Reducing shake within panning video?

[Mike Clasby]

Are you using Stabilize Motion instead of Track Motion?

Choose Animation > Stabilize Motion

Then choose, Track Type>Stabilize and when you hit apply AE should add the tracking data to a new anchor point and then your footage is stabilized and if the video is panning it should be smoother. You’ll need to up the size of the layer by a few % to get rid of any clipping.

This shold work for you unless I’m miss reading.

[Mark]

Apply the tracking data to the Y axis only. You do not want to pin the X as that is your camera move. Also, if your tracker point leaves the screen for a prolonged period of time, you can stop the tracker and apply a new one.

Mark

[Jim Waterwash]

Thanks for both your comments. The thing is, I’m panning along a big map posted at a park and following a diaginal road shown within it (both x and y change).

What I was hoping was that I could use the shaky path generated by a track motion, and somewhow, using some math, smooth out that curve and use the data to help stabilize the pan. Seems possible mathmatically.

I’ll play with the single axis tracking data. I’m on day 2 of AE. Fun stuff.

Jim

[Mike Clasby]

This from an earlier post might help:

Two thoughts, first, mine are a bit lame compared to the second, Filip’s.

1st –
After you stabilize and hit apply, AE adjusts the Anchor Point keyframes to take the shake out. You could try to smooth those keyframes with the Smoother (make dups of the layer as the Smoother is Trail and Error) or use the flipside of wiggle, the smooth expression:

smooth(2, 5)

This from AE Help is all I know about the smooth expression, but I do know it’s not as intuitive as wiggle, raising the width smoothes more:

Number or Array smooth(width=.2, samples=5, t=time) {width, samples, and t are numbers} Applies a box filter to the value of the property at the specified time, and smooths the result over time. Width (in seconds) is the range of time over which the filter is averaged. Samples equals the number of discrete samples evenly spaced over time. Generally, you’ll want samples to be an odd number so that the value at the current time is included in the average. For example, position.smooth(.1, 5).

2nd-
Having already typed this in, I remembered Filip Vandueren had some creative ways to modify Camera Shake. This expression for position, splits the difference (50% as shown, adjust % as needed) between the new Anchor Point keyframes (after stabilization) and position, effectively splitting the difference between stabilized and shaky:

precision= 50; // use a percentage from 0-100 % ,
position= ( value*precision + anchorPoint*(100-precision))/100 ;

If you tie the 50 to a slider you could make quick adjustments.

[Jim Waterwash]

I had just bookmarked that same posting, thanks. Can’t wait for my render to finish so I can try it out.

Thanks again,
Jim