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Track Camera Disabled on Clip from Premiere CS6?
Hi Gang!
Not sure what I did wrong, but I did a “Replace with After Effects Composition on a clip in Premiere Pro CS6, and while I have my clip selected in the composition in After Effects 9CS6), the Animation>Track Camera menu is disabled.
What am I doing wrong?
Thanks,
gabi -
12 Replies
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thanks for the reply, David –
Yes I went through that material a couple of time (great one – thnaks!), but it really doesn’t address my issue.
I have no problem with the camera tracker if I start a project IN after effects, the traditional way, import fottage, plop that on the time line, right-click and choose “Camera Tracker”. I did already a couple of great trackings this way.The problem seems to be with dynamically linked clips from Premiere Pro to After Effects.
In premiere pro, I have a clip in the timeline that’s 1080 in a 720 sequence, all looks ok there. Then I right click on it, and choose “Replace with After Effects Composition”.
This action opens After Effects, with a new comp already in place matching the Premiere Pro sequence, etc. and with the clip already in the timeline to be worked on.
Now I noticed that in the After Effects project, the whole untrimmed mov clip was imported also, even if in the comp i have it trimmed to the region I have in the Premiere Pro timeline.
THIS is the clip looks like it’s pre-comped in After Effects to match the Premiere Pro trimming.
The Precomp is the one I have trouble with using Camera Tracker. The Camera Tracker is simply grayed out on it.I hope this makes sense…
thanks!
gabi. -
[Gabi Bucataru] “The Precomp is the one I have trouble with using Camera Tracker. The Camera Tracker is simply grayed out on it.”
The 3D Camera Tracker only works on footage layers. You cannot track a composition layer.
You must either step into the precomp and track the footage, or pre-render the precomp (so it becomes footage) and track that.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
Walter –
thanks a bunch for the reply! Understood. The problem is that the footage is pretty long while the clip in premiere pro (or the comp length in AE) is only a couple seconds and it it’s a waste of time to track the whole shot.
How do you pre-render a comp? Via render queue?Also I thought I make a screenshot only for reference so you see what’s going on:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kfNKeXeHmc
thanks a ton!
gabi -
Heya Walter, I’ve almost always cam tracked nested comps in AE. The reason is that my tracking footage are always anamorphic AND the 3D Cam Tracker doesn’t allow tracking of anamorphic footage that has been stretched to fit their square PAR equivalent comp – it’ll start tracking but instead of a solve, an error msg will appear. The error msg suggests that Transforms are not allowed within the same comp as the 3D tracking comp. I also have a preference to always work in a square PAR comp.
I think the problem here is related to a malfunction in DL or the fact that his original footage is 1080 while his PPro sequence is 720.
One workr around is initiate the DL from AE instead of PPro. Copy the footage from PPro into AE and initiate the track and solves there. Add the camera and all other necessary layers/effects and then initiate a DL with PPro.
HTH
RoRKIntensive AE & Mocha Training in Singapore and Malaysia
Adobe ACE/ACI (version 7) & Imagineer Systems Inc Approved Mocha Trainer -
I stand corrected! I took the documentation at its word (“With a footage layer selected…”). Don’t I feel silly…
Gabi, although the Track Camera command may be grayed out in the menu, can you track the precomp by adding the 3D Camera Tracker effect to the layer, or by opening the Track panel and clicking Track Camera?
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
Thanks Rork and Walter!
Walter:
1. Dragging a 3D Camera Tracker effect to the layer gives me the following error:
“3D analysis doesn’t work with Collapse Transformations (514) ( 25 :: 101 )”
2. from the tracker panel, the Motion source drop down box has my layer but it’s grayed out.A funny thing is that I did a test sequence in PP that was matching the original footage size (1440x1080i at 1.33 pixel aspect ratio), replaced the clip in the PP time line with a AE composition and it WORKED!
This time I was presented in AE with a comp that had the actual footage (.mov) layer, as opposed to the previous time where I had a comp comprising of an .mpeg footage.I think there’s an issue in PP having my 1080 1.33 footage stuffed into a 720p 1.0 square pixels sequence, then on top of all I have the footage scaled down to fit the frame size, then exported to AE via DL.
But even then, by default that should work, isn’t it?
thanks for all the help!
cheers!
gabi. -
Thanks for reporting back Gabi. The issue is definitely related to you working with different sized footage and sequence in PP – the same issue will crop up in AE although a different message will appear to announce that cam tracking is not possible when a layer. Secondly, a nested comp cannot have Collapse Transformations if you want to run the cam tracker.
HTH
RoRKIntensive AE & Mocha Training in Singapore and Malaysia
Adobe ACE/ACI (version 7) & Imagineer Systems Inc Approved Mocha Trainer -
thanks Rork –
makes sense.
Excuse my ignorance but can you please explain what Collapse Transformations are?thanks!
gabi -
[Gabi Bucataru] “Excuse my ignorance but can you please explain what Collapse Transformations are?
“That’s a question that requires a very long answer that’s not suited for forums. AE’s HELP as well as COW Tutorials will help you out.
Cheers
RoRKIntensive AE & Mocha Training in Singapore and Malaysia
Adobe ACE/ACI (version 7) & Imagineer Systems Inc Approved Mocha Trainer -
thanks RoRK –
I solved my issue by copying the sized clip from the 720 sequence to a blank new 1080 sequence in Premiere Pro. Then from there I used the “replace clip with AE comp”, AE opened and voila, the Track Camera is functional!
So, I am not sure if this should be classified as a “bug” (and submit it to Adobe) or I just tried an unorthodox way of exporting a 1080 clip that didn’t matched the 720 sequence settings in Pr.
I would expect despite of that, there shouldn’t be an issue.
thoughts?
thanks,
gabi
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