BSA227, camera moves in Nuke and adding 3D bits from Maya, 7 September, 2016

Nuke software- does what After Effects does, but it's industry standard
tracking moving camera and how to bring that info into Maya
In a locked off shot, there isn't much to do except import still frame and create geometry to catch shadows of 3D character
import footage into AE to get the frame for Maya later on
pull bars over until one frame remains, composition- trim to work area, render,
save as PNG, save to tracking folder

use NukeX 9 v.8
nodal system, unlike AE which uses layers like Photoshop
hit s on keyboard to get script editor to come up
tab under big grey area will bring up menu and popular nodes
select read node
bring footage in
connect arrow between read(viewer node) and image
tab, type in camera to find camera tracker node
drag between viewer and image until arrow goes white then drop it
select camera tracker, on right side menu hit "track" button
program analyzes camera movements and inserts orange x and dots, whatever
once it's finished, select solve button and the shooting stars will go green or red in addition to orange

green=good, sticking
red= errors, you can delete those and resolve by clicking on them frame by frame and htting delete
errors 1 and under
setting ground plane
go to 3D view
back to 3D view, shift and select a number of green arrows until they go yellow
right click, select ground plane, set to selected, they'll go pink

back to 3D view to see your progress.  The hot pink dots have been established as the ground plane

exporting camera with tracking info to use in Maya
camera- scene- create and scene nodes pop up.  (This looks like ToonBoom Harmony's innards)

Double click on camera to get the camera to show up in the 3D view
Tab in big grey area and type "write" to get "writegeo" to come up. select and connect arrow to scene node
double click write geo to bring up menu
add .fbx to the end of the name so it will format properly
save whole composition as .nk
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Maya
set new project

make sure you're in PAL 25 frames and millimeters
I wasn't able to keep up with Vaughn and write down the instructions.  import the fbx footage and group the locators then put them on a layer and disappear them. select camera and  under environment tab take background colour down to black in folder select the png one frame in image plane and hit create to link the still frame to the camera?

make a 3D object in Maya and also a plane:  assign new material and type in "use background" select that and the plane camouflages itself to look like the bg

 put in two directional lights to create shadows. in second dLight, take off ray shadows

render two layers: box and shadow so the opacity of the shadow can be changed in AE

white shows what will show up in the scene- the box, it's shadow and the still frame in the background? Or will that bg be left behind and added again in AE.
launch render set up window (icon next to hypershade in Maya 2016 extention 2)
middle mouse drag and drop selected items to add to collection box
go back to render view box and render to check that the right things have gone into the collection

click plus layer again to create second layer, name shadows, right click and create collection

because we just want the shadow and not the box, we right click on collection of shadows and
choose create material override.  slide all three sliders (specular colours, reflectivity and reflection limit to the left) and the box takes on the background, like the plane did.
up on scene tab, deselection movie clapper icon so only the layers with collections render.

recheck through "eyeball" of render setup menu to make sure just the box (in that layer) and just black (because you can't see the shadow) are showing up in the test render.
don't want to render the background, even on the plane, so delete png still frame once all the rendering stuff has been committed to.

batch render it all. Make sure it's been renamed in render set up and right click to select render layer
Problems with rendering in layers:  something about ext 2 and the shadows "slipping" the fps rate didn't stick to 25 but changed to 24?  re-rendered the batch with both layers at the same time and it got fixed.