3D Models into a video Sequence

[Moridin]

Hi

I am playing around adding 3d into video, and any advice would be much appriciated I am a noob in Matchmover

Is the following reasoning correct if I wanted to do the following:
Add a building or two to a video sequence.
- Matchmove the camera sequence ( Will I have to retake the footage if there are no markers? ) It is a empty roadside shot and I want to add buildings in the field.

Software:
Maya
Matchmover

Thanks

[scardona]

If your using maya, I would think it would be much more beneficial to use maya stereo camera rigs to do 3-d, its maya's in-program 3-d set-up

This may also depend on the version of maya you may be using

[timberwo7ves]

Hi Moridin,
I'm a beginner in matchmover too :D
It's possible to matchmove footage without artificial markers if you've got clear points you can track throughout the shot. In order to get enough information for MatchMover to place the 3d locators (for when you import it into Maya as a camera), there needs to be a fair amount of parallax, otherwise MatchMover can't figure out the relative depth from the 2d footage.

Further, it's best if you've got information about the camera used to film, in particular lens focal length and film back size; MatchMover can "guess" this, but it helps it leaps and bounds if you stick in accurate information. I'm not sure what happens if you accidentally (or purposefully) stick in incorrect information :)

You'd then need a third compositing program, like after effects, maya composite or nuke to stick both the footage and your rendered animation (buildings from the POV of the tracked camera) together. I guess it might be possible in Maya itself, but it's not going to look great :D

HTH, as I said, I'm a beginner too :P

--
edit, in future if you prefix your thread title with the software you're using, people who are familiar with the packages will likely jump to the thread, rather than randomers like myself :P