Cineversity

Hi,

I’m following Pwnisher’s tutorial on compositing a 3d object into a live action shot. I’ve successfully gotten to around 14:00 or so in the video, with everything working. The point where I’m at is about here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXC8sYQs5io&t=827s

I’m at the point where I’ve created a material, applied the first file of a PNG sequence as the shader for that material, and then applied that material to a background object. My reflective chrome ball object successfully reflects the HDRI environment and also the background of the frame shows behind the chrome ball (my background is a beach).

However, I’ve tried to now apply the animation of the PNG sequence as Pwnisher does by clicking “Animation” and clicking “Calculate”. I get the correct number of frames (0100 to 0185 at 30 frames per second). However, unlike in his tutorial, my background will not scrub through after I do that. It remains static in both my viewport and also in the Octane live render window as I scrub through. “Animate preview” is checked and it still doesn’t work.

I have not been able to figure out why my background will not scrub through the PNG sequence that I created of my background footage.

OK so I thought it might have been a problem with a file setting where I had clicked “Yes” when “This image is not in the document search path…”. This time I fixed it so it’s “no”, but I still can’t get it to scrub through.

Hi yngvai,

In the Standard Material, go to Viewport> Animate Preview.

I have no license for Octane.

The Yes or No answer decides if the file is copied into the project folder and what kind of Path information is stored.

I can’t do much with screen captures or screenshots; the Project file reduced to the data helps me in a better way to find an answer for you (except when it has plug-ins that I don’t have (e.g., Octane).

Cheers

OK, I’ve removed all the Octane-related materials and also switched the renderer to just the physical renderer. Now I just have my motion tracker/solved camera, a figure (which is turned off for now), a sphere, and the background that I’m trying to animate. The background will still not animate in the default camera view, despite having the Animate Preview checked on, and despite having the “No” answer for the files.

Here is a link to the files (expires in a few days). The Cinema 4d file is “Monster Sequence 1 Background Test.c4d”, and the entire PNG sequence is in there.

https://1drv.ms/u/s!ArAeOyCnJTp-j5xSRgvb1045clqBOg?e=55nIEf

Hi yngvai,

Thanks for the files. I love the simplicity of helping you based on this material.

Please have a look at the image below. Will that work for you?

In the file you shared, the images animate from frame zero to 85 and then stop. You were looking at a range in the project from 100 to 185.

Fingers crossed that you can use that for your project.

I placed the files in a folder inside the project folder, called that folder tex.

As a side note, perhaps it works fine for you, then ignore it: I avoid empty spaces in file names and use _ “underscores” for that. I learned that from my years doing productions in Munich. Since then, I have not used empty spaces at all.

My best wishes for the production.

Yes, that worked!!!! Thank you so much! I was tearing my hair out yesterday trying to figure out why it wasn’t working. Glad it was such a simple easy solution.

Thank you again!

You’re very welcome, yngvai.

Enjoy