- This video is sponsored by Pixel Film Studios.
(funky music)
In this video we're going through a step-by-step method
on how you track any surface within your frame,
and add graphics or text or anything to it.
It's a super simple tool to use, and check this out,
I put my name on an alpaca.
(birds chirping)
(energetic music)
So this plugin is a surface tracker.
So Pixel Film Studios has done
a few different tracking plugins.
They have a single-point tracker which is where
you just track a single plant within the frame.
They also have a four-point tracker,
which is useful to add graphics into your frame,
if you wanna add say like text on a wall.
Now this plug-in takes it a step further.
So instead of being one, or four points,
it's actually unlimited amount of points,
and what the purpose of this plug-in is,
is to track a surface.
So, I have a shot here, it's just the back of my hand,
and I just wanna show you with a simple shot,
you can add overlays onto objects within your frame.
Now, if you wanna get the surface tracker,
and start using this plugin,
I'll put a code on the screen
where you can get a little discount from Pixel Film Studios.
They're gonna hook you guys up with that.
But let's dig into how this plugin works,
and how you actually map how to surface.
So you add the surface tracker onto the footage
that you wanna track,
and what you wanna do is find
a point somewhere in the middle,
where the object that you're tracking is fully frontal,
and then you're gonna track backwards and forwards.
If you've seen my other videos on the other trackers
by Pixel Film Studios,
you'll notice that the workflow's a little bit different.
So we're gonna bring up the editor,
and you're gonna have a few different controls here.
You can do single layer or multi layer tracking mode.
For this shot it's a pretty simple shot,
so I'm gonna do a single layer,
but you can add different layers,
which gives you just more tracking data
to be able to do something like a face.
So you have different points controls.
You could do a square,
which is gonna do a bunch of points within a square.
You could do a circle,
which is the same type of thing, circle.
And then you have your cursor here,
which allows you to select,
and then you can just delete by hitting delete.
So I'm just gonna grab one of these tools,
and instead of pulling a box across,
I'm gonna go through and just click,
and add single points around my hand.
Now, there's a track assist filter.
Now, depending on the shot,
you don't always have to have this on.
You just need to turn up the amount,
until you're seeing contrast on the surface
that you're trying to track.
And you have a few different tools here,
depending on how hard it is to track the object
that you're focusing on.
So from here you're gonna use your tools up top
to play forward, and play backwards.
So from here it's gonna go frame-by-frame,
and it's using those points to track the movement
of the object.
So I'm gonna go back to the center
where I started, at 228,
and now I'm gonna track backwards from that center mark.
And the reason that you wanna track in the center,
is you wanna find that point where the object
is facing front.
So, say we're tracking my face,
and if I turned left and then right in the shot,
you'd wanna start your track when I'm dead center,
so then you could track this direction,
and then this direction, and then this direction.
Because you're gonna find more success
if you track in this way.
Okay, so I'm gonna turn my track assist off.
You can smooth the track data here,
by using the smooth drag track data points,
but now you're gonna add a mesh on top of this.
So you've set up all your points,
and you add on this triangular mesh.
And you can see here that it's created basically
a graph over your object that you're tracking.
So, I'm gonna go through and clamp the edges,
if there's any extra lines made,
because it's basically gonna create a sphere, a mesh,
kind of like this thing back here,
and you you don't wanna have like two points
that are, you know, down here, and here,
and there's like a gap in between 'em.
If there's nothing there,
and it's gonna use that as part of the tracking,
you don't necessarily want that.
So from here I'm gonna use the Pointer tool,
and you're gonna wanna go through and get rid of
any extra lines that were added between point.
And you can see around the edges,
there might be these extra lines
that you just need to remove.
But what you wanna do is click the Apply Mess on Frame,
and you wanna make sure to apply this
on that middle frame of your shot,
where the object is flat to camera,
and once you've done that you're gonna export the data.
So now it's gonna set all the keyframes onto your footage,
and from here we just need to add in the graphical element
that you wanna add to the back of my hand,
or whatever object you're tracking.
So, in the Inspector window you'll make sure
that the drop zone is turned on.
You'll wanna click this box here to add
what you want in the drop zone.
I'm gonna add this clip of my name being written out,
and then when you play it back
you'll see that the graphic has been tracked to the object.
So this plugin works great if you have a need
to add graphics, or text,
or any other elements to objects within your frame,
and if you don't need your text, or your graphic,
to warp around your object, and you just wanna say,
put it on the wall,
or you just wanna do like a single point tracker,
then I'll put links to the other plugins
down below in the description,
and you can check out the videos on those.
All of these plugins work great
if you need to track objects within your frame.
All right guys, that is it, I will see you on the next one.