Office Hours

Manual alignment of cine offset via Resolve clip matching. Jetset in educational use. Details on cine rigging. Disabling image plate depth test in Unreal.

Fixing node networks in Blender for correct material exports to USD/USDZ. Mixing scanning and Gaussian splatting techniques for fast location capture in places you can’t bring a production to. Fixing shots that had image stabilization on. When Unreal vs. Blender makes sense. Using the Blender batch importer for Megascans, and exporting Megascans assets to Jetset. How the Blender asset system works. Using the Jetset remote video feed.

This Office Hours is the go-to for debugging the Unreal to Jetset export pipeline. We work through the USD export, verify the export with Pixar’s USDView tool, and even do a quick dip in to the USDA ‘plain text’ version of USD to figure out a pesky scene locator export problem. We also talk through an ideal shot export pipeline from editorial.

In this Office Hours, Petr from KeenTools goes into a deeper discussion about how best to set keyframes in GeoTracker, how pins are used (and not used), and we work out some plans for making masks work and streamlining the setup process.

Petr from KeenTools joins us to show a wild new way to achieve sub-pixel tracking refinement right in Blender starting from a Jetset Cine import. It’s frankly incredible to see how simple this can be, and we’ll be doing a real tutorial on this process in the very new future.
We also talk to Kevin Good, a VFX supervisor on multiple shows, on key pieces of pipeline for production.

Resolving render timing questions in Unreal. Future plans on live keying and preview for ‘Client feeds’. Fixing calibration problems with camera overlay information. Avoiding parenthesis in Cine lens calibration filenames.

This is a great one for people looking for a complete, end to end walkthrough of calibrating a lens with Jetset Cine, shooting a take, and loading it into Blender with a matched scan. We also run into a couple of pitfalls, like running into problems with the optical markers recognizing properly, and show how to work our way around them.

Debugging Tentacle sync at 30.00 fps. Verifying Tentacle match via iPhone in front of Jetset.

Tracking down interactive calibration problems. Camera motion for solid calibration solves. Unreal Live Render Preview problems and future solutions. Multi-layer post production rendering approaches. Jetset remote control panel and video preview feed.

Fixing a shot with incomplete tracking data scan data in SynthEyes. Correcting the sensor width in SynthEyes so the solved focal length more closely resembles the on-set focal length. Adding in simple planes in SynthEyes to project points when the scanned mesh doesn’t reach these areas. Adjusting the recorded camera tracking frames to relocate the camera. Exporting tracking data from SynthEyes for import into Nuke via Autoshot.

Take zipping. Unity camera tracking import workflow via the Autoshot Blender export! Transforming the image plane in Unity. Difficulties with both foreground and background objects. Potential solution using projection shaders in Unity. High contrast bluescreen production examples. AI based keying extractions. Printed origin target details.

Film noir greenscreen lighting. Ultra fast turnaround shots. Upcoming fixes for timecode based sync. Reading lens focus info. Image plane positioning based on LiDAR. Subpixel tracking refinement with Unreal. Jetset take storage locations. Debugging Unreal Live Link connection and the Save button. Travel routers for reliable IP addresses. Fixing bug where Unreal won’t save after importing a Jetset take.

Debugging Jetset Cine calibrations. Checking the GUI map to look for numerical calibration problems. Planned use of sensor presets. Disabling image stabilization on the cine camera. Using Autoshot’s calibration information button to detect problems with info overlays on the cine HDMI feed.

Using Jetset for sketch comedy productions. Green screen depth occlusion. Fast editing /compositing in Resolve with the in-phone re-render workflow. Usage of vertical origin markers. Difficulties of integrating Ultimatte into the live workflow. Using 2nd Jetset iPhone as an object tracker for vehicle motions in a driving scene. New 360 cameras that can capture bracketed imagery. Retracking shots where the iPhone got bumped out of alignment

Copying project files between machines vs. Autoshot-generated scripts. Using Unreal scene locators parented to the live tracking data to adjust camera angles. Simulated focal length vs. Cine focal length override. Dropping the origin below the scene camera. Need for matching takes via timecode. Evolving on-set protocols without slate.

Imported scenes from Unreal to Blender. Adding simple landscapes with the Blender ANT landscape generator. Connecting to Poliigon for good free textures. Pass through details on Accsoon SeeMo Pro. Different rendering behavior in the Composure CG Element vs the normal Cine Camera Actor preview in Unreal. Updating the nVidia Omniverse Connector plugins in Unreal 5.4, and verifying that they are installed in in the Unreal plugins directory.

Configuring Unreal to write Cryptomatte IDs into EXR file sequences. Using Cryptomatte rendered EXRs in After Effects to control CG occlusion of live action objects.

When real time tracking vs. tracking refinement is needed. Walkthrough with Unreal and After Effects. Overriding scene locators.

Finding a correct ZCam ZLog to ACES AP1 transform. Problems finding tracking features in Syntheyes. A potentially fantastic way to combine 8K 360 footage with Jetset Cine to simplify tracking in SynthEyes.

Jetset to Blender and After Effects integration. Jetset real time tracking vs. sub-pixel tracking quality.

Extensive but unfinished troubleshooting with synchronized rendering and Blackmagic Decklink card. Setting up 3D garbage mattes. Testing Gaussian splats. After Effects workflows.

UE5.3 vs 5.4 script behavior for live render preview. Using Jetset for exteriors. Lowering on-set presence. ‘Overnight’ VFX daily generation. Real time tracking inside airplanes. Proximity of cine camera lens to iPhone. Where distortion makes sense in the pipeline. Calibrating anamorphics. Gaussian splats to convey correct lighting in-phone to creatives. New phone hardware for splat rendering. Rendering comps in-engine vs external compositor. Driving greenscreen lighting from live BG render.

Debugging yellow reticule problem. A workflow for Canon RAW files before Autoshot can decode them. Media In node fragility with Resolve Fusion. On-set composite visualization workflows. Hybrid small wall/greenscreen workflows. Gaussian splats. Greenscreen depth occlusion settings. Shot templating. Interactive product visualization workflows.

Verifying paths on Autoshot Mac. Setting survey points on SynthEyes and solving shots. External SynthEyes experts. Whether or not to solve for distortion. Using Jetset to previsualize stunt sequences. Making ‘shot templates’ to re-create pre-vis shots on set automatically. Using LiDAR scanners to scan a big location and bringing that into Jetset for 1:1 previs sequence planning.

Interactive lens calibration. How panning on a tripod breaks lens calibration due to lack of parallax. Good choices for lens calibration objects. Calibration error text on the Mac that doesn’t hurt the calibration.

Transferring Jetset Cine solved calibrations between PC and Mac Autoshot. Rendering in Omniverse with the USD export. A clever workaround for handling Canon RAW footage using lightweight mp4 editing proxies. Image planes in C4D. Live on-set previews of the Jetset UI.

Rendering Cinema 4D shots in nVidia Omniverse via USD. Modifying the Autoshot pipeline to work with Resolve-generated EXRs. Best practices for editing Jetset Cine shoots. Resolve and Fusion editing and compositing workflow. The utility of tracking in a consistent 3D world. Generating a .csv of Cine source to Jetset take matches. Automatically entering Resolve metadata based on Autoshot take matching. Preferred scene locator alignment. Transferring takes with gigabit Ethernet connection.

Debugging USDZ file crashes. Fusion composites. Jetset/Maya pipeline.