Stabilizing a dolly/tracking shot

Hi,
I have a shot I filmed in a studio environment - the camera was on a skateboard tracking into the action like so:
The problem is that the movement bumps at several points. I've tried the standard stabilize tracker (position/rotation), using the base of the chairs as tracking points - it stabilizes the image a bit but it also ends up zooming into the left side chair. Is there a particular technique to stabilizing such a shot except manually adjusting for each bump?
Thanks,
David

Basically a stabilize does exactly that, it removes all movement from the shot, by shifting the frame in the opposite direction.
So by doing a stabilize on your shot you'd end up with a static image (if the stabilize worked perfectly). Essentially what you need to do is stabilize the shot to remove all the jitter and movement, then track the shot and match the move back on.
This would (in an ideal track situation) give you the same result as you started with, however your camera moves is now animated with the tracking data. You just need to go into the keyframes and either smooth out or find the keyframes with the bump and move them about to elimate the shake.
This would work best normally if this was only a pan, or a pan and zoom. However since yours is a tilt as well then it makes it alot more tricky as your dealing with 4 point tracks + the perspective shift.
- Hope that makes sense am not always very good at explaining myself.
** A solution for your shot which i'd try first tho is this:
Your shot is timelapse right, and since the jolt is only on 1 or two frames, why not go in and adjust those couple of frames individually? Shift them up down a little bit to compensate for the bump on just those frames.
Without trying it myself, i can't say for certain whether it would def work but worth trying, its easier than stabilizing then tracking the move back on

Similar Messages

Speeding up a tracking shot, jerky afterwards?

I have a couple of tracking shots of an architectural wall that I would like to speed up. Wasn't pushing the dolly fast enough. I have tried to increase the speed from 100% to 115% (from the Clips drop down menu not as a time remapping effect - don't need any keyframes) and even after rendering it out the tracking shot has a noticeable stutter that's not there when I view the speed at 100%
Using Mac 10.6.8 CS Premier 5 and like i say I notice this even after I render
This seems like it should be an easy task I have search through all the tutorials to see what I must be missing. Any insights or advice when speeding up a clip?
Thanks, jeff

Thanks Jim, I truly appreciate the quick response. I knew it was staring me in the face
Thank you,
jeff

Tracking shot on photo with Adobe Premiere Elements 7 ?

Hi everybody !
I won't be long : is it possible to make tracking shots on fixed images with Adobe Premiere Elements 7 ?
Examples of what I mean : http://tv.adobe.com/fr/watch/didacticiels-sur-premiere-elements-10/transformez-vos-photos- en-squences-amusantes/ with Adobe Premiere Elements 10 or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzeFQjG4hDo with Pinnacle Studio 14.
Thanks a lot !
Olivier

As Steve G. says, yes, and for most earlier versions of PrE. I recommend his great Basic Keyframing Series on Muvipix.com: http://muvipix.com/products.php?searchphrase=basic+keyframing&btn.x=19&btn.y=9
Keyframing can be applied to most Effects, whether Fixed, or applied, so it can do much more, than Pan & Zoom. The application of it is almost limitless.
Good luck,
Hunt

Stabilizing footage then tracking for 3D compositing

Hi. I am working on a project where I want to stabilize 4K red footage and then crop in on this footage reframing the shots. Then tracking this cropped footage in a seperate program and compositing 3D models into the footage. Is this the right way to do this?
Problems I am having... Tracking software not creating clean track of stabilised cropped footage. But because the footage is 4K red I do not want to track and comp in 3D models before stabilizing. Because render times on 3D would be to big to output at 4k.
Am I missing something here... Should me work flow be different?
Thanks for any help.
Also does the warp stabilizer actually warp the footage? Could this be affecting my tracking?

