Tracking problems AfterEffects CS4 OSX

Adobe After Effects

Tracking problems AfterEffects CS4 OSX

Posted by Ben Bensozia on April 13, 2009 at 11:02 pm

Hi,

I’m relatively new to AfterEffects and I’m trying to create the typical lightsaber scene using the motion tracker.

I track the footage with the motion tracker:
Tracker type – “Transform”
Only “Rotation” is selected
Create Beam effect in footage layer

The track is fine until I assign targets to the two track points. Track point 1 assigns well to beam start point, but then when trying to assign track point 2 to beam end point, it just assigns to the start point or just doesn’t work. The ticked “rotation” box also changes to “position”.

What have I missed? I’ve searched tutorials and I seem to be doing it right. Is it a bug?

Thanks

Ben Bensozia replied 17 years, 3 months ago 2 Members · 5 Replies
5 Replies

Adolfo Rozenfeld
April 14, 2009 at 1:08 am

It’s no a bug, Ben.
The “start point” and “end point” effect parameters define coordinates in space (ie, position), so tracking rotation is not relevant to them. Because of this, when you define an effect point control (like “start point”) as target, AE doesn’t let you use rotation. Since rotation means layer rotation (in the top level transform group), it can only be applied when a layer is the target.

There are many ways to address the need you have. Probably the easiest one is to use two separate trackers, each set to position. One would track the feature for start point, and the other the feature for end point.

Adolfo Rozenfeld · Adobe
Ben Bensozia
April 14, 2009 at 7:19 am

Thanks Rodolfo!

I was trying the effect with the rotation tracker because I’d seen it in a Lynda tutorial and they specified checking the rotation option and unchecking position.

Anyway, I’ll give your method a try and get back to you…

Cheers

Ben
Ben Bensozia
April 14, 2009 at 8:48 am

Thanks Adolfo!

(I think my reply to your message wasn’t posted, or it just disappeared…anyway…)

I was trying to track with two rotation tracking points (tracking type: Transform) because I’d seen it done that way on a Lynda.com tutorial. They specified checking only Rotation and unchecking Position. It seemed to work fine for them, that’s why I’m so confused!

I’ll give your method a try and get back to you…

Thanks a lot,

Ben
Adolfo Rozenfeld
April 14, 2009 at 3:20 pm

Yes, it may have worked for them if they wanted to rotate the layer instead of moving the start/end points. I only tried to explain why you couldn’t choose rotation when an effect point was the target.
I am not suggesting a method over another, simply because it depends on what you need.

Adolfo Rozenfeld · Adobe
Ben Bensozia
April 16, 2009 at 2:20 pm

…well in the end I stopped trying to figure out how they did it and went with your method…

Thanks

Ben

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