Corner pin rotation and transformation delima

[Darby Edelen]

[Algae998] “The snapshot picture follows the picture frame but does not rotate nor transform its dimentions to fit the picture frame.”

I believe the Corner Pin tracker does not apply rotation or scale keyframes to the target layer, instead it handles all of this through a Corner Pin effect that is applied to the target layer.

Your work arounds are either:

A) Use a different ‘simpler’ (i.e. better) kind of tracker.
B) Apply the tracker information directly to the freeze framed layer (I’d go with option A if I were you) =)

Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA

[Riccardo Sinti]

Corner pin doesn’t need rotation frames and the null object wont have the same corner pinned corners as the freeze framed still. Masked area are just masked but the layers original corners will be the ones pinned not the corners of the mask. You may need to precompose the freeze frame, crop it down to the edges that you want for the “picture” and then corner pin track that comp after the picture frame “grabs” the image.
If Corner pin tracking of the frame is sketchy you could just key frame the first corner pin frame and then just do a single point motion track on one of the frame corners and keyframe the cornerpin manually as needed.

[Todd Morgan]

So what you are looking to do is have a sheet of rectangular paper peel away with the mirror image freeze of the face? If so, then just do a simple track of one spot for paper motion, then maybe use the page roll effect with mattes.

Todd Morgan
Creative Director
morgancreative
http://www.morgancreative.biz

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

You don’t need to set Scale and Rotation if you are performing a CornerPin track.

Here’s what you should do. Track with ConerPin, ensure that Scale and Rotation are not selected. Initiate the tracking as per usual. Ensure that Track Target is set to the frozen frame. Apply the Track.

Create your mask. Temporarily switch of the corner-pin effect and adjust the mask as and when required. You shouldn’t need to keyframe the mask. Once you’ve locked down the mask for a frame, the corner-pin effect should take care of the rest.

And don’t forget to color correct the frozen frame so that it looks different from the video – make it more film-like to make the entire sequence more believable.

Cheers
Roland Kahlenberg
https://www.broadcastGEMs.com – Adobe After Effects project files
https://www.myspace.com/rorkrgbspace

[Aaron Bear]

[Riccardo Sinti] “Masked area are just masked but the layers original corners will be the ones pinned not the corners of the mask. You may need to precompose the freeze frame, crop it down to the edges that you want for the “picture” and then corner pin track that comp after the picture frame “grabs” the image.”

After looking back at how the entire layer is squished down, rather than the mask being fit inside the frame, when the tracking is applied directly to the freeze frame, it makes sense what youre saying. Ill give it a shot with precomposing the freeze frame and cropping it, then applying the tracking data.

One of the biggest pains of this is the picture frame is a very blan color…nothing unique in it, so I have to do a lot of manual tracking. Ill give it shot!

I greatly appreciate all of your input on this!!
-Aaron

[Aaron Bear]

[RoRK] “Here’s what you should do. Track with ConerPin, ensure that Scale and Rotation are not selected. Initiate the tracking as per usual. Ensure that Track Target is set to the frozen frame. Apply the Track.

Create your mask. Temporarily switch of the corner-pin effect and adjust the mask as and when required. You shouldn’t need to keyframe the mask. Once you’ve locked down the mask for a frame, the corner-pin effect should take care of the rest.”

I tried what you explained and here are the results. Im still having difficulty with either the size/shape or the rotation. This first video clip I used the perspective corner pin with the rotation and scale unchecked. After the tracking was completed, I applied it the the freeze frame layer, disabled the FX for the cornerpin and made the mask. It is the right size, shape and tracks well, but does not rotate or reshape as the frame moves.(corner pin FX wasnt enabled)
https://media.putfile.com/not-quite—snapshot

This next clip is the exact same as the previous clip with the exception of the corner pin FX enabled. The freeze frame tracks pretty good and rotates with the frame but the entire freeze frame picture is shaped incorrectly (probably becuase its taking the entire layer, even what is masked out, and cramming it into the frame’s dimentions).
https://media.putfile.com/track-good-but-not-sized-right