Also does the warp stabilizer actually warp the footage? Could this be affecting my tracking?
Yes and yes.
Is this the right way to do this?
No, it isn't. By warping and cropping the footage you make the 3D tracking think it would be operating on a different lens with variable zoom, resulting in a completely whacked out camera solve. Hence your problems. For what you have in mind, Warp Stabilizer is the wrong tool to begin with. If any stabilization is required, you do it based on the solved 3D camera which can be anything from smoothing the track in the matchmoving software to doing the same in AE after your 3D stuff has been rendered. And nobody asks you to render at 4k. As long as the proportions and aspect ratio are retained, you can do your 3D renders at any res or scale the scene to fit.
Mylenium

Tracking shots that need to be re-rendered

Hi guys
Been doing some jobs on Color and finding my way around. I normally work on DS or Film Master, so there are some questions.
1. If I corrected some shots and rendered them, timeline goes green, all well. Now I make a change to the grade, timeline remains green..mmmm, is there a way to get Color to revert the clip to unrendered automatically.
2. I can't get consistent results tracking user shapes and using them in Secondaries...any step by step help?
Patrick Morgan
Freelance Colourist
London

Jpo,
You are right, it doesn,t say original format ( it's there but you can not apply it).
I did my project in hdv 720 50p (from fcp) and rendered it out using apple Pro Res 422 HQ.
Those files aren't that big as 8 bit-uncompressed 4 2 2.
Everything still looked nice. I do not have any experience in color with full HD but as color is a 1.0 release we just have to wait I guess.
Your ideas on this?
Tim

Stabilizing node clips the shot?

Hi all! I have a question that's driving me nuts:
(English is not my first language so bear with me)
I have a shaky shot that needs heavy cloning and painting. The plan was to stabilize the shot, paint and then destabilize it to apply the same movement it originally had (I read this in the manual) everything went fine until I destabilized it: I noticed the shot was now clipped where the first stabiliation node had run out of space (don't know if I'm explaining myself).
Shake composites in infinte space, right? Why is the shot being clipped, what am I missing?
My client is getting here tomorrow so any help would be ENOURMOUSLY appreciated! : D!

Sorry this is late for your client review...but...
Quickpaint clips the "infinite space" by cropping the image. It is an awful behavior.
Since you already did the paint work, you can do as Patrick outlines above - just use SetAlpha to make the image alpha solid 1 before the move/paint/move & then Over the painted/destabilized over the original. Bear in mind that the stable/destable operation will soften that image slightly. The original will not be similarly softened...so you'll have a hard edged division between slightly soft & original sharp. (This may not be visible to the normal naked eye...but if someone likes to pick pepper out of flyshit...). Also, if your paint breaks frame, this method will yield a hard edge somewhere...but it doesn't sound like you'll have this problem.
Next time, use the Crop node to enlarge the stabilized image enough to keep the image in view throughout the sequence. Paint that, destabilize & crop back down to your original size.
Best of luck,
-G

Stabilizing a shaky camera shot

I've been told there is a filter that could minimize the shaking of a hand held camera shot, so long as the shaking isn't severe.
Is anyone familiar with this filter?

If the OP, after almost three months, is still having trouble figuring out how to stabalize his shot, then I think there's some serious problems.
Surely one can figure out how to stabalize a shot using Shake in that amount of time, and that's even including the "dude" that said it ain't easy to learn. I mean.. that statement alone should tell you who is having trouble learning the program. I think people use the "steep learning curve" as an excuse to deter themselves from even attempting to learn the program and you can either choose to become one of them and let it deter you as well or...
not
FWIW Final Cut can be said it has a steep learning curve. Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Logic can also brand the same title.
Some dudes out there can even say iChat has a steep learning curve for Apple's sake! Let your passion take over your fear and frustration of learning and the excuses will subside!

Motion Tracking a Dolly Shot

I'm having a little trouble figuring this out. Thought someone on here might have done something similar.
The shot: A person walks down a sidewalk. The camera dollies parallel to them so it sees a wide of their profile. The person disappears and reappears in the shot as the camera dollies.
Is there a good way to pull off a poor man's motion tracking effect like this? Certain plug-ins to use to get it right?
A somewhat similar effect occurs a few (brief) times in this video: http://vimeo.com/24569304
Happy to clarify if that doesn't make sense. Thanks in advance!

