camera move not picked up by video grabber

[gary]

I have a player persecutor camera setup to follow an animated MeshSkinned object over a terrain via the tracker.

All is working well in the world but when I export a jpeg sequence with video grabber the persecutor target works fine and follows the object but the player persecutor remains stationary and doesn't move over the terrain as i have set it up in the tracker?! 

I've attached a grab of the tracker

Any suggestions?

[silent]

Hi Gary,

Just tried to reproduce in a new world with a PlayerPersecutor and a moving target and it seems everything is working OK (camera is moving in Editor and in images sequence). Is there any chance that you have specified wrong PlayerPersecutor in Video Grabber (for example, if you have multiple cameras named identically)? Try to hit asterisk [*] button near Camera field and select PlayerPersecutor one more time from drop down list.

Btw, I've tested this in 2.9 SDK that was recently released. Which SDK are you currently using?

Thanks!

[gary]

Thanks Silent,

I've replicated the error in the attached world.

The persecutor target is following the material ball and is working ok. 

I have keyed the persecutor player to follow alongside the material ball and to remain loosely perpendicular to the ball. 

the first key starts at 30 in the time line and the last key is at 70

the issue is that the player persecutor remains in the same position at 30 in the timeline and doesn't animate along the path when I grab the video.

There are also other issues with the quality of the animation in the renders. there is a lot of glitchy camera moves and some textures are transparent!

The static environment seems to render out fine but I have 20 animating characters that the grabber seems to be having the trouble with.

Hope this makes sense

 

 

persecutor_test.rar

[gary]

I've figured a workaround that addresses both the moving persecutor player issue and the poor quality/jerky renders. 

I created another .PATH that follows the trajectory the persecutor player needs to follow and parented the persecutor player to the transform path.

[silent]

Hi Gary,

Glad that you've find a workaround :) I've also tried to edit your test scene and it seems that sometimes all grabbed as expected. We need some time to find out what is really happens here.

Quote

There are also other issues with the quality of the animation in the renders. there is a lot of glitchy camera moves and some textures are transparent!

More likely it's related to the Motion Blur effect, you can try to disable it to see if this helps.

Thanks!

 

[vvvaseckiy]

Hello Gary,

There's a possible issue when grabbing a sequence from PlayerPersecutor that simultaneously selected as camera for Scene Viewport. PlayerSpectator should be correctly moving along the track if you switch Scene Viewport to Scene Camera.

Could you please check if that's your issue

Thanks

[gary]

Cheers vvvaseckiy,

I'm having some crashing issues with the project at the moment so have opened up a topic in the bug report.

I'll try your suggestion when the issue is resolved.

 

 

[gary]

I'm afraid I'm still having problems with the tracker and video grabber guys.

I'm creating a cinematic that has multiple animated meshskinned characters moving on multiple .PATH splines with multiple dummy and persecutor cameras targeting the characters and  following along on .PATH splines.

I have managed to piece together the majority of the cinematic by rendering out sections and editing them together in Adobe Aftereffects but there is one final shot that I can't get either the tracker or video grabber to work on.

The quality of the environment seems to be fine in the renders but the animating characters are a very poor quality with glitching cameras and transparent meshes where they are not supposed to be transparent. There are other issues with the tracker and video grabber but I think  if we get to the bottom of the issues I've outlined these can be dealt with later.

Unfortunately I can't upload files relating to the issue to the forum and it would be far too much work to try and replicate the problem so we're working in the dark a little here.

Is it possible to do a screenshare so you can see the issue?

 

[vvvaseckiy]

Hi,

Could you please disable "Camera Velocity" and "Enabled" checkboxes in Settings → Render → Motion Blur and see if issue remains?

Thanks 

[gary]

Thanks Vvvaseckiy, that has had no affect I'm afraid.

 

[vvvaseckiy]

Do you use grab sequence with anti-aliasing turned on or off? Turning up Anti-aliasing in videograbber can significantly improve quality of animated objects. For best result leave turned on only AA in videograbber and disable FXAA and TAA in scene render settings

Concerning transparent surfaces, we were unable to reproduce this. Before trying screen share, could you please make a screencapture video with this issue, and few resulting frames world be helpful.

Thanks 

[gary]

Hi Vvaseckiy

I may have solved the jittery camera issue by using NURBS curves for my .PATH exports instead of splines but need to test more to be sure.

I'll follow your suggestions for the quality too.

 

Cheers!