The annual salary of an advanced 3D tracking artist can be upwards of $8O,OOO plus benefits (and it’s tough finding one available). Also, you may not always have enough work to keep them busy- so you're stuck paying for time you aren't able to utilize.

With a subscription plan, you can pause and resume the time within your month up to 6 months to ensure you're only paying when you have shots that need 3D tracking.

You may find freelancers that work by the hour- but good luck with quality control and project management. One of the keys to Tracking Artist Studios is the time efficiency in it’s organization. It’s easy to scale up and not be bogged down by endless emails or wondering where your download links for your track files went. With your own project dashboard you’ll have a clear view saving you time & money.

3D camera tracking is a complex subset of VFX that does not have a lot of documentation around it. While you may find tutorials covering the basics, you’ll often find yourself scratching your head over how your shot has a uniquely different set of problems then other shots. Save time by having Tracking Artist Studios cover it so you can focus on more important tasks.

One of my roles at The Third Floor Inc was fixing camera tracks that other team members couldn’t solve. In your case l will almost always start a new scene but if your shot is tracked with PFTrack 2019 or newer you can upload your PFTrack project along with your shot for possible time saving (user tracks take up the majority of time).

You’ll have the most accurate results by providing the sensor size and focal length of each shot. The sensor size is the L x W dimensions of the image sensor in your digital camera. The focal length is the millimeter of your lens. If you do not know either variable for your shot, PFTrack can still solve the shot using it’s own variables. You can read more about sensor sizes (also called film backs) at:

VFX Camera Database / Film Back 101

If it’s shot with a camera it can almost always be 3D tracked. That includes tougher shots like whip pans, hand held, fast drones, oner’s, etc. Know that these kinds of shots may increase time to completion based on difficulty. Some shots that may not be 3D trackable include shots already roto’d with no environment (flat greenscreen) and shots with no tracking markers or discernible features.

This can vary by a number of factors but in general it’s based on shot length and movement difficulty. Most shots are fairly short in film / TV / video for story pacing. For a shot thats long (like a oner) with different complex sections of movement, a shot may be broken into subtasks so you can see the progress each 1 - 3 business days until its complete.

All 3D camera tracking is done in PFTrack and in specific cases NukeX. There are no plans currently to accommodate other tracking softwares but it will be considered in the future.

Yes, the techniques vary based on a number of factors. Make a note about the lens used during your shoot. You may receive an undistorted image sequence or STMap. Depending on the difficulty of the shots it can potentially increase the time between tasks.

Yes, if you have 3D models or LIDAR from your film set (.obj files preferred) then you can upload them along with your shots. Lower the polygon count to keep file sizes smaller and easier to work with.

3D object tracking falls into matchmoving / animation and can have a lot of variables. Tracking Artist Studios is primarily just for cameras, but there may be add ons for object tracking in the future.

No. Tracking Artist Studios specifically handles the role of a tracking artist so that you can have the freedom to focus on other parts of the pipeline for your film project.

Tracking Artist Studios is a subscription service that runs during business days (Monday to Friday). The cost includes weekends & U.S. federal holidays and no work is done on these days.

For monthly plans (no pausing on weekly plan) let’s say you only have a few shots you need 3D tracked. It takes a week of service to complete. That leaves around 3 weeks of service left. You can add an active task saying Pause Subscription and have those 3 remaining weeks available to you anytime- up to 6 months. Whenever you want to resume your subscription, add a new active task saying to resume in your project dashboard and I will resume your service. I will create a new renewal date based on the number of days you have left.

Refunds are assessed on a case by case basis, and only includes the time left remaining on your plan.

Setting up your project dashboard will take about 1 business day from when you paid. You’ll receive an email letting you know when you’re ready to start uploading.