Stabalize Footage / Wide Pan

[Todd Kopriva]

Yes.

The easy way to do what (I think) you’re describing is to analyze forward, pause the tracking operation when the tracked item goes out of frame, reposition the tracking region, and restart the tracking.

But you can also copy and paste motion tracking keyframes to assemble a whole, good track from several component attempts.

The basic instructions are in the section of After Effects Help about correcting a motion track.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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[First Last]

Just got done trying that and it’s still not working.

The shot I’m working with is a pan that goes from left to right, making the objects in the frame go from screen left to screen right. There are no tracking points that remain within the frame throughout the entire pan.

I’ve tried tracking two points until they are just about to go off frame, moved the tracking points to new points, and continued tracking. After applying the track the footage jumps when the track was moved to the new points.

Production Associate
Bend, Oregon, United States

[Joey Foreman]

Check out this tutorial by Andrew Kramer. It utilizes offset tracking, which is what it sounds like you need for this shot.

[Stuart Elith]

Dan, the technique Todd suggested does work, it’s very useful for shots such as the one you are working on, where there are no good tracks for the whole shot, or even if an actor obscures the tracking point for part of a shot…

If you look at the link he provided, it explains how to do it – in the “Correct drifting by adjusting the feature and search regions” section.
The technique is not just for drifting, but also changing tracking point.
Basically you hold ALT when you drag to the new point (the arrow cursor will become a hollow arrow instead of black-filled). That’s it, really 🙂

[Julian Lawrence]

I would say, do the tracks for different parts of the footage.
Create a null object layer and apply all of the different segments to the null object layer. Then any effects or masks made (on different layers) there after can be parented to the null. There is actually some expressions in a tutorial featured on this sight called “a walk in the park” by Eran Stern. That seems to be to keep a track happening while the subject is leaving the frame. Hope this has been some help. cheers from jules!

[First Last]

I’m a bone-head.

I was holding the apple key instead of the alt key.

Haven’t tried parenting the info the a null. Will give it a try.

Thanks for the feedback.

Production Associate
Bend, Oregon, United States