-
Very challenging track. Help
OK, so I’ve been around a while and done my share of tracking. But THIS TIME I’m really having trouble, and my deadline looms near. I hope someone can help.
The shot is as follows: we have a man in front of a window that has been divided into many rectangular sections. The camera moves closer, titls, and zooms in and out erratically. There is a partial blue screen with no track marks to speak of, and we have been commissioned to replace the background with a foto of a city. Matte and Roto are no problem.
I’m tracking position and scale, and simply haven’t been able to get a stable track. My background floats, and get’s “jumpy” during the zooms.
The video was shot in 35mm, then converted to 29.97 interlaced SD video. Here’s what I’ve tried:
1) Tracking with and without fields (lower field first/pulldown)
RESULT: Jittey track
2) Tried smoothing the keyframes with both “The Smoother” and the smooth(x,y) expression.
RESULT: Video less Jittery, but my background floats
3) Gave it a try with Boujou (a friend’s studio owns a copy) Imported resulting Maya Camera.
RESULT: Video still jittery, plus scale issues with background foto vs. original footage.
4) Tried Imagineer systems planar tracking.
RESULT: Violent zooms prevent track from sticking.
5) Tried putting together many different tracks in AE using Null objects, and parenting them.
RESULT: Scale changes every time I use a different track, so video floats.I’ve obtained partial results by tracking position and painstakingly animating scale by hand. This works OK, but I’d like to get a tighter track if possible.
Any advice? I’m on my 20th track in AE, and am about to throw my computer out the window.
Thanks,
RE
-
5 Replies
-
Do as Dave suggested regarding the removal of the piulldown process. For Mocha, take note that you should find a sweet spot within the sequence to start the track. If there is a ‘violent’ zoom involved, then take note that Mocha allows for Large, Small and Custom settings for its Search Region. Before the zoom, set the Search Region parameter to small and when the zoom starts set it to large.
Also, you can place multiple X-Splines on a layer for tracking. So, one x-spline for each corner will do nicely. And perhaps corner pinning may also help depending on your camera movements.
HTH
RoRKbroadcastGEMs.com – the leader in customizable royalty-free animated backdrops
-
Hi Dave. Thanks for the help.
I did remove the pulldown before the track. I had AE guess the 3:2 pulldown, but now you’ve made me doubt if this has been done correctly. So, one question:
If the pulldown was removed correctly, should I still see interlaced frames on my monitor, or should I be seeing clear pictures.
I’m seeing the interlaced frames, so I’m guessing that maybe the pulldown wasn’t done correctly.
-
After removing pull down, you should not see any jitter frames, period.
I would suspect that AE’s guess was incorrect. 🙂moody glasgow
editing.compositing.design -
Hey guys.
Well, I confirmed that the comp is in 23.976 . What I ended up doing was using a tool called Frames, which got rid of the fields, then tracked again. The problem got slightly better, but when the camera does extreme zooms, I’m going to have to do it by hand.
If I find a better solution I’ll report back to the COW. If I’m not completely insane by the time the job is over, that is.
Thanks to everybody who has helped. If somebody else has experience with these types of shots, and can offer a solution I’d appreciate it VERY much.
-
Try tracking in AE using perspective and tracking backwards – that is, from the end of each zoom. The Creative Cow tutorial on tracking the white board for the Mystic Text tutorial may help: https://library.creativecow.net/articles/swanson_grant/mystic_text.php
Color Grading presets for After Effects, Premiere, etc., plus free presets and more.
LITTLE BLACK BIRD – PROFESSIONAL VISUAL EFFECTS
https://www.littleblackbird.com
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up