3rd Party Motion Tracker Plugin for AE?

[Andrew Shanks]

There is a thread from a couple of days ago covering this. Check it out. 🙂

[Eric Goldstein]

Thanks, Andrew.

Eric Goldstein
Giraffe Film Company
Los Angeles
eric@giraffefilm.com

[Andrew Shanks]

Short answer is there is only one 3rd party tracking plugin I know of for After Effects (I played with the demo ages ago, but it didn’t seem to be as accurate as the stock stadard version), …but most of us that want more powerful tracking, look to matchmove software that works as a stand alone application, …PFHoe and Syntheyes both export 2D tracking data in an after effects format as well as full 3D matchmove camera data in maya format that after effects can use.
The after effects tracker is okay when you get to know it, …the key is to look for well defined high contrast areas in your image (corners are great), then do at least two tracks, …one forward, then select the same feature again and do a second track in reverse, …use an expression to average them, and there you go, you should have a less jittery, good track in most cases. 🙂 Other thing to remember is if you have a feature that goes off screen and you wish to continue the track on another feature, hold down Alt (or Opt on the Mac) and drag the feature box to the new target feature, …the little crosshair feature target will remain heading in the direction it was going, so your path remains unbroken even though the feature is now wandering off onto the pasteboard off the side of the screen.
Goodluck!

[Eric Goldstein]

Andrew,

Thanks for the thoughts and tracking pointers. I have no trouble sticking with
a feature, but have had troubles with jitteryness (haven’t tried averaging back
and forth tracks, but will) and with linking tracks when losing a tracking point
off screen (I didn’t know that you could hold down option/alt to help connect
these points and generally end up doubling the frame rate to see both fields
and correcting with the anchor point. I’ll give your suggestion a try).

I reffered back to the earlier tracking discussion and I’m going to demo some
of these products as well.

Thanks again,

Eric Goldstein
Giraffe Film Company
Los Angeles
eric@giraffefilm.com

[Eric Goldstein]

Andrew,

Would you mind laying out the procedure for using and averaging two tracks?

Thanks,

Eric Goldstein
Giraffe Film Company
Los Angeles
eric@giraffefilm.com

[Riccardo Sinti]

I’ll second that request, as “the Smoother” isn’t always the best way to reduce jitter in a track.

[Nicholas Toth]

for its ease of use vs. price point, I’d strongly recommend just buying SYNTHEYE….
but this is coming from the cheapo who is trying to not use automatic duck and is losing his mind between AAFs and OMFs

[Colin Braley]

When I am averaging multiple tracks I use an expression like this:

//begin expression

tracks = [ ____ , ______, _____ ,_____ ,_____];

//don’t modify below this line

p = [0,0];
for(i = 0; i < tracks.length; i++) { p[0] += tracks[i][0]; p[1] += tracks[i][1]; } p/tracks.length //end expression All you need to do is highlight the spots that say ______ and pick whip to the attatch point property of a tracker. Add as many of these as you want just make sure it uses this format: tracks = [pick whip to tracker one , pick whip to tracker two, pick whip to tracker three ]; On a little sidenote, you could use this script if you wanted to https://www.aenhancers.com/viewtopic.php?t=136
I have never used it before, but it could be helpful if you do this kinda thing alot.
~Colin

[Eric Goldstein]

Colin,

Thanks for your help

Eric Goldstein
Giraffe Film Company
Los Angeles
eric@giraffefilm.com

[Eric Goldstein]

Hi Colin,

I just tried the script you recommend at the bottom of you post. It worked like a charm.

Thanks again to everyone for the help.

Eric Goldstein
Giraffe Film Company
Los Angeles
eric@giraffefilm.com