Hi everybody.

I have been running through some issues on import tracking data from Boujou.


So there is my issue.

I tracked my video in Boujou 5.0. I exported it in .hip format and opened it into Houdini 11.

I activated the “display background image” in setting preferences and put the video into the view roto of the camera.

When I play the video, the video seems to move forward the camera moves. so tracking points don't follow the video as well as it should and I can't set my 3D objects in the scene.

I tried it into Maya and my tracked file works perfectly fine.


Did someone experienced this problem ? is there parameter to set into houdini to correct the gap between my camera moves and my video ?

Thank you very much.


Edit : I have also warnings at the opening of the file in Houdini. If it can help.

unknown operator on load “comp/camera_1_comp.init”
unknown operator on load “comp/camera_1_comp.def”
unknown operator on load “comp/camera_1_comp.parm”
unknown operator on load “comp/camera_1_comp/file1.init”
unknown operator on load “comp/camera_1_comp/file1.def”
unknown operator on load “comp/camera_1_comp/file1.parm”
unknown operator on load “comp/camera_1_comp.net”

It's been years since I've worked with Boujou tracking data but I seem to remember having an issue with frame offset where boujou's track was off by 1 frame. You can try padding your playback using the following in the roto file field:

/filename`padzero(3, $F+1)`.tga

Substitute your path to the background image and the filename prefix for filename. Sub your file extension for tga. “3” is the number of digits in your frame numbering extension. “$F+1” tells Houdini to play the image back 1 frame early so in this example Houdini's frame 2 will match up to filename001.tga. Make sense?

Hi SplitPoint.

There is a gap of one frame too.

It makes sense, yes. However, I think i didn't understand very well what you call filename and filename prefix. I don't understand why you change the file extension to targa either.

my file sequence is :

metro_steady.000.jpg to metro_steady_455.jpg


my view roto path is :

$HIP/metro/steady/metro_steady.$F3.jpg


I did :

$HIP/metro/steady/metro_steady.`padzero(3, $F+1)`.jpg


My footage disappeared in the 3D view.


EDIT : i change the padding of my sequence rather than .000 to .455 I have now .001 to .456

It still sliding a little bit. Could it be a framerate to set in houdini ? I didn't find anything about that.

Hmm. Check that your camera matches the resolution and aspect ratio of your plate. I've seen a mismatch where the camera defaulted to 640x480 instead of the real resolution/aspect ratio. Depending on the motion of your camera it can look like the movement is off when your focal length or aspect ratio is really off.

Without the plate or the boujou export it's pretty tough for me narrow it down much more than that.

Good luck!

Just tried it. it doesn't work. I'll do it in another way.

Thanks for your time

Hi guys, i have some really problems, try to import tracking data from syntheye. in syntheye i have perfect result, import this data in houdini like in this tut https://vimeo.com/17870587 [vimeo.com] , but my trackers jump, i dont now what to do. thanks man