Here's what I'd do. I'd shoot a clean take of the actor with a dolly shot with the dolly on track if possible and the camera locked off. Have an assistant keep track of the time.
Once you have a clean take, roll back and take another shot.
If you don't have a dolly and track then do the best you can to keep the shot as close as you can to the "good" take.
Now you need to track both shots in Mocha. There a re tutorials on how to track a moving shot available. You would stabilize both shots, lay the clean plate over the plate with the actor and crop it with a soft edge mask big enough to cover the actor. Did you get that? You want to lay the clean plate over just the area where the actor is. Make any adjustments necessary to the timing of the shot to keep things lined up by using time remap on the clean plate.
once you have the composited shots looking like there's no actor in the shot , then you can use transitions, fades, or other effects to bring in your actor by eliminating the top clean portion.
Once this is all set up, remove the stabilization on the actor plate making sure that the clean plate is tied to it by parenting.
Don't expect to be able to hold this hide the actor effect for more than a few seconds without dolly track. If you carefully watch the reference video you'll see that there's not a lot of exact frame matching going on. There just kitschy transitions between takes. The first one is especially awkward and there's a big jump that's hidden fairly well by the transition. In fact, I can't see anything except the distortions of the sidewalk and the overlays that probably used motion tracking.

Rename shot/track?

Hello,
I've exported my entire FCP Sequence and imported it into Color, where it shows up as just one long shot.
I'm using Color only to apply certain nodes, with keyframes, in the Color FX room.
Sometimes I go back into FCP and change filter settings there (but I never change the duration of the Sequence), then export again, saving the export with a different name than before. I delete the old export.
Of course, when I open my Color project again, Color can't find the old FCP export (since I deleted it). So, I reconnect to the new FCP export, which works fine. But the name of the shot/track in Color stays the same as it was before.
Is there some way to change the name of the shot/track in Color? I'd like to change it to the same name as the new FCP export.
Or perhaps there's some other way to accomplish this? By the way, I created a new project, imported the new FCP export, then chose Import > Color Corrections from the original project file, and although my Color FX node set-up was imported, none of the keyframes in the CFX bar were imported.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
Message was edited by: Robert Eidschun

In a lot of ways, it would be much simpler for you to bring the rendered QT back into a new FCP sequence... cut it up with the razor tool (if you would like to pre-set the COLOR event boundaries) and send THAT to COLOR. All that other stuff would be taken care of.
How would dealing with multiple shots in Color be simpler than dealing with just one shot? I can't think of anything simpler than applying one particular plugin in the Color FX room to one particular shot.
Not to mention that cutting up my FCP Sequence would disrupt the operation of the timecode filter applied therein, and applying it before exporting and bringing the result into Color would mean that my timecode display would get processed by Color, which would screw up its look.
Moreover, even if I use FCP to "Send To Color", I'll still end up with tracks/shots in Color whose names can't be changed.
The only real issue that I have a problem with is that unfortunately, I chose a name for the track/shot in Color that suggests that I'm always dealing with a particular QT export from FCP. I just want to change the name to something generic, such as "FCP Export".
What about editing some Color preferences or settings file, which perhaps contains the name of my track/shot?
Thanks.

3D Tracking without rotating?

Hi,
Is there a way of having a 2D layer (like a video of me behind green screen) that I turn to a 3D layer so that it the camera I made with 3D camera tracking will make it stay in place in my other video, without rotation? Because when the video of me behind a green screen rotates it makes it gives it a warping effect and it looks weird and you can see its a 2d layer. I tried turning of the key frames for the cameras Orientation, but that makes the green screen layer not stick in place. I hope there is a way to fix this.

I don't understand exactly what you are doing. 3D camera tracking will give you a place holder in 3D space where you can basically stick things to the ground.
Here's what I think you have going on. You shot yourself with a green screen behind you using a moving camera. You shot a background plate to replace the green screen. The background plate was also shot with a moving camera. In order for the background plate to match you have to match the cameras and you can't do that with Camera Tracking, that takes motion control. Even when you have motion control your background plate must match the perspective of the first shot. Let's look at a simplified example.
You have your friend shoot you sitting at a desk with a green screen behind you. The camera moves from the left side of the desk to the right side of the desk. Now you go to a fancy office building and shoot a room with no desk. You want to composite the green screen shot of you at the desk with the fancy room so it looks like you are in the office. If the camera was 6' from the desk on the green screen set then the camera in the office needs to be 6' from where the desk would be if it were in the room. The camera filming the room would need to move around the room exactly the same as the camera on the green screen stage or the perspective will not match up. You can get close by using dolly tracks or by carefully measuring and rehearsing, but it will never be a perfect fit without a motion control camera because the perspective will not match.
There is a solution though, It's called projection mapping. You would do it with a program like Syntheses, where you can generate a 3D model from a filmed scene. You would film your fancy room in the office with the camera approximately in the same place relative to the desk and with approximately the same camera move. You would then track in Syntheyes and create a 3D mesh from the planes in the shot. This would turn into a 3D model of the room that that you could place in your Camera Tracked scene.
If I did not guess correctly then please provide some screenshots or sample videos and a complete description of what you are trying to do. Camera tracking software has made compositing a lot easier, but you still have to know what you are doing if you are combining two shots from different cameras.

