Mastering 3D Tracking and Scene Export in SynthEyes for After Effects

[@yinon_tal]

Wow amazing! I just started learning Syntheyes, and so happy to see new tutorial and updated. Very promise software!

[@BorisFXco]

Glad you like it! More tutorials coming are coming too. It's such a deep piece of software.

[@charles_wren_films]

SynthEyes is astounding. No idea why, but it’s always felt so much faster and more accurate with a single click solve than any other camera tracker. The hardest part for me though is the interface 😖 It feels so dated and cumbersome at this point. I’d absolutely LOVE to see BorisFX do a complete overhaul of the GUI and UX, and modernise the program as a whole. By comparison, PFTrack feels much more intuitive imho, thanks to the more modern GUI. It also allows for much more experimentation imho, thanks to the node based workflow. However, SynthEyes’ actual tracking/solving algorithm is just astounding. It always seems to get shockingly close to a usable solve with a single click. And it’s so damn fast. It also tends to orient the scene really well right off the bat too. It’s such a great piece of software, I’d just love to see it get some TLC on the GUI/UX front in a future version.

[@BorisFXco]

Thanks for the kind words! Making the move to a more modern GUI is a great suggestion (and not the first time we have heard it). Stay tuned!

[@johannes3530]

I agree. I love syntheyes but the UI is so confusing.

[@uncle2thestars]

Great job as usual, Harry! I have always appreciated your work. This is somehow the first time I have seen a tutorial from you since you were at “the other place”. I am glad to see you are here.

[@mambaman2007]

Any chance we can get the footage to follow along with?

[@BXLrules]

Great! I applaud this acquisition, I've been using mocha for over 10 years as a professional, 3D tracking was something I rarely hat to take care of myself and ended up using nuke, Im super excited syntheyes got aquired and recieves Mocha style UI and interpretation.

[@BorisFXco]

Thank you for the kind words. We are excited for the future of SynthEyes!

[@johannes3530]

Thanks for this beginner friendly tutorial!

[@BorisFXco]

Hope it helped

[@johannes3530]

@@BorisFXco Yes! But there is a urgent NEED to have more tutorials inside Fusion Studio ;) I am excited every time I actually see a "BorisFX inside Fusion" Tutorial

[@BorisFXco]

We agree!

[@tor3203]

It would be best if you locked tracker122 after you are done with 2D tracking. A good habit.

[@BorisFXco]

You're absolutely right. Sometimes these details get lost in the mix. Thanks for pointing it out. Always lock your trackers immediately when you're done with them.

[@24inchgamer]

Great new features Harry. Any plans to update the UI? The is a lot of cropped menu text when you switch to High DPI (using a 4K display, Windows 11).

[@BorisFXco]

Lots of plans, but a UI overhaul will take quite a while to do. We are aware of issues that happen with HiDPI with scaling enabled, and we are looking at solutions for this.

[@i20010]

Great usability updates!

[@BorisFXco]

Thanks for the comment. We agree!

[@mirospain]

Syntheyes for After Effects ... if you would have told someone 10 yrs ago! finally some usable 3D MAtch moving in AE-World!

[@BorisFXco]

It's such a pain free workflow now.

[@spydergs07]

I just recently got Syntheyes and it has really elevated my vfx work. I have used Blenders and Dancing Resolve for tracking, but syntheyes really is dominate when it comes to tracking. I was able to track a really difficult scene in a matter of 5 minutes yesterday. I tried the same scene track in Blender and Resolve, Resolve took 20 mins and kept crashing and I never could get the track to finish. Blender, I had to track 60-80 frames, then add more trackers, I had to do that for 700 frames. Never could get the solve under 5px error. Syntheyes, I got it tracked and a solve of under .5.

[@BorisFXco]

Thanks so much for saying that. It's great to hear

[@falfieri3167]

How reliable is the hpix value? Sometimes in nuke you’ll have an error less than 0.5 but your solve can be completely wrong.

[@BorisFXco]

It's a solid metric to be looking at. It's basically the difference between where the 2D tracker and the solved 3D tracker is. If there is significant drift between these two then you can be sure the solve isn't accurate. The closer these are to each other the more confident you can be. The hpix value also delivers an average of the selected (or all if none are selected) trackers. Individual trackers can be off, but the rest could be spot on, bringing the average down. Does that help?

[@Motionworks]

Good stuff Harry!

[@dialecticalmonist3405]

So I have Vegas. Can I use Syntheyes with Vegas? I have the Boris FX Suite.

[@BorisFXco]

We do not have a direct exporter out from SynthEyes to VEGAS. Here is a list of hosts that we export data for currently : borisfx.com/documentation/syntheyes/syntheyesum_files/exporting_to_your_animation Let us know where and how you want to use 3D matchmoving data and we may be able to find a solution for you though.

