Tracking problems

[Marc Wielage]

In virtually all the tracking I do, some degree of manual adjustment is necessary. Sometimes, I have to hand-roto the entire thing from scratch. It’s life. Get used to it.

As it is, I’m amazed that the automatic tracking works as well as it does. Even when it works most of the way, I still wind up digging in and doing minor manual tracking tweaks here and there just to make the mask as perfect and undetectable as possible. To me, it’s a necessary part of the job.

[Tero Ahlfors]

What Marc said. Also tracks in grading don’t usually have to be super tight. Faces can work with a soft power window with a close enough track or roto.

[Glenn Sakatch]

Lots of things can affect the track. Your tracking window size, motion, compression, fg elements interfering.

First of all, make sure your tracker is not set to stabilization. I’ve seen that in the past. Set it to stabilize, go to do something, come back, decide to track a shot, and nothing tracks, because you are not actually on the tracker.

Try tracking a smaller item in the shot…a shirt pocket, or collar, or belt buckle. Once the track is done, then expand the size of the shape to the whole item you wanted to track. This can help with edges getting interfered with if you window is too large.

And, as Marc said, be prepared to do some manual adjustment. (except for the world of tutorials) Tracks are not always perfect out of the gate. Learn to use the keyframe function to get over those stubborn areas.

Having to do some manual adjustment doesn’t mean your track didn’t work…it may mean you did it properly.

Glenn

[Michael Mccune]

Interesting to compare a tracking attempt in Resolve and then in Fusion.

Example: try something very simple, such as a small black microphone against a white shirt and light background. No foreground objects. The goal is to track and capture some minor panning motion for later use with other power windows.

Run the tracker (probably the cloud version) with a small power window in Resolve, noting the time (speed) and the general success in sticking with the microphone.

Then run the same video in Fusion with its tracker. Sometimes a huge positive difference both in speed and success in sticking with the object. What is your impression? Probably Fusion is found to be much faster and more reliable.

But Resolve has a much better approach to correcting errors, allowing one to use Frame mode and create intermediate correcting and adjustment keyframes, adjust the polygon shape as needed, delete and interpolate mis-tracking segments, and so on. Very easy and effective. Too bad there is so much more to correct than with Fusion’s tracker output.

Fusion, comparatively, is much more difficult to correct and tweak, (probably just my lack of understanding how it really works). Fusion has a keyframe mode but adding keyframes, deleting them, moving them, etc., is not obvious to me (yet). And interpolation between deleted keyframes seems to work differently in Fusion (?).

Otherwise, I would use Fusion because it is so much faster and more reliable in sticking with the object.

Someday I am sure BMD will get the best of both worlds into one method. Would love to import the tracking data–in the manner of importing a Fusion alpha into Resolve via External Mattes–and then use attach that Fusion tracking data (instead of the Resolve tracking data) to Resolve power windows. Ahh, someday …..

Mike

[Alan Okey]

This tutorial demonstrates some useful techniques for obtaining better tracking results:

https://youtu.be/Z1CulyVhbAI

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[Duke Sweden]

“First of all, make sure your tracker is not set to stabilization. I’ve seen that in the past. Set it to stabilize…”

So which is it? Stabilize or not? Anyway a lot of the advice here helped. I like where it was pointed out that tracking is never perfect “except in tutorials”. That was what was killing me. Now that I know these things I don’t mind manually tweaking bad tracking. btw, I’m 63. I know what life is like. I’m used to it.

Dell XPS 8920
Intel i7 core 7700 build
GeForce GTX 1050ti
32 Gigs of RAM
3 7200 RPM SATA Drives
Windows 10 64-bit
Premiere Pro CC 2017 v.11.0

[Patrick Taylor]

I gotta agree with Duke here. Ever since my move to version 14, the tracking sucks. Sometimes it tracks, sometimes it doesn’t. And on very simple stuff too. I am definitely noticing a difference between 12.5 and 14. Am I the only one?

-Pat Taylor

https://colourskyfilms.com
ptaylor@colourskyfilms.com

[Marc Wielage]

[Duke Sweden] “So which is it? Stabilize or not? Anyway a lot of the advice here helped. I like where it was pointed out that tracking is never perfect “except in tutorials”. That was what was killing me. Now that I know these things I don’t mind manually tweaking bad tracking. btw, I’m 63. I know what life is like. I’m used to it.”
I dunno, I think the tracking is actually a little better for me in 14 than it was in 12.5. One key is sometimes it helps to track a slightly-largish area, then shrink the window down for the final effect.

I just did 6 or 7 shots of eyeball tracking of a creature in a horror movie I’m working on, and it was about 90% perfect. It still required some manual tweaks, but it was mostly right on the first time. One key thing to understand is that the tracker works on contrast, so if you can pick a point with a lot of contrast, that will help. Trying to track dark, muddy shots is tough.

Often, what I do is qualify a key, then use a window to “contain” the key and protect it from outside details. Other times, I’m using a window to just give the actors a little bit of additional fill light (and/or sharpening). Manual tracking doesn’t scare me at all — it’s just a thing. I figure if the automatic tracking even takes 50% of the work out of it, that’s something.

[Duke Sweden]

Thanks but I’ve already seen that plus a bunch of others. Once I was informed that perfect tracking only happens in tutorials I was satisfied. Cheers!

Dell XPS 8920
Intel i7 core 7700 build
GeForce GTX 1050ti
32 Gigs of RAM
3 7200 RPM SATA Drives
Windows 10 64-bit
DaVinci Resolve 14.0.1

[Duke Sweden]

I only started with v. 14 so I couldn’t tell ya.

Dell XPS 8920
Intel i7 core 7700 build
GeForce GTX 1050ti
32 Gigs of RAM
3 7200 RPM SATA Drives
Windows 10 64-bit
DaVinci Resolve 14.0.1