve all again and it's just gonna run through all the new all the tracks without the the tracks that we delete it right so let's see should see less red dots still a few year but for this tutorial I'm not really gonna worry about that because it's actually looking quite nice and the next thing we're going to do is we're going to tell PF track how the scene is actually orientated so we're gonna orient our camera orient the scene so you can right-click on your camera solver node and we will select Orion scene double click on it to select it and I find the easiest way to orient your scene you've got some different ways to actually do that here by the edit mode I've clicked the drop-down select axis and we're gonna do it with the axis right first of all disable your ground here just to hide it and also the horizon and we're gonna antique XY and Z and we're gonna start with the z axis that's the axis going in so we're gonna tell PF track this is our z axis and it's going to try them actually orient it using the XY and z axis so click on z you're gonna see these lines I'm gonna zoom in here just take one of these lines and try and align it manually onto your z axis something like that and another one let's take this one yeah maybe on that line here and try and be accurate and there we go something like that and that should align with all your z-axis lines in your scene and let's untick that and let's stick x axis so it's this way like horizontally kinda I'm also gonna hide the trackers so we don't need those and your Z's or your x-axis will be on zoom in there a little bit that'll be on this line and also yeah at the bottom so kinda from there to around yeah ok and just try it and line it up with a couple of things in your scene like that that's can accurate and now if we show ground again it should be kind of flat on the ground which is good thing and then what you want to do is you want to show your trackers as well and you can select none day because it's orientated now and then we're just gonna select a dot on the floor like that little spot there so I'm gonna go to marquee select that dot and I'm gonna clicks it origin and especially going to tell the floor that that is on the floor so it will just put that right on there we zoom out a bit and if I hide my trackers and if I scrub through em you can see that's sitting nicely on the ground which is looking actually quite good alright another thing that we're gonna do is enable your trackers again and we're just gonna sit the the scale of your scene so if we zoom in and we look at two dots maybe click on marquee again select those two dots and try and guess the distance between them in meters so let's say that's about a meter go to the bottom here which says distance and just type in that distance alright just gonna scale your scene accordingly to real-world scale alright what you can do now is you can click on the G G Plus just to increase that grid maybe not that big something like that and there we go okay so we've got our ground and it should look if we disable our trackers and you scrub through this it should actually stick to to the actual ground that's looking good and just to visualize this a little bit better I'm gonna show you quickly our to create some test objects to place in your scene just to verify that you've got a good track so on your Orion scene right click on there and then we're gonna click on test objects double click on it to select it and we're gonna create a mushroom so just click on mushroom you at the bottom click on add to scene and then make sure it's on play at selected feature and just click on one of these dots and it's going to place the mushroom richest scale that up a bit so select scale scale it like that and then just change this back to place at selected feature and just click on the dot again to make sure that the base of the test object is actually on the floor and then what you can do is you can click on duplicate and then just click some of these dots let's put one right on there scroll through your duplicate maybe one there and duplicate this one another one yeah just place a few around the scene so you can actually visualize it duplicate maybe one there in the background maybe one there all right if we hide the trackers we hide the ground we hide the horizon and we just play through this they should actually stick quite nicely to our scene so if I play this back you can see it looks like they're actually in the scene let's just undock and my footage and that tells me that we've got quite a good track going on and in the next tutorial I will show you guys how to actually export your tracking data into a 3d program like 3ds max where you can actually start working on your objects that you will place into your scene and take it from there all right so I hope you guys enjoyed this tutorial please like share and subscribe if you want to see more and I will see you guys next time you

Channel: TunnelvizionTV

Views: 195,747

Rating: 4.9363732 out of 5

Keywords: pftrack, pftrack tutorial, camera tracking tutorial, matchmove tutorial, matchmoving, 3d camera tracking tutorial, pftrack to 3dsmax, tracking with pftrack, pftrack camera tracking, 3d tracking, match moving, pftrack basics, pftrack advanced tutorial, vfx tutorials, filmmaking tutorials, pftrack 2012, pftrack 2012 tutorial

Id: RdxnbeyO72c

Length: 34min 6sec (2046 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 27 2014