mocha stabilization

[Moira Elefson]

Why can’t you just parent the footage to the master layer? Do you have to copy/paste?

[Bipop Upreti]

that doesnt stabilize the video, it just moves and rotates the video according to the null data. I need to do the opposite to stabilize and inorder to do that i need the keyframes, but i dont have complette keyframes in my master null becaue they are divided in three nulls with seperate positional data.
do you understand now? its kinda confusing to explain

[Jim Dodson]

Take a look here:
https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/2/962101#962115

Basically you want to pickwhip the position of your video to the anchor point of the master null
Then pickwhip the anchor point of your video to the position of the master null.
Then pickwhip the rotation of your video to the rotation of the master null — then edit that rotation expression by adding “*-1” without those quotes…

Jim Dodson

8 Core Intel — Mac – OSX

[Bipop Upreti]

Hi i understand where you are going with pickwhiping but my master null has only 1/3rd of the position keyframes, 2/3 of the data are in other nulls. so if i dont have complete keyframes how can i pickwhip?
here is a list of what i have in my project right now
1st null. Position and rotation keyframes from frame 1-91
2nd null. position and rotation data from frame 92-201
3rd nul. position and rotation data from 202-499

layer 2 is parented to layer 1

layer 3 is parented to layer 2

therefore Layer 3 is the master null that moves throughout the shot because of parenting but has only 1/3 of the keyframes.

now How would i go about stabilizng the shot using these information?

[Chris Buttacoli]

I’m sure there is an expression you could use to find the real world space and orientation of the master null, but I will have to leave that up to the experts. Also, an expression can be based on conditions like frame number, which would allow you to choose which null to use to claim data from.

But try this. Make the master null and footage layer 3D layers, and create a new camera. Move to the last frame of the comp and parent the camera to the master null. Re-frame the camera appropriately by adjusting the z-rotation and zoom level. The footage is now stabalized.

But is this what you were looking to do? Or are you just trying to smooth your pan?

BTW – Correct me if I’m wrong, but you don’t need to seperate the track into three nulls. You can simply adjust the spline in Mocha as needed and it will continue to maintain the tracking data.

[Jim Dodson]

So null 3 is your master

try my suggestion using null 3 as your master

Jim Dodson

8 Core Intel — Mac – OSX

[Bipop Upreti]

thanks i didnt know u can change the spline i thought it would mess up track

[Chris Buttacoli]

Jim, the reason you can’t use your method is due to the parenting operation. Because Null 3 is parented, it has no position data or scale data or rotation data prior to its own keyframes at frame 202.

[Eddy Bergman]

I realize this is an old thread but for anyone that has trouble stabilizing a long panning shot, I worked out a methode just using the AE built in tracker. It’s really easy. Here’s a link to my tutorial blog which explains it all:
https://aftereffectstutorials.blog.com/2011/06/19/stabilize_a_long_pan_in_ae/

[Ross Shain]

There is actually a very cool technique for dealing with panning shots in mocha. You “unlink” the layer shape from the track data.

This way the shape stays in place and creates an offset track. As pixels come into the shape it will track them rather than follow select pixels.

This is covered in this video tutorial:

https://www.imagineersystems.com/videos?tagFilter=tracking+pans&sortBy=Newest

Alternately, you can stop the track and move the shape. You should not have to join multiple tracks to accomplish the task.

Best,
Ross

Ross Shain
Imagineer Systems
http://www.imagineersystems.com