In this tutorial I'll teach you all about motion tracking. Using motion
tracking allows you to track different objects in order to add a moving title,
image or even blur or censor faces or other information. In this video we'll
track a vehicle driving past a lake and add a graphic over top of it. Before we
get started, if you're watching this video on YouTube you'll find a link in
the description below that will take you to our tutorial page on the Discovery
Center. Here you can download a written copy of this tutorial to follow along.
I have VideoStudio opened up under the Edit tab and I'm
going to drag the video of the traveling vehicle onto the video track on my
timeline. Then with my clip selected, I'll click on the Track Motion icon from the
toolbar. A dialog box will pop up, giving you some information on how to use this
feature. The first step shows you that you can drag the red tracker to a point
or area that you want to track and the second step points towards the green
box that you can place where you want to add a matched object, such as a title,
graphic or video. The third step is the track motion button, which we'll get into later.
I'm going to drag this red tracker on top of the vehicle that I want to track.
As I do this you'll see a little magnifying window pops up
to help me see exactly where I'm placing my tracker. You can select from three
different tracker types. The default tracker is "Set Tracker as Point" allowing
you to pinpoint a position to track. The second type is "Set Tracker as Area" and
finally there is "Set Multi-point Tracker" which is used as a method to blur or
censor objects. I'm going to select "Set Tracker as Area" for this video.
Now click and drag the area box over the vehicle and adjust the nodes
so it fits nicely over the van window. I'm also going to adjust the green box,
which is going to act as a placeholder for where I want to replace it with a
graphic later on. The green box will match the motion tracked by our tracker.
Here you can uncheck the option to "Add Matched Object" or check it.
You can also adjust the position from different preset options or choose
"Custom" to place it wherever you'd like. In the preview window you can adjust
the nodes of the green box to adjust the size of the placeholder. If I
don't want to track the van through the entire clip, and just want to track a
section of it, I can drag the scrubber to the starting point where I want to start
the tracking and click "Track In" and then drag the scrubber to where I want to
finish tracking and click "Track Out". Now let's click on the track motion button
to track the motion of our vehicle.
You'll see that the box follows the van as it's moving. Once it has finished
tracking you can click on the "Show Tracking Path" icon to see the path
you've created and drag your scrubber along the timeline to see the path
movement as well. If you want to reset the path you've just created just click
on the "Reset to Default Position" button at the bottom. You can click the "plus"
icon to add a new tracker or the "minus" icon to remove a tracker. You can also
rename the tracker you've just created, and you can even click "Save to Path
Library" to save the motion you've just tracked if you want to use it in future
projects. Once you're happy with the motion you've tracked click OK.
You'll see that the placeholder is now on the Overlay track on the timeline in
the section of the clip that we just tracked. From here you can right-click on
the placeholder and select "Replace Clip" and choose either video or photo.
Or you can browse in your library and find the media you want to add to
replace the placeholder, then drag it on top of the placeholder and press CTRL on
your keyboard before releasing. This will replace the
placeholder with our new graphic and if we press play to preview you'll see how
the graphic follows alongside our van as it drives down the road.
Finally let's go to the Transitions tab and choose a soft transition like
"Dissolve" and drag it to both the beginning and end of the overlay.
Now if we preview this you'll see the overlay has a soft fade in and fade out
as it moves across the screen. These are just some of the ways you can use motion
tracking to enhance your videos in a creative way. If you're watching this
video on YouTube you'll find a link in the description below that will take you
to our tutorial page on the Discovery Center. Here you can download a written
copy of this tutorial to follow along and find other helpful tutorials for VideoStudio.