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BA's Planning Guide

Page history last edited by Brian Atiyeh 9 years, 8 months ago

1. Teach someone how to motion track 2D text into a moving scence in Adobe After Effects.

    Persuade someone to teach themselves more about the more secretive features of AE.

 

2. These instructions will help you learn more about adobe after effects and more specifically, teach you how to motion track text or even objects into a moving scene.

 

The only thing special you need to know is how to import a scene into AE and make a new composition

 

Adobe After Effects is the only thing you'll need and can be "bought" online

 

Final project will include what exactly needs to be done and trouble shooting.

 

3. There are actually no entries like the wikihow I am going to be making but there are youtube videos so I will link one here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7Pdk8euHqk

     -This is actually the video I learned from quite a few years ago. Acrez's tutorial is mostly clear and easy to learn from. One problem that I found from learning from this tutorial, however, is that he doesn't clearly explain how to find a point in the video that is easily trackable. He also doesn't go over how large to make the tracking box very much either. What he does do well is that the video itself is very fast without going through to many extra unneeded things that can be found later by the own user. I will try to make mine quick to learn from as well but will include a little more information on finding trackable points and in what situations you can or can't track.

 

4. Zero research will need to be done because I have a lot of prior knowledge

 

5. OUTLINE

 

What you need

  • Footage-preferably HD
  • Adobe After Effects 

1. Getting the footage ready

  • Either find some footage from a free stock footage site or use some of your own
  • The higher the quality, the easier it will be to make a smooth and professional motion track. 
  • Import it to Adobe After Effects by dragging and dropping in the project files tab on the left side of AE by default 

2. Enabling the tracking tab

  • To enable to tracking tab, go to the window tab at the top of the screen inbetween view and help.
  • Look in the list and make sure a checkmark is next to the tracker. If not, click on tracker to enable the tracking tab.
  • You should now have a box with tracking options on your AE interface.

3. Placing the tracking box

  • Click the track motion button under the tracking tab to enable the tracking box
  • IMPORTANT: move the box over a location with high contrast, that is to say: a point on the footage where you can see a huge difference in lighting or unique coloring that isn't seen anywhere else like glare off of the sun or the tip of a pole.
  • Make the size of the box just slightly larger than the point you choose: if you choose the tip of a pole, make it just larger than the end of the pole.

4. Starting the track

  • Go to the tracker tab and ensure that only position is checked off-rotation and scale should be unchecked.
  • Make sure that everything is ready then press the "play" button in the tracker tab.
  • After it is done, you will be left with a lot of boxes on the screen as well as keyframes for the track.  

5. Adding the text

  • Add a null object by going to the layer tab then new and finally null object.
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6. Lining the text up with the track

 

    7. Troubleshooting

    • If your text moves at times other than when the video moves, the track itself is wrong and must be redone. When you redo the track, make sure you move the tracking square in another location you think will be better. Experience is key here as it takes a while to get a feel for what you think is a good place for the tracking box

     

     

    6. To create this image, I went through and tracked footage of my own and took screenshots along the way. On other images I will use paint to draw red circles over what I mean for each thing.

     

    The motion tracking square

     

     

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