ANR Camera Bake

Overview

Camera Bake reads where a camera really is on every frame, parents, expressions, links and look-ats included, and gives it back as a plain node with a key on every frame and nothing attached. Use it before you hand a camera to another department or another application, before you delete the setup that drives it, or when a solved camera has to be rescaled to real-world units.

Copy Baked Camera makes a Camera with the world move (translate, rotate, and scaling when there is any) plus the lens: focal length, both apertures, window translate, scale and roll, near and far, all keyed. Copy Baked Axis makes an Axis with the same world move, either of the Camera input or of any 3D node you name in Node, such as an Axis, Card, Light or TransformGeo.

The rotation is written in ZXY order and kept continuous from frame to frame, so the baked curves have no 360-degree flips. Both buttons put the new node on the clipboard: click in the Node Graph and paste.

Inputs

1. Sourceoptional

   Optional. Passed through untouched. With Frame Range set to Source Range, its frame range is the range that is baked.

2. Cameraoptional

   The camera to bake. Needed for Copy Baked Camera. When it is connected, Copy Baked Axis bakes this camera's move too, ahead of anything named in Node.

Output. The Source, unchanged. What the node makes are the Camera and Axis nodes the buttons paste.

Quick start

1. Add ANR Camera Bake and connect the camera you want to flatten to its Camera input.
2. Choose the frames in Frame Range: Project Range, Source Range, or Custom with First Frame and Last Frame.
3. If the camera comes from a solve in the wrong units, set Scene Scale (for example, real distance divided by the same distance in the solve).
4. Press Copy Baked Camera, click in the Node Graph and press Ctrl+V.
5. View the scene through the pasted camera and compare it with the original on a few frames.

The panel

The node's panel as Nuke shows it, with the values of a new node. Click any control to see what it does; tabs and sections work as in Nuke.

All controls

Tips

• To bake an Axis, Card, Light or TransformGeo, leave the Camera input empty, select the node in the Node Graph (the panel stays open), press Use Selected Node, then Copy Baked Axis.
• Copy Baked Axis with a camera connected gives an Axis that carries the camera's move, handy for attaching other 3D elements to the camera without its parent chain.
• The pasted node's label lists the baked frames and the Scene Scale, so you can tell later where it came from.
• Status says what was read and what was made. If the clipboard is busy, it names a file you can drag into the Node Graph instead.

Good to know

• The baked nodes are not linked to the original. If the original setup changes, bake again.
• Scene Scale multiplies positions and near and far only. Focal length and apertures are not changed, so the field of view stays the same.
• The Camera input accepts Camera nodes only. Bake an Axis, Card or Light through Node instead.

Works with

ANR Scene SolverSolves the camera and the scene from the plate with an AI model: a Nuke Camera with a real focal length, depth and position passes, a point cloud and a textured mesh.ANR Point To TrackTurns 3D nodes seen through a camera into 2D tracks: one Tracker, with one track per Axis, Light, Card or other 3D node.ANR Card To TrackTurns a 3D Card seen through a camera into 2D: a Tracker with its four corners, a CornerPin, or a live matte of the card.