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Filed under: *VIDEO* •Motion Graphics •Post Production •

Believable Hand-Held Motion Tracking with Mocha & After Effects CS4

In this video, the truck drives off the left side of the screen, which would be the death of the built in trackers in After Effects, but the planar tracker in Mocha adjusts for this motion and automatically retains its current path of motion. It does eventually get a bit confused and you have to stop it and make some minor corrections to the spline points.

Once I completed the tracking to the point where the truck was off the screen, I returned to the first keyframe and then selected the Track Backward button to complete the first frames of the footage from where I started.

Defining the Corner Pin (Surface) Region

The next step was to create the corner pin region inside the tracked spline. To start this process, I select the Surface button on the right side panel. This will reveal a blue square box in the center of the tracked spline. I then click and drag the corners to the outside corners of the trailer’s side panel. Each move of the corner point shows a live detail inset in the upper left corner of the view window so you can see a magnified view of the area you are moving the points to.

To set this point of the track as the master keyframe, I open the Adjust Track tab at the bottom and select the Set Master button in the panel.

As I travel down the timeline, I can see where the surface corners may wander off alignment a bit so I can select a corner and manually re-align it with the mouse, or if it’s off just slightly, I can click the Auto button to see if it will snap back into alignment, or use the Nudge Up, Down, Left or Right buttons to reposition each corner. The zoomed detail inset window will show you the original (from the Master keyframe) and the current positioning of the selected corner point.

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Nice write-up, Jeff. Love the reflections piece at the end.

Posted by Mark Spencer  on  07/02  at  09:56 PM

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Lasvideo - There are lots of demonstration and tutorials over at the Vimeo channel: http://vimeo.com/groups/imagineer

and, a few at Imagineer’s website: http://imagineersystems.com/

Posted by J. Curtis  on  07/03  at  05:08 AM

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Yes, I am aware of them. I was a betas Tester for Imagineers Mocha for AE. I just thought this tutorial looked so good, I wanted to participate

Posted by Tom Daigon  on  07/03  at  07:26 AM

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I don’t agree - this article was detailed enough to allow me to do the same thing with my own footage.

Posted by Mark Spencer  on  07/03  at  07:28 AM

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Well Mark…each to their own….

Posted by Tom Daigon  on  07/03  at  07:36 AM

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Off topic: I just came by here to brush up on my mocha skills, and couldn’t help but notice these comments:

Lasvideo first said: “A tutorial that doesn’t allow the reader to follow along and replicate the process is a waste of time in my opinion.”

Lasvideo then said “I just thought this tutorial looked so good, I wanted to participate.”

Those two comments are a perfect illustration of the following blog’s thoughts on how to get more people to listen to your opinions:
“http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/01/amplifying-complaints.html”

It’s the old vinegar vs. honey discussion, isn’t it? (smile)

Personally, I also prefer follow-along sources and project files (see our books) - but I also know how hard it is to get clearance from people to re-distribute their sources (see our videos). So I agree, but I’m also sympathetic.

Meanwhile, I learned a few useful tidbits from this piece. Thanks, Jeff!

Chris

Posted by Chris Meyer  on  01/14  at  02:20 PM

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Hi Chris:
  This is cool. One of my favorite AE teachers is commenting on my (effective?) communications skills
  I guess my major in Telecommunications and minor in Speech Communications is showing. Actually stuff like this is reflexive with me…something I wish I had a bit more of when it comes to motion graphics.
Tom Daigon
Avid DS / FCP Editor
Borne Again Cameraman
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com

Posted by Tom Daigon  on  01/14  at  03:00 PM

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Hi, love the tutorial. But I’ve run into a snag and I have NO clue as to why its not working. This is the 1st time I’ve used Mocha. Anyway, I shot some footage on my hvx of a building sign, tracked it really well. Exported data into CS5. I want to replace the building sign with another jpeg logo I have but whenever I paste the tracked data to the sign layer it sits miles off the original. I have followed various tuts on this to the degree but this always seems to happen. Any help would be much appreciated. BIG TIME.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  06/09  at  11:47 AM

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