Customer Reviews

Matchmoving: The Invisible Art of Camera Tracking

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is an amazing book. I am a VFX professional and this book has shed a whole new light on the "mystical" art of matchmoving. The veil has finally been lifted!

This book is a must have for both begginers and advanced effects artists. If your new to the visual effects world, then this book will help you understand the very seldom talked about skill of matchmoving. If your a seasoned pro, and rely on a matchmoving department to create your matchmoves, then this book will help you understand what goes into this very time consuming and sometimes very difficult skill.

I have been using matchmoving software for a while, but never really understood what it takes to acheive the best results. This book has helped me re-asses my thought process when it comes to building my shots.

This book is well writen and layed out perfectly. Once I picked it up, I could not put it down.

Every page of this book is worth. Whether you are a student or a professional if you are jumping in to the field of matchmoving this book will fulfill your dreams more than you had expected to learn through a book. I am a vfx professional but a starter to this field and was struggling to understand the subject because u wont find many teachers on this subject like other fields of VFX.I was also very uncertain about the material before buying the book because it was the single book available on the subject, but voila it was more than i could have expected. Tim Dobbert is a wonderful teacher, he will make you understand matchmoving like anything, from very basic to quite an advanced level of problem solving techniques, figuring out the problems when matchmove isnt working and the ways to make it work. Twelve chapters are arranged in a class room type lecture, packed with tutorials and the techniques which you can apply literary to any matchmoving software.

Don't think just buy it..........

This book is cheap wisdom that might save you its weight in gold on your next complex track. If you're a seasoned artist or even beginner, you may be surprised by the considerations required to produce perfect results. Automatic systems are incredible tools, but you can't always rely on them without a solid understanding of camera and setup. This all-encompassing, step-by-step coverage of matchmoving is a mandatory read for any interested CG artist, producer and / or supervisor.

There's a important phrase into the introduction of Tim Dobbert's book, a phrase often told by the author to his own students: << if you've done your job right, non one should ever know you've done your job at all >>. That's the right way to describe the goal of the INVISIBLE ART OF CAMERA TRACKING.

As an INVISIBLE absolute beginner freelancer in vfx here in Italy, where you must know a lot of different pipeline aspects in the production enviroment, I quickly understood the importance of matchmoving in making believable integration between CG elements and live footage.
I found this book very useful to understand what is photogrammetry and briefly to grasp the meaning of what's really happening "under the hood" of a matchmoving software. After several explanations, tutorials and deepenings, Tim shows some interesting troubleshootings and tips, I personally found very useful, which works on every package because they concern how to correct and optimize your footage before matchmoving. Doing so I've been able to solve scenes impossible to track before, and I had the opportunity to make my MATCHING more INVISIBLE. So, if you wanna make your camera tracking more INVISIBLE and your vfx more VISIBLE and NOTICEABLE I suggest you to buy this book it right now!! No regrets!! You bet your boots!!

Ciao

Massimo Storari
www.magi3dmonk.com

Recently, I started doing matchmove work again, after a two year break. Before starting the new job, I wanted to brush up by reading this book. This is an excellent reference and I wish I had it when I started matchmoving four years ago. For the novice I can not recommend this book enough. For a manual, this book is easy to read and breaks down all aspects of matchmoving in just 250 pages. I did not go over the tutorials on the CD, I am just reviewing the written portion of the book.

My review for this book is simple. If you need a comprehensive, well-written introduction to the world of matchmoving get this book!

tutorials are on the web, but this book has all in one place and very specific info for pre-production.

Since this is only the Matchmoving book out there, there not much to say. The book has some really nice tutorials, is clearly written, and once you finish the book you should be able to go out and shoot your own footage for CG animation/fx.

Very useful and well written book, whether you are a pro or don't know anything about matchmoving. Probably if you work on the field you'll find that you already know most of the first chapters, but the advanced ones are really really useful: how cameras work, being on set, advanced techniques, troubleshooting and much more. There is a cd with good contents too.

This is a great resource on matchmoving.
With easy to follow excercises, this book will help you learn how to become a good matchmover.
I have studyed under Tim and I must say Matchmoving is his life - and that life is in this book. It is a great resource...