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How do you get position data precisely, while keyframing a movement of a hand
Hey there. I finally decided to tackle After Effects. Thanx to the Creative Cow Tutorials, It’s a lot easier than I anticipated.
Anyhow, on to my situation.I have a footage of a person drawing a shape with his finger. I’d like to trace the movement of a finger, and draw a fire trail on top, using Particle Illusion. I’d like to make it look, as if the person is painting fire with his finger on screen.
I have AE 7.0 and PI 3.0
Just to give you an idea of what I already know:I have seen the first 2 lessons of Master Series DVD: “Serious Effects & Compositing – Advanced Techniques for After Effects 7, so I know the basics and how to key out green background.
I have also seen Aharon’s tutorials on
1) particleIllusion 3 and AE 7
2) The Secret to Scaling a Motion Path in After Effects
3) Importing Paths Into After EffectsFinally, I’ve already attempted to do it, by
a) creating a solid layer
b) masking a tiny circle from that layer
c) adjusting that layer to where a person’s hand starts
d) creating position keyframes as I moved along the Timeline (–> This is where the problem was. The tiny circle was over a person finger, but the actual position keyframe points were offset by a bit in relation to the person’s tip of the finger, which is what I was actually trying to trace.)
e) copying the position keyframes
d) pasting the position data into Particle Illusion 3
e) Creating the emmitter movement
d) Exporting footage as targa with alpha channel
e) importing the targa into AE 7
f) Finding out that the fire trail is a bit off.So, how do I PRECISELY trace the movement of the finger?
Is there a tutorial that covers this topic? -
6 Replies
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Why not try to use the motion tracker? This will save you from having to manually add keyframes and will give you subpixel accuracy. If this is the first time using the Tracker, then take a quick trip to the manual. It’s not that scary. Honest :o)
HTH
Ben
Curious Turtle Professional Video
Training | Editing |Support -
Thanks, Ben. I’m more of a visual learning person than a book learning person. Is there a tutorial on using a Motion Tracker?
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GOTO https://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials.html THE SKY REPLACEMENT TUTORIAL USES MOTION TRACKER.
SORRY FOR THE CAPS. I’M RENDERING AND TRYING TO SPEED IT UP WITH CAPS LOCK ON.
Jason McClellan
jas.mcclellan@gmail.com -
Hey, there. Thanx for your help. I watched the tutorial and it’s been very helpful.
In my footage, the person’s hand is moving against a green bushy background, and the analyzer for motion tracking gets lost.
I had to analyze the movement of his finger manually frame by frame, moving the tracking cursor each time, to match his fingernail.
Is there a way to analyze it automatically, just like in Andrew’s tutorial, for footages like mine? -
Try adjusting the footage.
Duplicate your footage.
Use levels, hue and saturation, any color correction effect to make a good contrast between the hand and background.
Precompose the footage with the effects.
Then try tracking the new composition.
Once a good track is made you can hide the new composition.Jason McClellan
jas.mcclellan@gmail.com -
Agreed. Don’t give up on the Tracker just yet; try increasing contrast in a Pre Comp as described above, and copy position/anchor key frames onto original footage. Read AFX’s Tracker section in Help; it briefly describes all options and demands from the User. You must interact and correct the Tracker as it analyzes, slowly, and backtracking when necessary. Attempt to track Rotation as well, as it will assist greatly in which way to point the fire’s tail. Next time wear a ring or something with more natural contrast.
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