[Roland R. kahlenberg]

[Tyler Stegall] “What do you refer to when you say optional tracking areas?”

I should have said “additional” tracking areas as it would be clearer. You can add multiple tracking splines onto a single layer in mocha. You add these additional splines with the Add Spline tool.

[Tyler Stegall] “what are co planar regions and how can I add them”

A coplanar region is an area that shares the same planar surface as your main tracking area/region/target. In the screen grab you provided, the edge of the tracking surface is coplanar to the lined-square. So, draw a tracking spline to encompass the edges but ensure that you do not encroach too much into adjacent planar surfaces as these areas would be non-coplanar to your tracking target.

I would also like to suggest that you experiment tracking this footage without Perspective and Shear in the Motion section. Unless, your tracking are displays highly perceptible perspective/shear changes, it is best that you do not switch these on. The tracking algorithm tracks on a frame-by-frame basis. On such a basis, frame-by-frame, the change in perspective may not be picked up by the tracking algorithm. However, the change in transformation will be picked up by the tracker.

Two to three pieces is a good idea. Once you’ve taken out the issue of an animated sheen on the surface of the board, you should be fine. PLUS there is no harm in shooting a test footage for you to practice with. The edge of the board may also be an ideal target for tracking.

HTH
RoRK

Intensive mocha & AE Training in Singapore and Other Dangerous Locations

Imagineer Systems (mocha) Certified Instructor
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[Roland R. kahlenberg]

[Mike Throck] “Yes, deleting the preferences (holding command+option+shift at start up) appears to have solved the problem.”

That’s good to hear! Don’t forget to update your version of AE.

Cheers
RoRK

Intensive mocha & AE Training in Singapore and Other Dangerous Locations

Imagineer Systems (mocha) Certified Instructor
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[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Based on the screen grab you posted, here are my observations –
1) Min % of Pixels Used is extremely small. It’s best to set this to 90% and even higher for trickier tracks.

2) Your tracking splines cover an area with a sheen. It’s not difficult for me to imagine that the sheen will not be static when the camera moves. The movement of the sheen will very likely be different from the movement of the surface/area that you are tracking. Hence, it should be expected that your tracking results will fail miserably.

3) Optional tracking areas includes just the outline of the lined square. Your tracking spline can (and possibly should) include the area just outside of the line. The high contrast between the line and its adjacent pixels will provide the tracking algorithm with a better tracking target.

You may want to add tracking splines to the edges of the surface. For tricky tracks, adding more tracking splines on co-planar regions helps the tracker by giving it more information to work with. More good information leads to better tracking results.

4) With respect to your expected project, it’s hard to say if what you want to do will work without any issues. I expect there to be lots of occlusion as the different pieces will occlude each other with camera movement. The other problem areas include – a set of chess pieces will have very similar color/texture under natural lighting and the lack of contrast may hinder good tracking results.

HTH
RoRK

Intensive mocha & AE Training in Singapore and Other Dangerous Locations

Imagineer Systems (mocha) Certified Instructor
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[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Could be a busted preferences issue – so, trash your AE Preferences. Then ensure that you have the latest update to your version of AE; regardless if the problem persists.

If there is still no solution then report with FULL details of your setup – OS & AE versions and list the other apps that are running concurrently with AE.

HTH
RoRK

Intensive mocha & AE Training in Singapore and Other Dangerous Locations

Imagineer Systems (mocha) Certified Instructor
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[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Strange! I suggest you post a link to the AEP so that others can take a closer look.

Cheers
RoRK

Intensive mocha & AE Training in Singapore and Other Dangerous Locations

Imagineer Systems (mocha) Certified Instructor
& Adobe After Effects CS6 ACE/ACI

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

You will want to switch on Show Internal Wireframes. Do it in
Preferences>Preview>Show Internal Wireframes

HTH
RoRK

Intensive mocha & AE Training in Singapore and Other Dangerous Locations

Imagineer Systems (mocha) Certified Instructor
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[Roland R. kahlenberg]

This should be extremely easy with only two keyframes for scale. You can then copy-paste these two keyframes onto the other layers. It’s also easy enough to tweak each set of keyframes for each layer to achieve some variation.

If you want an Expression driven solution then use the following script in the Scale property –

LayerWidth = thisLayer.width;
Width =thisComp.width;
PosStart = -(LayerWidth/2);
PosEnd = (Width+LayerWidth);
StartScale = [0,0];
EndScale = [100,100];
linear(position[0],PosStart,PosEnd,EndScale,StartScale)

It’s not perfect but it should work. All you need to do is to change the StartScale and EndScale values to suit your needs.

HTH
RoRK

Intensive mocha & AE Training in Singapore and Other Dangerous Locations

Imagineer Systems (mocha) Certified Instructor
& Adobe After Effects CS6 ACE/ACI

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

It is a rather small area to track – so I envisage issues. Did you create an optimized-for-tracking version? Increasing the video’s contrast helps the tracking algorithm. Also, increasing the “% of Pixels Used” property should help.

HTH
RoRK

Intensive mocha & AE Training in Singapore and Other Dangerous Locations

Imagineer Systems (mocha) Certified Instructor
& Adobe After Effects CS6 ACE/ACI

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Here are my suggestions –

1) Set your project to 16 or 32 bpc when you render such gradients and render to a high quality CODEC

2) Render a high quality movie from AE THEN use AME (or better) to render highly compressed variations. TAKE NOTE that rendering 2-pass movies from AE (when draggin an AEP into AME) results in renders that are twice as long. This is the case because, for this workflow, AE first renders a high quality version, internally, then uses this movie to compress the 2-pass version.

HTH
RoRK

Intensive mocha & AE Training in Singapore and Other Dangerous Locations

Imagineer Systems (mocha) Certified Instructor
& Adobe After Effects CS6 ACE/ACI

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Take a look at this tutorial – https://aescripts.com/learn/create-a-finger-tutting-remix-using-plexus/

HTH
RoRK

Intensive mocha & AE Training in Singapore and Other Dangerous Locations

Imagineer Systems (mocha) Certified Instructor
& Adobe After Effects CS6 ACE/ACI