Introducing Lockdown 3. A new tool for tracking warping surfaces in 3D.
These shots were tracked in After Effects and exported to Cinema 4D
where objects were attached.
Lockdown was originally created to track 2D warping surfaces like you see here.
Our new features allow you to turn 2D tracks into 3D tracks with minimal effort.
But this is a lot to take in, so let's start from the beginning.
How do you use Lockdown?
Track a mesh in two dimensions.
Lockdown will stabilize the video for you in a separate composition.
Place your texture graphics in the composition
to see them apply back to your footage.
It's so easy to composite with Lockdown because it feels like you're photoshopping
one single frame, which then applies back to the rest of the video.
This is also great for paint work because again,
clone stamping on one frame is much easier than going frame to frame.
So how do you go from 2D to 3D?
Our new 3D tab lets you push this mesh out into 3D.
We used a depth estimator to create this information.
Just set your field of view
and crank up the depth slider until it looks about right.
And before you ask,
Yes! You can edit the depth map yourself.
You can use Lockdown's depth output to render the shot’s depth as black and white.
Then you can edit it with all the tools built into After Effects.
And pipe that whole composition into the depth input of your tracking instance.
This mesh can also be used for relighting.
In this example, I made the entire scene a mesh.
With a little compositing, it gets the job done.
Here are some more examples.
Keep in mind
we have a ton of automatic filtering to improve the depth estimation results,
so check out the tutorials to understand its strengths and weaknesses.
To get this scene into Cinema 4D,
just press our new export to C4D button.
It will create a folder with a C4D file
and your background footage in it.
There are multiple ways to attach objects to the mesh,
which we'll get into in just a minute.
Drag the C4D file back in After Effects to get a live render view of your scene
using Cineware.
The materials and render would need to be set up,
but you get an idea for the workflow.
We've also improved exporting tracking data to the After Effects timeline,
because sometimes you don't need a whole mesh.
Select a point.
Press create transform, then use the export button.
A null object will be created with position keyframes.
The same logic applies with two point transforms,
giving you null objects with position, rotation, and scale.
But there's also a way to use a two point track to establish depth.
For shots where the object is moving forward and backward in space,
we have an optional planar tracker that will attempt to keep
the object scale the same, and push it on Z instead.
On the left side, the tracked points stay stuck to the 2D view plane,
so the mesh scales down.
On the right, the software attempts to preserve the scale of the object
by pushing it back in Z as needed.
Most real world objects don't shrink or grow,
so this feature is very often helpful.
Some of you may be wondering: How could this data possibly coexist
with the depth estimator, when they both affect Z distance?
The simple solution is the planar tracker establishes depth
and the depth estimator creates the shape of the object added on top.
So you're not going to get any conflicting motion
between the two tools.
And of course, you can take any three points,
create a transform, and export 3D data to After Effects.
All three of these transform types work in Cinema 4D and the Alembic file too.
The last thing we see people using Lockdown for is style transfers.
Each of these examples were done by hand, before the whole ai wave hit us.
Lockdown gives incredibly precise control over the tracking of each texture.
We're finding it's very effective for people
to create a base coat using an ai based style transfer tool,
then finish the more important areas, like the eyes of the face, using Lockdown.
Between the speed of ai to create a base pass, and the precision of Lockdown
to perfect it, It's easier than ever to get great results like this.
In addition to Lockdown, we're including Composite Brush.
Composite Brush is a tool for keying and color correction.
It's best for creating smooth keys on flat backgrounds of any color.
The plugin really stands out for keying shots with soft falloff,
where many auto roto tools only understand hard edges.
Composite Brush is a mostly color based keying solution, so it's
usually the best tool for footage that has a smooth, untextured background.
We’re also bundling Paint Link with every copy of Lockdown 3.
Paint link is a dynamic link between After Effects and Photoshop.
You send a frame to Photoshop, paint on it, and it returns to After Effects.
Most users have been using it for cel animation,
but in this case, the user tracks a shot,
then in Photoshop, uses generative fill to create this lighthouse,
which then follows the footage.
So without getting into every step, let's just tie this back
to how you use Paint Link with Lockdown.
I can place Paint Link in Lockdown’s stabilized comp, then send the frame to Photoshop.
From here, I'll use generative fill to create a lighthouse.
When I return to After Effects, Paint Link brings this PSD
into my stabilized comp, and I can see the results track to my footage.
Paint Link and Lockdown are two separate plug ins, but they work beautifully together.
We'll be developing them specifically to work with each other from here forward,
so it just makes sense to include Paint Link with Lockdown.
There are actually more features we haven't covered here,
but this video is getting long.
Check out the free demo and the tutorials to see exactly how it all works.
Thanks for watching. For more info, check out aescript.com/lockdown