[@olahaldor]

This looks great! Really want to upgrade my legacy license now. :D

[@BorisFXco]

There's never been a better time for it, and I don't think there will be 😁

[@keriatin5338]

A questuon please ،i love syntheyes , its crazy good ,and all my tracks are perfect ,but when i export to blender ,via alembic file ,its all messed up in blender ,its never alighned ,it used to be before ,but with the same version of both softwares its not ,i tried re installing to reset the settings ,the problem is my track in synth is perfect ,but in blender i have to guess the fov of the camera and try alot to get it near useable, any tips?

[@BorisFXco]

Can you please open a Support ticket. The team can help you with the specifics of your project there : support.borisfx.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=8862260885901

[@vinhdo1609]

wait. i see you turn off th point track when the car occluded but why the point still stick to the rock to the whole prior frame and video? that's weird

[@BorisFXco]

Because once all the tracks has been solved in 3D space, it doesn't matter that the trackers only appear for a few frames. The relationship between them and the virtual camera has already been established, so the point will always be in the right place. Does that make sense?

[@vinhdo1609]

yeah. i'm kind of get that. Syntheyes is pretty powerfull. i'll try syntheyes soon@@BorisFXco

[@vinhdo1609]

@@BorisFXco Yes Thank u Boris for bring such an amazing new application to the family.

[@manolomaru]

Interesting program, please more! ✨👌😎🙂😎👍✨

[@BorisFXco]

More to come!

[@kite3604]

please tell me why this option is better than a standard 3D tracker in the After Effect?

[@BorisFXco]

If you watch through the video, you'll see how flexible SynthEyes is in terms of defining the scene center, orientation and scale. The solve can be repeatedly refined and updated in After Effects to get a much more accurate solve. Also, SynthEyes also solves lens distortion and includes a plugin to accommodate the distortion. Also, SynthEyes generally solves scenes lighting fast compared to After Effects, generally less than 30 seconds.

[@kite3604]

@@BorisFXco Thank you! Great tool! I will buy!

[@kobiohanna]

can you please share footage link so we can follow along?

[@BorisFXco]

We cannot distribute the footage, as it is not ours to do so. But you can download a watermarked version of the footage from Raw.film here: raw.film/clips/view/134646-Off-Road-Driving

[@3DAnimationen]

Great!

[@atlanteum]

Can you generate and export a mesh from the trackpoints?

[@BorisFXco]

Yes, absolutely. Here's an older tutorial that shows that : kzbin.info/www/bejne/nqScZmydZ9yZhdU You can even do texture extraction on those meshes too, or use it for camera projection.

[@atlanteum]

@@BorisFXco Wonderful, thank you!

[@JoshPurple]

Excellent, Thank You 🔥🔥🔥🔥🏆😁!

[@BorisFXco]

You're welcome! Thanks for stopping by.

[@MosabSharef]

Syntheyes is going crazy , can you please do a work flow for blender

[@harryjf]

Blender workflow is already built-in. Have you had a chance to try it?

[@gabehobbs]

Really hope you guys don't drop support for fusion!

[@BorisFXco]

Why would we? We love Fusion.

[@gabehobbs]

@@BorisFXco Hope not! There's just not a lot of support out there for fusion, despite how awesome it is. Had me worried with a video about After Effects just because that's where alot of software focuses! Would love to see some fusion tutorials.

[@quinnvictor1058]

Maybe it's just me, but syntheyes kinda sucks. any motion blur whatsoever just throws off my solves and I have never really gotten a usable result from any of my testing.

[@quinnvictor1058]

Also all of the footage they show when using it is the literal easiest stuff for the software or any 3D tracking software for that matter, they never show using it with footage that is common for a vfx artist to have to handle, nothing even remotely challenging.

[@BorisFXco]

The solves are only ever going to be as good as the tracking you've got. If you're trying to use auto features, try making the blip size larger, as there probably aren't many good useful small features. But for heavy motion blur you are usually going to have to do a bit more work. Manual tracking is the best way to get consistent features in points where you need them. Here's a good video for supervised tracking : borisfx.com/videos/syntheyes-supervised-tracking-master-class/

[@BorisFXco]

This is 100% by design for these getting started videos. When you're coming into a new piece of software, you want to know the broad strokes of what the features do. If a beginner tutorial goes too deep, then that video gets closed by the _vast_ majority of people. Once you get past that initial part, you can understand what's happening in the more in-depth features. We have over 100 SynthEyes videos on our website that cover more tricky shots and advanced features. Have a look to see if there is something useful for you there : borisfx.com/videos/?tags=product:SynthEyes&search=

[@cherifaly6757]

Unfortunately, Syntheyes is dead after BorisFx acquired it. Goodbye Syntheyes...

[@BorisFXco]

What are you talking about? It's been part of Boris FX for less than half a year, it's already had two feature releases and is now part of the Boris FX Suite. SynthEyes is alive and as rambunctious as it's ever been.

[@i20010]

Good luck with 3dequalizer.