Tracking objects in a 360 video is a really cool feature even in 360 or in overcapture mode.
Now I show you how to do it manually with any 360 footage.
Orientation is always an important task in 360, especially working with moving shots.
First you need to choose a starting point, but then you have to decide how to continue.
In most of the cases, after applying software stabilization,
the video follows the starting direction which is really great.
Let’s see, when you are walking with a handheld camera, your place on the video might be changing a bit,
but the whole environment, the buildings and bigger objects are always on the same place.
And it helps the viewers to look around easily and they don’t lose control over the video.
But in special cases we don’t want to keep these main directions,
and the video is more watchable if we track certain points.
The most common situations are shooting during skateboarding, skiing, riding a bike
or taking long driving scenes.
The point is that there are some turns on the go.
And the main problem is that these scenes have dedicated directions,
while actually we are changing directions with the camera.
In these cases it would be much better if the camera could track the route.
For instance here you can see my bob shot.
In this case the camera keeps pointing to a specific direction
instead of following where we are actually going.
When we’re taking this 180 degrees turn, you can see the camera is still pointing in the same direction.
I think in this case the rails and the sled should be always on the same position
to create the authentic third person impression.
Then it’s a matter of choice whether we keep the footage in 360 view or create an overcapture video.
With Insta360 One X app we can select certain objects to track,
but in Premiere we don’t have such a smart function.
But on the other hand we can work with any 360 footage, doesn’t matter which camera we use.
And tracking manually is really easy.
First I apply a plugin called VR Projection.
Here I can correct the horizon line of the footage.
If you are interested about this topic, check out my previous video in the right top corner.
With an average 360 video I would finally set up the main direction with the “pan” function.
As you can see, I can move it between 180 and minus 180 degrees.
And this is where it’s getting tricky.
The basic idea of tracking certain points of the video is adding keyframes with different panning settings.
I turn on Safe margins on the preview window and switch to 360 view
so I can check out perfectly what is in the middle.
I add a keyframe and set up the middle point,
then I go on to another frame and set up another one.
It seems fine, but depending on your footage you might come to a point where you get stuck.
As you can see, now it’s at 180 degrees and I can’t go further.
I only can move between 180 and minus 180.
The perfect position would be something like this,
but to get here I have to pan in the other direction, around -132 degrees.
The problem is that after 180 the image won’t slide to this position the way like it did before.
It will create a fast turn on the other direction.
And obviously I don’t want it this way.
I think the basic idea is fine: I add keyframes and smoothly pan around in the video
to create very nice tracking in such cases.
But we have to use another plugin, too.
So I delete the keyframes here and reset “pan” settings,
I search for a plugin called “Offset” and I apply it.
Now I pan around without any limitations.
So keeping the VR plugin untouched I only use the Offset plugin
to shift the center of the image horizontally left or right.
I just keep watching the middle point and I smoothly pan the image to the right place.
I prefer adding less keypoints, so this panning I create won’t be noticeable.
Even more it will be really smooth.
And getting to point where I stuck, now I can get over it.
Here you can see this turn before tracking.
And this is how it looks without using Offset plugin.
And here is the final result setting up directions with the Offset plugin.
But be careful. If you create many keyframes very frequently
you might create weird “camera moves”, which could disturb the viewers.
And another important thing is to track the straight parts, too.
I create keyframes at the end and the beginning of the linear sections;
otherwise the video would be panning around all the time until the next keyframe at the first upcoming turn.
But this way, it will be fine.
Of course later I can create an overcapture view, if I want.
And then I can turn around in the 360 space, but I’ll be sure, that the objects I tracked manually
are always on the same part of the frame.
Another option is to track moving objects in the video.
I think in a 360 video this can be a little bit disturbing, but it depends on…
Anyway, we can select a moving character in the video too, and track it all over its path.
And creating an overcapture video it looks really cool.
If you like these small tricks, please push the like button,
and if you are interested about further 360 photo and video techniques or 360 travel videos,
subscribe to my YouTube channel.
See you soon guys!