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Tracking, Mocha, Masking or both?
Hello. I have a clip that I would like to add text to, but it needs to ” sitck ” to an object as the camera moves.
Here is the clip on SpeedyShare; no need to make an account, download link is right at the top and it is 14MB.
https://speedy.sh/fE5bk/demo.mp4I would like for the text to follow the escalator handrail precisely and once the camera is facing the windows, place letters or solids in each pane.
For the text to follow the handrail, I’ve tried making a path, which really doesn’t work as soon as the camera moves, so I went with Motion Tracker with rotation and that kind of works a bit better but is still iffy. Is this something Mocha can help with or will I just have to keep trying with the regular Motion Tracker?
The second bit is the windows. In order to get letters/solids in the windows and keep them lined up with each pane, is that tracking plus masks or is there a better way to accomplish this?
Thank you.
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11 Replies
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Yes, Mocha does a great job tracking planar surfaces like the windows. If you have CS6 you could use the camera tracker to get a solve of the camera movement and then use that to match the position of the text to the camera movement, then manually keyframe the text moving along the rail. There are a ton of tutorials out there that would be helpful, here are a few:
Imagineer Systems Mocha Tutorials
Erik Waluska
EAWmedia.com -
Thank you so much, Erik. I’m using Ae CC and tried the camera tracker as you suggested. It wasn’t the exact effect I had envisioned, but I like the results and it’s really easy to attach text and keep it stable compared to just motion tracker.
Now that I’m finally at the section of the clip with the windows, I’ll start messing with mocha.
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One more question. Mocha does a great job of tracking those windows, but if I wanted to fill in the panes with black accurately, is there an easy way to do that?
My first thought was to make a black solid layer beneath the footage and somehow cut the white portions of the panes out revealing the black. Is there an easy way to do that?
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Probably the easiest way is to use the Corner Pin effect in AE. Just google “mocha after effects corner pin tutorial” and/or “mocha after effects screen replacement tutorial” and you’ll find a bunch of info on how to do that. I’ve done it a few times and once you know how it’s really pretty quick and easy and the results are usually really good.
Erik Waluska
EAWmedia.com -
You were right! I’ve got the perfect track in Mocha AE – I can use the ” insert clip ” option to display the Mocha logo and it flawlessly does what I want it to do in AE. I export the tracking data from frame one, select ” After Effects Corner Pin ” and ” copy to clipboard “. In AE I have a basic comp of the windows and a picture. Once I’m back in AE, I paste the Mocha data onto the image, not the video( video is the first layer and the picture is second layer ) every time I paste it I either get an outline of something with no image, a track path with no image or a black screen with a tiny mask of the video.
All of the tutorials I’ve come across are for older version of Mocha and AE and the steps I’ve taken should make the image snap right to where I tracked the object in Mocha. Is there a different way of getting the data into AE in CC now or am I missing something else?
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Hmm, I’m not sure about that. It’s been a while since I’ve used Mocha but if I remember correctly I believe the layer you are pasting the data onto needs to be at the default settings for position and scale. You can right-click the property names and click “reset” from the menu.
Erik Waluska
EAWmedia -
I found something out. As long as the object I want to corner pin is a video, pasting the Mocha data onto it makes it snap right into place like it’s supposed to! But a JPEG or shape results in things disappearing. I really appreciate your help with this. I love what Mocha can do and the corner pin with video is very accurate. Now I just need it to work with a still image 🙂
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If your still image is not the same size as the comp it probably won’t work as expected, so try pre-composing the image and selecting the “move all attributes” option so the image will be contained in a pre-comp that’s the same size as your main comp.
Erik Waluska
EAWmedia -
Hi all,
What Erik explained is essentially correct, however see here for the instructions on how to fit an insert layer that is not the same dimensions:
https://www.imagineersystems.com/support/Documentation/exporting-tracks#idp24192Martin Brennand | Product Manager | mocha – Imagineer Systems
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