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Problem with Motion Tracking in AE
Hey everyone, I’m new to AE and I have a video where the camera basically moves forward. What I wanna do with this movie is adding text that appears to be on the ground, and as the camera moves towards it, it appears as it would’ve done if it was actually there.
But the problems I’m running into are quite many. But the biggest one is that I don’t really know how to achieve this effect. How should I use track motion and how should I use the data? Should I use the perspective corner pin option or what?
Thanks
/Speedy -
9 Replies
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From your description, there is no motion tracking involved in the project. Place the text on the same plane as your floor plane.
bogiesan
This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”
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Are you sure? Because if I don’t motion track, it’s just gonna follow the camera. Now sure, I could do some keyframing, and I actually tried that but it was unprecise and didn’t look very good.
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Actually, based the original post’s description… I can’t tell what is being asked.
But… it may be that he has a video that is moving forward and he want’s to add a text to a video where the camera is moving. In which case, this situation may involve tracking
It’s is hard to say…and, I am not trying to be a grammar police… but, if the original post had complete sentences and removed the “it’s” and “but” words… then, maybe it would make more sense and might get a useful response from readers.
Joe
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Sorry if I was unclear, what I have is a video, with the camera moving forward. I’ve basically taken a camera and walked with it.
What do I want to do with this video? Well, I want to add text to the ground, and I want to make it look like it’s really there, and I’m pretty sure that requires motion tracking.
I don’t think I can be more clear than that. 🙂
Thanks
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Well… it could involve tracking… but, that would be more difficult than simply placing the text on the ground in combination with an animated motion path (and a slight wiggle – perhaps?) with a displacement map effect.
This would look similar to what you may have seen when you put text on a fluttering/waving flag…. but, you would be mapping the texted on the ground and manually animating the text motion where and how you want the text to move and/or wiggle/shake to match the camera shake.
If the ground movement and typical camera shake/instability is low, you could achieve a very close tracking like effect with manual animation of the the text.
If you want to use tracking… hmmm…well, … the first question is whether or not that will work at all… the success depends heavily upon whether or not the ground can be tracked easily. If not, then the tracking may not even be achieveable or take an enormous amount of time. Unless you use software like Mocha by Imagineer (which is my tracking software of choice), successful tracking typically starts with the video and whether or not tracking was planned when the video was originally shot.
Joe Moya
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Thanks for the answer. How should I go about animating the text manually? Any tips that might help? I did try the corner pin-effect, but I wasn’t sure if it was the right way to go.
Thanks
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Well…actually, what I am suggesting is that you not animating the text itself…
I am suggesting that you need to create a animated MOTION PATH for the entire text lettering (or individual letters) to follow the movement of the camera. This can be done manually and make any minor adjstments to make the text follow the path you prefer. Exactly how precise you want the text to follow the movement of the camera will determine whether or not this manual method is easier than a creating an automatic motion tracking can only be determined with past experience…plus, just how much correlation of motion of the text you want to the movement of the camera.
Look up… keywords like – Keyframe assistant motion path… also, Bezier Motion Paths in 3D… there are some older online tutorials on this site that are good at explaining this process. And, AE’s help section also can be a good reference for motion paths and bezier points.
As for moving the text itself in order to match the camera motion, the best way is to fake this effect. To give this appearance that the text (…itself, not the text’s motion as the camera moves) is moving with the camera (which it is not… but, in actually the text is stationary but changes with the background of the video (i.e., morph-like)), you need to experiment with the displacement map. The Displacement Map effect and fiddling with it’s settings will make the text make suttle movements that match the ground shapes/changes (i.e., like text on a waving flag I mentioned earlier).
I am not sure how you want the text to move or appear in the video… but, I feel like the combination of Motion Path and Displacement Map will accomplish your effect relatively easily.
Joe Moya
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Check out PF Hoe pro. It’s cheap and it should work for this. It takes some tweaking once you get the data into AE but I’ve been impressed with it so far.
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Thanks for the replies. I managed to make something I’m happy with. ^_^
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