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motion tracking 3d text problems
apologies if this has benn answered elsewhere, but i didnt find it.
i have a clip of looking down a street. midway the camera zooms to the end of the street. I need to put some text at the end of the street that appears to be stuck to a building.
In the past i’ve imported my text (created in photoshop with a 3d look using repousse), tracked the video, chosen ‘edit target’ and selected the text-layer. All simple and good.(the alternative of NewComp and opening the text creates 3 layers: camera1, text-controller, and text-psd. my instructions said copy controller & psd over to main comp… But i never got the hang of the camera angles, and was stuck. Hence the ‘simple’ method above.)
The simple method works fine for my needs, but this shot with a ‘zoom’ is just not working. It seems its the zoom part – my floating text doesnt scale properly. And i really dont want to go through each frame and manually add keyframe corrections.
So please, and tips on how to get my 3d floating text to behave?
“half the people you know are below average”
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5 Replies
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Sounds like you’re using the built-in AE tracker. Mocha, which is bundled with AE as a separate app, works oh so much better. I strongly encourage you to spend an hour or two learning how to use it. You’ll be very glad you did.
Joey Foreman
Editor/Compositor/VFX Artist -
Thanks for the reply, but i still cant find the answers (nor tutorials). Even if i do tracking in mocha, then add a surface, then export tracking info… i’m still stuck with the next bit.
“half the people you know are below average”
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Please! Does ANYONE know how this is done – i’ve looked everywhere!
i’ve tried Mocha, gone through ALL the tutorials that google can find… And now of them explain, fully, what to do once i copied the tracking data.
I’ve stuck it on different layers, tried the (rather ridiculous) pre-comp after every step method, parented this to that…i’m beginning to think that no-one knows which totally sucks as i’ve almost got it.
I need to ‘fix’ my 3d text, and my tracker, so they behave together.
Any tips please,
frustrated! -
Jonny, I had missed the detail in your original post that you were using a “3d” element from Photoshop. I think the reason for your problem is that you’re using a 2d tracker with a 3d object. These 3d photoshop objects exist in their own little self-contained universe which allows them to have have the appearance of 3d without actually being so. In other words, they rely on the camera/controller system which functions differently from AE’s 2.5D coordinate system.
Your scene as you describe it, though, doesn’t sound like it requires a 3d element to get the look your want. Unless your camera is rotating so that you would need to see the side of your 3d object, I don’t see any reason you can’t just use a still of the text (which is still shaded so there’s the appearance of depth.) You say that the camera only zooms in, which wouldn’t require any actual depth for your object.
Why not just go back to your Photoshop project and export a still from the straight-on perspective that matches your shot. This would attach to the tracking data with no problem.Joey Foreman
Editor/Compositor/VFX Artist -
I know its been a while since this was discussed, but i’ve returned to this particular problem, and i wanted to say Thankyou All especially Joey.
When i tried again to track 3d text, i imported just the text layer, (also tried ‘merge layers’) and everything worked well.
So Thanks Again.
As we’re all here, i guess we’re not all there.
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