Motion Tracking After Effects
I have a project collaborating with a third year student film, where they need VFX to add engravings to gravestones. They initially thought it would include removing the real engravings and replacing them. It's not permitted to film the front of them, so they are going to have to film from the backs of the headstones and I will add in the text.
I am practicing tracking now so I know confidently what I will need to do, also I will learn now the difficulties, and might be able to suggest different ways of filming to help me.
Here's my first after effects try, (first marginally successful that is)
I cut a clip from 'Saving Private Ryan' which originally was longer, but I soon realised tracking with something coming in front of it, and tracking something that begins off screen, are a little ahead. So I made it as simple as possible to crack for trial 1.
After Effects Motion Track
-New Comp -Import footage-New Null Object-Window>Tracker- Click video layer- (Tracker Window)- Track motion- Edit Target>Layer1Null- Hit play button- Look at keyframes- Select and apply easy ease- Add layer you want to be tracked and parent to null.
First Try
Problems- This is not very high quality footage, because it has been ripped from youtube. There was problems tracking because of the Grave stones colour, I was looking for the areas with highest contrast, the white against the green, but at some points there were white breaks in the trees which messed it up. I applied a sharpen effect to the video to help. This has taught me I will definitely go to the filming and put tracking markers on the headstone (hopefully this will be permitted) to have something to easily track. Also we have the issue here of perspective, it gets smaller and we see less of the face of the headstone as we move past it.
The graphic I have added to the front of course looks bad too, but I'm going to crack the process before I make that look more realistic.
I'm not sure what exactly the shot/s will look like I will be trying to do, so I will try a few different possibilities to help prepare myself before I get more information.
Second Try
This time I tried to track scale and rotation too, which meant tracking two points, this was not automatically tracked well at all. I had to do the frames by hand for a lot of it. I think I'm fighting a losing battle with this footage, because the markers are just not there. So I'm going to try with better footage, even if it isn't 'Grave' related to practice the skills.
I am practicing tracking now so I know confidently what I will need to do, also I will learn now the difficulties, and might be able to suggest different ways of filming to help me.
Here's my first after effects try, (first marginally successful that is)
After Effects Motion Track
-New Comp -Import footage-New Null Object-Window>Tracker- Click video layer- (Tracker Window)- Track motion- Edit Target>Layer1Null- Hit play button- Look at keyframes- Select and apply easy ease- Add layer you want to be tracked and parent to null.
First Try
Problems- This is not very high quality footage, because it has been ripped from youtube. There was problems tracking because of the Grave stones colour, I was looking for the areas with highest contrast, the white against the green, but at some points there were white breaks in the trees which messed it up. I applied a sharpen effect to the video to help. This has taught me I will definitely go to the filming and put tracking markers on the headstone (hopefully this will be permitted) to have something to easily track. Also we have the issue here of perspective, it gets smaller and we see less of the face of the headstone as we move past it.
The graphic I have added to the front of course looks bad too, but I'm going to crack the process before I make that look more realistic.
I'm not sure what exactly the shot/s will look like I will be trying to do, so I will try a few different possibilities to help prepare myself before I get more information.
Second Try
This time I tried to track scale and rotation too, which meant tracking two points, this was not automatically tracked well at all. I had to do the frames by hand for a lot of it. I think I'm fighting a losing battle with this footage, because the markers are just not there. So I'm going to try with better footage, even if it isn't 'Grave' related to practice the skills.
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