Having trouble lining up Screenshot on monitor footage...

...but the monitor footage is shot from an angle. In the photo that I've posted, I'm not sure what to move. The camera, or the layer... or both? I've been at this for about a day now. I keep resetting. Sometimes I come close, but it's not quite right so I tweak it.... I end up screwing it up even more. Then reset.




As you see, I'm trying to have that screenshot sit on top of the monitor. The reason why I'm not doing this in 2D is because I plan to have several screenshots move out away from the screen. Kind of "popping out" in motion, then moving back in type of thing. I was going to animate the screenshots in the 3D editor. Every time I move one (camera), it comes close. Then I move the other (screenshot) and it goes out of whack.


Thanks ahead for anyone who has any insight as to nail this easily.

Posted on Apr 21, 2020 2:10 PM

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Posted on Apr 21, 2020 11:44 PM

Okay — from what I can tell from your screen shots, your 3D monitor is actually a (flattened) ProRes movie clip of a 3D model. That makes this a completely different thing.


You're going to need to do some 4-corner tracking of the screen area.


I'll give you the basics, but you may run into trouble depending on how clear your movie is.


Solo your monitor clip (a shortcut would by to Option-click the visibility checkmark on the clip in the Layers List).


Move the playhead to the first frame.


Select the Bezier pen tool and click on each corner of the screen and close the shape.


To the Bezier shape, add Behaviors > Shape > Track Points.


You should see "target" points (circles with crosshairs inside — mostly red, but when you select a point, it will turn yellow).


Click and drag each target point to the corner of the image where you need to match the screenshot into the scene. High contrast differential points are best.


Once you get all the points lined up on your scene on the first frame, click the Analyze button.


With any luck, Motion will track the scene perfectly (if not, there are ways around it).


Supposing the track went perfectly, to the Screen Shot image, add a Behaviors > Motion Tracking > Match Move.


Drag the Track Points behavior from the movie clip to the Source well in the Match Move.


Set the Type to Four Corners. The image should snap exactly into the scene and play perfectly (if you got a really good track). This is wickedly cool when it works!


To make this replaceable, select the Screen Shot image layer and in the Inspector > Image for the Type — set it to Drop Zone. You will then be able to substitute the original image with subsequent images.


If Track Points does not go well:


Sometimes it helps to create a four corner track by activating ** One Track Point** at a time. Turn off the checkmarks of three of the four track points and Analyze for each one separately.


If you cannot get a good track for a Track Point, you may have to manually fix the individual points... If it comes to that, get back with me.


Of course, you could always go with ***Real 3D*** and have the screen shot as the "fill" for the front surface.




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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Apr 21, 2020 11:44 PM in response to halfasemitone

Okay — from what I can tell from your screen shots, your 3D monitor is actually a (flattened) ProRes movie clip of a 3D model. That makes this a completely different thing.


You're going to need to do some 4-corner tracking of the screen area.


I'll give you the basics, but you may run into trouble depending on how clear your movie is.


Solo your monitor clip (a shortcut would by to Option-click the visibility checkmark on the clip in the Layers List).


Move the playhead to the first frame.


Select the Bezier pen tool and click on each corner of the screen and close the shape.


To the Bezier shape, add Behaviors > Shape > Track Points.


You should see "target" points (circles with crosshairs inside — mostly red, but when you select a point, it will turn yellow).


Click and drag each target point to the corner of the image where you need to match the screenshot into the scene. High contrast differential points are best.


Once you get all the points lined up on your scene on the first frame, click the Analyze button.


With any luck, Motion will track the scene perfectly (if not, there are ways around it).


Supposing the track went perfectly, to the Screen Shot image, add a Behaviors > Motion Tracking > Match Move.


Drag the Track Points behavior from the movie clip to the Source well in the Match Move.


Set the Type to Four Corners. The image should snap exactly into the scene and play perfectly (if you got a really good track). This is wickedly cool when it works!


To make this replaceable, select the Screen Shot image layer and in the Inspector > Image for the Type — set it to Drop Zone. You will then be able to substitute the original image with subsequent images.


If Track Points does not go well:


Sometimes it helps to create a four corner track by activating ** One Track Point** at a time. Turn off the checkmarks of three of the four track points and Analyze for each one separately.


If you cannot get a good track for a Track Point, you may have to manually fix the individual points... If it comes to that, get back with me.


Of course, you could always go with ***Real 3D*** and have the screen shot as the "fill" for the front surface.




Apr 22, 2020 4:41 PM in response to halfasemitone

After a ton of research, looks like what I'm trying to do is 3D Camera tracking found in Fusion 16.


https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/ca/products/fusion/


I might have hit a blocker in Apple Motion. Thanks for all your help though! Much appreciated.


For those of you that made it to the end of this thread, here's great tutorial on how that type of thing works:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGUPC_zKszk

Apr 21, 2020 2:39 PM in response to halfasemitone

Put your screen shot image in the same group as the monitor, line it up in 2D, layer ordered. Then use the Group to rotate or as a source for camera behaviors, etc. [You can also try setting the Group settings to 3D Layer Order — you just won't be able to view the monitor from the back side without the screen shot "showing through".]


How is the "monitor" created in Motion?


If you're using mO2, then you may have to use a drop zone inside mO2 in order to place the screen shot image. [I don't have mO2 -- there was no upgrade path from mObject 1.3, which I do have, but I suspect they are rather different environments.]

Apr 21, 2020 8:37 PM in response to fox_m

The monitor is in my previous post was in a 3D layer with the camera. I figured if I put the screenshot in between the camera and the monitor footage that I can just eyeball and adjust until the camera angle works. That's a complete nightmare and I don't know any techniques that would solve that. The reason why I wanted to try that way is so then when I animate the effect of the screens "popping out" one by one it would just be a Z axis keyframe animation. At least I thought it would.


I tried your method but it's not giving me the result I'm looking for as the screenshot is now further skewed in the 3D space.



Here's a screenshot of the camera rotated around the group. It's CLOSE to what I wanted but as you see the monitor footage is rotated also showing the background. 



Thanks for your help so far! Let me know if this is doable or if I should chase another solution like a plugin or just give up on it :P



Apr 22, 2020 12:40 AM in response to fox_m

I feel super bad because you've been super helpful and I guess I wasn't clear in the first post. Yes the footage was 2D, nothing in this was 3D at all. Just some test shots being done in my living room. In the footage, the monitor and camera are stationary. I'd love for the camera to move around the monitor, but I thought I'd start with stationary for now. For the example that you've given me, I've got that far and have done that before. The effect that I'm looking for is, in your example, the purple and blue squares pop out. Kind of like an "exploded" view of something:


https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/w/images/a/ae/Explodedview.jpg


Also something like this, but I'm not aiming to have such high resolution 3D parts animate in the exploded view like the youtube video I've linked. Just some flat screenshots that "explode view" out of the screen:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_nCesBaA8w


The drop zone tip will work great for future projects. Thanks for that!


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Having trouble lining up Screenshot on monitor footage...

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