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Motion tracking jitters
I’m using motion tracking to tie text to objects in a moving frame.
I seem to get a much smoother track in Apple Motion – After Effects tracking seems to ‘jitter’ the text between one pixel and the next, giving a small random ‘shake’, particularly when the frame is fairly still. It’s like it’s constantly moving back and forth between two pixels (tried turning sub pixel off). I find I’m having to do the track in Motion and import the text into AE for the compositing and masking (as I much prefer these tools in AE). I’ve tried many solutions, played with all the tracking options, tried the smoother, tried manually adjusting frames a pixel back and forth (that way madness lies) but no luck. Is there a technique for this I’m missing?
Cheers, Ken
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4 Replies
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There are many tutorials on AE tracking. I would recommend checking out Mocha (free version with AE)- it does a superb tracking job on most clips.
One question regarding your footage- is it interlaced or progressive?Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist -
As Ted has suggested, mochaAE/mochaPro should provide more powerful tracking options.
A common technique to deal with jittery tracks is to enlist separate tracks and then average their results prior to applying a single data onto a layer.
FWIW, the beauty of mocha’s products is that you can track a plane and then export out multiple track points within the plane, without having to re-track each point separately.
Scenarios that lend themselves to such a workflow is the removal of markers that cannot be keyed or are required as targets for paint work AND when a single track doesn’t provide a proper solution.
Take a look at the first clip of this video for an example of using markers as guides for both tracking a perspective plane as well as guides for paint – Using Tracker Markers as Guides for Paint.
All I had to do was to perform a single track of the plane where the markers were placed. Once the track was done, all I had to do was to move mocha’s Surface Area (to select either an area or a marker)and export either Perspective or Transform data.
HTH
RoRKIntensive AE & Mocha Training in Singapore and Malaysia
Adobe ACE/ACI (version 7) & Imagineer Systems Inc Approved Mocha Trainer -
Thanks for both these replies – I’m using interlaced footage – and to make matters worse, some of the clips are being re-sized…. however Motion still does a smoother job. I’ve been looking for a way to manipulate the tracks, and average them out, as this felt it could be a solution – sounds like Mocha might be perfect, I’ll explore this further, and check out the tutorial.
Many thanks, Ken.
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Your AE tracking issue comes from the fact that your footage is interlaced. De-interlace and track again, I bet AE will track just fine.
Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist
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