The Art and Technique of Matchmoving: Solutions for the VFX Artist 1st Edition

Be it movies, TV shows or commercials, using CG to augment and enhance the look of modern media much more the rule than the exception. And whenever the live action & CG assets need to interact with each other, it's up to matchmoving to line them up.The Art and Technique of Matchmoving is a great book for learning the principles of matchmoving and not just which buttons to push.The back of the book describes it as being for "intermediate to advanced". This fits well with the instruction which aims less toward someone just learning how to use their program and more for someone just starting out in the workplace. There's plenty of coverage on dealing with studio hierarchyThe author stays as vague as possible in regards to program-specific details and instead focuses strictly on the basic concepts and more importantly looks at the workflow and general thought processes needed to be an effective matchmover.The chapters are broken down into three basic sections: survey work for setting up shots, (including what to do if you don't have any data to work with) looking at the matchmoving process for the various types of camera moves, and dealing with rigs and rotomation. (matchmoving characters rather than cameras)The companion disc is basically what you'd expect, with the source files to follow along with the chapters. The final chapter on rotomation also has several videos of the author walking you through the process. The only downside is that the source plates appear to be in a Mac-only codec, so PC users might be out of luck.If you're looking to transition into matchmoving on a professional level, you should get this book. It'll help get you a leg up on the process.

I found this book quite fascinating, and much more than I was expecting.The author, an accomplished matchmoving expert, shares much of her accumulated wisdom from her years of experience in Hollywood film production.This is not a software manual, or a simple "here's how to use software package X to do camera tracking" tutorial. While there are occasional references to one software package or another, it's really a book of insights about how to approach the process of camera tracking and character match-moving, and the author's style is much more one of figuring stuff out for yourself rather than relying on some magical software to do the work for you.This book will have much that is interesting for someone starting out using tools like PFHoe/PFtrack, Syntheyes, etc., but it's also a wealth of information for someone considering this specialization as a career in the film industry.If you're looking for a step-by-step tutorial on one of the various tracking software packages that are out there, then this is not it. But you might find that this book tells you all sorts of things that you didn't know you needed to know but which will be incredibly valuable in approaching the process of matchmoving, and I think you might find this book to actually be more valuable than that software tutorial would have been.I would highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in matchmoving, its process and techniques, as well as its integration into the rest of the vfx pipeline. A very interesting book for someone just getting into the professional vfx field as well, even if you just want an overview of how matchmoving works or even if you don't think you have that much interest in it at all.G.

I've been intimidated by matchmoving for some time now. The idea of filming with a moving camera, and then incorporating CG into that shot seamlessly seems like a nearly impossible task. This book breaks it down and makes it seem almost possible.It talks about the planning for, and setting up the shot. Breaks down the different kinds of camera moves, and then techniques in 3-d to match that move. Then it talks about 3-d character animation and how that fits in.Reading this book won't make you an expert in the subject, but there are some decent step-by-step examples in there, and it will certainly help make you better, or get you on the right path. I do recommend it for people wanting to mix 3-D models into their live-action filmmaking.

I've read a lot of different books regarding matchmoving, where live action materials and CG get combined, and this book is by far the best I've ever read. It introduces you to the subject in a very intuitive and easy to read fashion. You don't really have to know a lot about this subject before reading this book. However, having a general knowledge of video editing will help you understand this book more thoroughly. Like the previous reviewer of this product mentioned, this product isn't an instruction manuel for any sort of specific editing software, but this is more of a book that is intended to introduce you into the art of matchmoving.The applications for matchmoving are almost limitless. I've used mathcmoving in a few of my own videos that I've created, but I've never been really able to understand how to combine my live action with CG images realistically. However, after reading this book, I've been able to greatly increase the realism of all of my video projects. The different techniques taught to you in this book can be applied to any sort of CGI computer software that you may use. I would highly recommend this book to anyone that is looking to understand matchmoving and incorporating into their own videos.

First of all this book is a must have for anyone learning how to matchmove and even for those who are already well versed. This is written by someone who has extensive experience in the major leagues and that shows.The downside of that is that it's very much written from the point of view of someone who works within a large team with other departments, which isn't always helpful for those of us working our way up (although it's a great insight of what to expect when we climb the ladder).For example I find that a lot of the book is based on ideal scenarios, ie. "luckily we have an accurate model to line up with our scene". Most freelancers and small boutiques I know aren't usually lucky enough to have someone provide such amazing resources to make our lives easier, in fact we almost always have to deal with people handing us plates with lost camera logs and no survey data which means that those accurate models are being generated from the work we put in to provide digital survey data from our matchmoving.What I really would have liked to see is more information on what to do when things aren't going well. While this book does touch on this in places I feel like a lot of people would love a book that they can reach for in times of despair so that they might find some lightbulb moment of how to work around those problem shots we all have to deal with from time to time.With that said, chapter three does actually dedicate a large section to finding clues when you don't have an ideal shot (without giving too much away, things like using Google Earth and IMDB for actor's heights) but the example given in this scene is an outdoor shot, whereas I think it would have been a huge benefit to also include an indoor shot and really get down and dirty with what you can do when all else fails (just look at Cloverfield - that film was a nightmare to matchmove but they managed it in the end).None of that is to say I regret this purchase - those small things aside you should DEFINITELY buy this book if you either want to get involved in matchmoving or you want to understand more of the pipeline to be a better collaborator. It's full of great techniques and if just one of those saves you an hour of work one day, already the price is justified (I'm currently doing 90+ shots for a sci-fi film and I've already found one tip that is going to literally save me days of work). It will also provide you with a wealth of great info to make sure that if you have anything to do with pre-production or photography it will inform you on how you can make your job SO much easier in post.One final thing - it's great that this book comes with a CD but personally I couldn't make any use of it because none of my machines have a CD drive (I can't remember the last time I saw one that did). It would be so much better if there was a URL provided to accompany this publication.