- In this video, we're talkin' about how you can track
any object in Final Cut, and this automated process makes
it easy to add graphics and text anywhere
within your videos.
(intensifying suspenseful music)
So when Final Cut was first released,
people were always talking about how
it's not a professional editing software,
but it has come so far from where
it originally started to where it is now.
With Final Cut, you have the ability to add in plugins.
And Pixel Film Studios is one of the companies
that is making these plugins for Final Cut
to basically simplify the process
and give you tools that will enhance your editing.
And this is one of the really cool things
about Final Cut in general is that it speeds
up your editing workflow.
So when you add in these plugins,
you get a whole new set of controls
and you get very specific things
like Auto Tracking.
So this is one tool that I use all the time,
and specifically because I want
to be able to add graphics and text within my videos.
Whether I'm doing my tutorials and I'm just adding
some graphics that show exactly what I'm talking about,
or I'm doing one of my films and I just want
to layer in text to make the video more engaging,
tracking was not necessarily something
that was easy before this plugin came out.
The old way of tracking was basically going key frame
by key frame and moving the text or the object
in your video and basically doing it manually.
It takes a ton of time to key frame things
frame by frame.
So with the Auto Tracker, it's an automated process.
Quickly load it into your timeline,
and it tracks objects within the frame
so that you don't have to do it manually.
It really renders fast and makes
the whole editing workflow easy.
So guys if you're new here to this channel,
my name is Jeven Dovey, I do a lot
of film-making tutorials, product reviews,
and I also do a lot of YouTube training,
so make sure you hit that Subscribe button
and turn on those bell notifications
so you don't miss one of these tutorials.
Now one thing I want to mention
is that the first 500 people who use my code
will get 30% off Auto Tracker 2.0.
All right, let's dive into the software
and let me show you how powerful this is.
So once you have the plugin installed in Final Cut,
you go into your Generator tab and you can use
a Drop Zone, Text, or Drop Zone & Text.
And you just drag this right on top of your footage.
Now what you're gonna do is go to the front
of your clip, pull up the Track Editor
which is gonna be in your Effects window,
and then a new window is gonna pop up,
and this is your tracking.
So you could use a square or a circle to track.
You're gonna readjust the frame,
find a point that you want to track
and then you're going to use the square
or the circle and create your box around that object.
Now you're gonna click the Play button
and what it's doing is tracking
that specific point, that part
in the frame that you have selected.
And it's creating all the key frames for you.
This is super powerful, you just have
to sit here and let it render, and it goes frame by frame.
And as you could see, it moves very fast.
Now one thing I want to note is that you have
this Track Quality so you can bump
this up to 100%.
It's gonna take a little bit more time to render,
but your results are gonna be a little bit better,
especially if you want that tracking to be perfect.
So once it finishes tracking your object,
you just hit Export Data.
Now in your Effects window, you could see
that it's got a bunch of different tools that you can use.
You want to make sure that you turn your Drop Zone
and your Text on and off.
You can basically put anything in that Drop Zone editor.
So whether you have another motion plugin
or you just have some element that you've created
with a transparent background, you can use
any of that as your tracking.
Basically this software gives
you all the tracking data points,
and then you add anything you want
in that drop zone.
So I'm gonna pull an arrow into my timeline.
I'm gonna go to the tracker, go down to my drop zone,
select the drop zone, click the clip and apply it.
I'm gonna scale it within the drop zone
so you see everything, and then I'm gonna rotate
it so that it points exactly at what
I want to point at.
Now you can grab on the screen itself
and move this object around which is great,
so you can find where you want to place it,
change the rotation.
You can change your anchor point, your position.
Basically all the tools that you would want
to readjust your graphics are built in here.
Now when you play it back, you can see
that it's automatically tracking that object.
Now one of the really powerful things
about this tracking software is that it not only
tracks your position, but it also tracks
your rotational data.
And it also tracks the size.
So beyond just tracking your position
on the screen, you can track whether something rotates
and follow it, and whether something
gets smaller or bigger.
Super powerful depending on what you're creating,
you might want to add those on.
Now if you just want to have your graphic
or your text just move around the screen
following the object that you're tracking,
then you would just turn it off here.
Turn off the scale and turn off the rotational data.
Now you're just tracking the position
and the graphic just moves with the object.
Now I want to show you how you can add
motion graphics using this Auto Tracker.
So I have another plugin from Pixel Film Studios
called Pro Text Slide & Flip, and this creates cool
graphics elements, and you don't really have
to key frame anything, it's the same type of thing.
It's all automated.
So you have these moving text elements
and everything is super easy to use.
This is what I use to create all my tutorials
when I have graphics on the bottom, on the sides.
I always use this Pixel Film Studios plugin.
I'm gonna drop my text element onto the shot.
Then what I'm gonna do is make
this a Compound Clip.
And I'm gonna go back into my Tracker 2.0,
go to that Drop Zone editor and apply that Compound Clip
as my graphic element.
Now as you can see when I pop it on there,
you have that motion graphic happening
as well as the tracking.
So you just created some motion with the tracking elements.
One other tool that this plugin has
is a Motion Blur element.
If you go into your Inspector and you go down
to your Drop Zone controls, you can see
right at the bottom you have this Motion Blur,
and it's a slider.
It goes from zero to three.
And what that does is basically changes
the amount of motion blur on the object.
So if you're shooting with motion blur
in the frame, you want to match that
with your graphic elements so that
it seems seamless.
Now what's also cool is you can use
this tracker to track a background object
and put something on a wall.
Just one thing you have to keep in mind
is that this tracker does not do perspective,
so the wall needs to stay flat to camera.
You can't be shifting the perspective,
otherwise the track will not work properly.
So I have a couple of tips for you to really make
this plugin work when you're creating your content.
The first is you want to shoot at a high shutter speed.
If there's too much motion blur,
then the tracker's not going to grab onto it.
The bare minimum is doubled out of your frame rate.
So typically that's what you're gonna be shooting at.
If you're shooting 30 frames a second,
you'll have a 160 shutter.
If you're shooting 24, you'll have a 48.
But you don't really want to go under that,
otherwise the tracker will have a little bit of issues.
It deals with contrast, that's how it tracks objects.
So you have to track an object where
there is contrast and the automation
can actually see the difference between objects
and it will track those differences.
So when you're shooting, just make
sure you have contrast where you want to track an object.
Patterns also work very well, so look
for patterns that you can use as objects to track.
Now, a couple of pro tips.
One is bump up the contrast of your clip
before you apply the tracker.
Now you can go through and take
this contrast off later, but what that does
is basically create those contrast lines,
so the tracker really has something to grab onto.
The other tip is to shoot in slow motion.
So 60 frames a second or 120 frames a second,
something slower than normal, especially when
it comes to shots that are hard to track.
So you shoot in slow motion and track in slow motion.
So for example if you want your shot to be in 30P,
you can still shoot it in 120 frames per second
so that you're able to track the object
that you want to track and then speed
it up later by four times, and now you get
a 30 frames per second with that precision tracking.
Those are just a couple of things
that will make it easier to track objects
so you can really isolate on that specific thing
that you're going after.
So guys like I said, the first 500 people
that use my link down in the description get 30% off.
I highly suggest going and checking that out.
And guys if you liked this and want
to see more editing tutorials like this,
please let me know down in the comments.
I want to know if this is kind of a topic
that I should go down on my channel
and do more videos around plugins
and Final Cut and just the whole editing workflow,
how to make things faster and really how
to speed it up so you can be more creative
and create the content that you want
to create and not get bogged down by all the editing
and all of that.
All right guys that's it, I'll see you on the next one.