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  • Mocha After Effects Problems

    Posted by Tuan Dang on August 5, 2009 at 5:58 am

    i tried to do a simple HP commercial effect in which a person hold a frame and put it aside. the video was simple. i held it in front of my face than moved it to aside. as i held it in front of the frame, i took a snapshot(save frame as, PSD layer). i went into photoshop to crop perspectively, showing only the face without the frame around.

    in mocha AE and imported the clip. i made sure that the frame rate was the same as the one in After Effects. in this case the frame rate was 29.97. in mocha, at the clip tab under film, there was a drop-down, displaying several choices to pick. i am confused what to choose. here were some of the choices: cs4 dv ntsc, cs4 d1 ntsc, ntsc or others? i checked with the composition settings in After Effects to see if i can match some of these setting in Mocha. so i chose ntsc dv in AE and in Mocha, i chose cs4 dv ntsc.

    in mocha, i went to the frame where i wanted to start the tracking which in this case was 157. i created an X-Spline layer around out site the frame. then inside the frame, i added X-Spline to layer. in Track tab, I made sure that Translation, Scale, Rotation, Shear, and Perspective boxes were checked. then in AdjustTrack tab, i set all Master All points to line up with the inner X-Spline that I added. I also added the Surface to line up the same as the Master All points. Then go back to Track tab, I clicked on Track Forwards button, to start the tracking. I stopped the track when at frame 285 and Exported Tracking Data, although the total frame was 720. i just wanted to test a small portion of the clip before i tracked the entire clip. the tracking was short and accurate.

    in AE, i imported both the clip and the PSD snapshot. i made sure that the clip started at the very beginning of the clip. i selected the PSD snapshot layer and pasted the Tracking Data.

    when i did this, the PSD got smaller than it looked before. I lined up the PSD snapshot at frame 157 with the clip because the anchor point was off. the tracking followed the clip but it was off and the PSD snapshot was smaller and did not fit the frame from the clip. anyway, i tried many ways, and now I GAVE UP!

    this supposed to be simple? i followed many tutorials but i am doing something wrong. CAN SOMEONE HELP ME!!!

    thanks!

    Gaurav Bal replied 14 years, 11 months ago 5 Members · 6 Replies
  • 6 Replies
  • Chris Buttacoli

    August 5, 2009 at 3:13 pm

    I believe you need to pre-compose the psd-snapshot with the same dimensions as the original footage first. If your project is 720×480 then your psd precomp should also be 720×480, and the psd should fit to width and height. Then paste the tracking data to the pre-comp layer. I think that’s the problem you are having.

  • Lisa Connor

    February 22, 2010 at 2:27 pm

    Hi, I have a pixel ratio problem. I have a clip that is 1280×1080 23.976FPS. I need it to be in an AE composition that is 1920×1080 24FPS. I need the tracking data from mocha for the clip that is 1280×1080. When I paste the mocha data in that layer,(in AE) it comes out too small. What happened? Thanks, Lisa

  • Lisa Connor

    February 22, 2010 at 4:38 pm

    Hi Dave, Thanks for your reply. Kinda new to all of this. I thought that because the film files are different that was what was giving me the problem. Why does the track come into AE so small?
    Here is what I am trying to do: I have a clip of an actor on green screen and a clip of an outdoor scene. The actor has to walk through the outdoor scene, but I need to mask out a tree that is in the foreground so our actor looks like he is walking behind it. What should I do?

  • Ross Shain

    February 25, 2010 at 3:48 am

    Sounds like you could use mocha for After Effects v2 and the mocha shape plug-in.

    Track the tree in mocha and use that track to link a tight roto mask for the tree. Export this from mocha to to AE into the mocha shape plug-in and paste onto the layer. This will cut a matte to composite on top of the actor.

    Note that the mocha project and the AE project must match in frame size, fps and pixel aspect. That sounds like the start of your issues.

    There are many tutorials for mocha online on the Imagineer web site.
    best,
    Ross

    Ross Shain
    Imagineer Systems
    http://www.imagineersystems.com

  • Lisa Connor

    February 25, 2010 at 12:32 pm

    Thank you. I am new to mocha and I appreciate your taking the time to answer my question. 🙂

  • Gaurav Bal

    August 15, 2011 at 4:48 am

    Hi,

    I also have problem with motion tracking. I import jpeg sequence in Mocha, aspect ratio is 1280*720 fram rate is 23.976 i track the footage and export it in format After effects transformation data (*.txt), in After effects when I create new null object and paste tracked data from mocha…its does not go well. Null Object moves here and there and Tracking does not work..my aspect ratio & frame rate is same as Mocha… also I have precomposed layer in after effects… but still it does not work …any suggestions! please….

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