Finally I was able to get something the resembled what I was looking for, although it required a lot more work than what I was hoping for. In order to get this I had to take the freeze frame layer, throw it in a new comp, rotate the layer so it was squared off with the comp and use a bezier warp to scale the layer so the masked picture area would be sized correctly (had to use the bezier warp since scaling it would make for incorrect size changes due to the crooked mask where the picture frame is held). This does work but isnt perfect since you can see a bulge sort of effect from the bezier warp.
https://media.putfile.com/picture-frame-snapshot

So far the tips have been helping a lot. I think Im getting close to what I was looking for. Im probably just overlooking something rather large, hah.
Thanks again,
-Aaron

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Don’t do the warping stuff – the image looks funky.

In the second example you provided. Just click on the name of anyone of the CornerPin points, in the Timeline, to select all the keyframes for that point. The use your arrow keys to nudge it to perfection.

Rinse. Tumble dry. Repeat for the other 3 points.

Cheers
Roland Kahlenberg
https://www.broadcastGEMs.com – Adobe After Effects project files
https://www.myspace.com/rorkrgbspace

[Aaron Bear]

[RoRK] “Just click on the name of anyone of the CornerPin points, in the Timeline, to select all the keyframes for that point. The use your arrow keys to nudge it to perfection.”
At this point Im sure Im overlooking something big. In the timeline, I selected the freeze frame layer, opened the corner pin drop-down in the Effects drop-down, which revealed the Upper Left, Upper Right, Lower Left, Lower Right and Position names with keyframes. By clicking on one of the corner pin names, it will highlight all of the keyframes, but when I go to nudge it with the arrow keys, it relocated the position keyframes instead of readjusting the corner pin keyframes.
So basically it is just moving the entire ill-cropped image around instead of adjusting it.

The answer to this will probably just smack me in the face sooner or later :).
Thanks,
-Aaron

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Hi Aaron

Apologies, my bad. Nudging with the arrow keys does move the layer’s transform position property. Instead, use your mouse to scrub the values.

Depending on your setup for Live Update, you’ll get real-time to near real-time updates. Just remember to select all the keyframes for a corner pin’s corner property, plus, ensure that your Timeline Indicator is parked on any one of the keyframes as you scrub.

It should be relatively quick and painless to get it looking right. Remember to add the CTRL key as you scrub to advance the values in smaller increments.

Cheers
Roland Kahlenberg
https://www.broadcastGEMs.com – Adobe After Effects project files
https://www.myspace.com/rorkrgbspace

[Accountneedsrealnameupdate]

I don’t know if I’m going to be able to explain this right but I’ve had better luck using the CC Power pin plugin than the after effects standard version (it’s included too). Basically I apply it the same as the standard corner pin but use two instances of it. At the first frame of the effect apply move the four points to the correct position on to the corners of the picture frame, it’s usually best to turn the effect off while doing this so you can see the points right. When you have them in the right place duplicate the effect and turn it on the first instance, check the “Unstretch” box, what it does is stretch the four corners of the frame out to the edges of the layer, essentially cropping and distorting it to just the area you need to pin, this effect does not need to be keyframed in but it’s important that the four corners have exactly the same starting values as the second instance which is a normal tracked corner pin the second pin pushes it back into the picture frame. I know it seems like a lot of work but it gets around the problem of corner pin effects using layer co-ords not comp co-ords (in your case probably not a problem, it is if you need to corner pin something that’s a different size to the composition, messing up your tracking info), you’re on the right track with the nulls, I usually link them to the effect using an expression. (Another sweet trick is using the “value +” expression to “parent” effect points to tracking data).

Hope I explained this right, in the hundreds of hours I’ve spent corner pinning I’ve found this method the best, nulls or small solids are great too because you can see their motion paths, spot wobbles easier and are much easier to adjust than motion tracking channels, don’t try to track all four points at once either, do one at a time and use nice labels so you don’t get confused.
Best of luck.

Glennser

PS I know this method is weak in that you’re stretching up to squash back down again but it doesn’t look too bad, epecially if you add some reflections or reduce the contrast to make it look more like a photo than frozen video.