Ae Tracking to Cinema 4d Lite - Ground plane problem

[TORM3NTO]

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to track a tunnel entrance where the cliff starts. I 3D Camera tracked the scene, and set the ground plane and origin where you can see in the screenshot. I also parented a solid to the null that I created using the same points of the ground plane, to make sure it would stick and it does. I exported to Cinema 4d project file and re-imported it to then open it in Cinema 4d Lite but as you can see the ground is above the camera. What am I doing wrong?

(The black is just a garbage matte of the actor)

[Mylenium]

Without any info on the actual camera values and all that we can't really tell you much. Judging from the image this is simply a not so great shot and AE has calculated an infinitely long lense, possibly due to the lack of parallax in the source material. Since ultimately this will limit precision simply by maxing out the available value ranges this could easily explain how things appear to flip over.

Mylenium

[Rick Gerard]

When you set an origin and ground plane, the position of the Origin is at 0, 0, 0. If you want the origin at the comp center you need to add a 3D null to the timeline and set the null's position to 0, 0, 0. Then you parent all 3D layers to the 3D null and Reset the position of the null to Comp Center. 

Now when you export your C4D file, the Ground Plane (you should have set a Camera Track solid using the same points) will be at the comp center. This is called "Normalizing a camera track."

Then in the Effects Control Panel, if you set the camera to Centered Comp Camera, everything should line up.

[TORM3NTO]

Hi,

Thank you so much! It worked perfectly. I also downloaded a script that does all that for you and you can even add new solids/nulls after the initial normalization.