Clean up speed changes in a zoom/track

Hi again,
I am just cleaning up some final issues on my edit and there is one tracking shot that has some slight speed change (bit jumpy) in it. I was wondering if I can smooth the speed with a filter or by using keyframe editor in motion?
I am pretty new to Motion, so please forgive me.
Many Thanks

Does it have to do with this?
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3686148?tstart=0
If all you want to do is smooth out bad camera work, use the Smooth Behavior in Motion. Make sure you have Optical Flow selected.
Have fun
x

How do I eliminate unwanted objects in shot?

Hi all,
I have a tracking shot I want to utilize, but have to truncate this due to the fact that there is an unwanted reflection of a crew member in the chrome frame of the set table. Is the use of masks the most obvious solution to this problem and does this have to be implimented frame by frame? Any tips on ensuring the removal of these objects are seamless? Thank you in advance for any help?
Ibook 1.2, 512 Meg, Lacie D2 250 gig Ext drive, FC 4.5 Mac OS X (10.3.9)

I'm thinking that aftereffects has a motion tracker that can track a spot on the video where your unwanted object is, without seeing your footage, but making an assumption that a shinny mirror like surface was in fact what you had the reflection on, you could use the motion tracker to track the reflection and add a little blur and then a little tint possible to match the frames color;
This would avoid the need for you to manually track the reflection, Motion tracking has flows in the way it devolopes keyframes, which will mean you will have the tweak the keyframs to get a smooth motion if the reflection is moving in the video frame;
However this could speed up your results.
I used motion tracking before when I worked on a PC, mostly to overlay new video onto something like a TV image, or to add animation to follow someones hand that sort of stuff. I never used it to remove an object, however if a little blur fixes the issue, and all you have to do is decided where on each frame to add the blur, motion tracking would likly be a big help;
After effects Pro is what includes motion tracking:
http://www.adobe.com/products/aftereffects/matrix.html
I hope this at least give you an idea of how to start, or triggers some thought from others...
p.s. you dont have to use the motion tracking data for a blur, you can use several points and have a mask created for you, or even use that data to clone from another video - once you have the data, you can generally be very creative with how you use that data in your footage.
tk

TRACKER don't WORK!

Welcome! I'm sorry but I use a translator.
I bought the full version of Adobe Cloud. Using After Effects CC I'm trying to make a film: Animation / Tracker. After a long time, the computer calculates and after a while shows ERROR - red stripe in the middle of the screen. I change the video and I try again: Animation / Tracker and again the same thing. Are the ANIMATION / TRACKER has some settings? This does not work as in tutorials.

Which tracker? It sounds like you are trying to use Track Camera. If so then you need to know this. Not all shots will successfully track. You need a shot that was recorded in a format that is friendly to After Effects. The motion in the shot needs to be fairly smooth. There must be things in the shot that do not move. For example, you cannot successfully Track Camera of a shot of the ocean or a shot where you are moving the camera through a crowd of people because there is nothing in the shot that is not moving. You need buildings, rocks, things that are not moving.
Second, you should start out tracking shots that are only a few seconds long. 3 or 4 seconds. Track Camera uses a lot of system resources and takes a long time unless you have a powerful system.

Stabilizing jitter / stepping effect

I have a close up tracking shot that is looking next to perfect (smooth) on the studio broadcast monitor in playback from the camera. May be requires a touch of stabilization on the vertical.
When played back in Premiere CC2014 in the edit suite... it displays a degree of stepping ( that cant be seen in playback from the camera).
Warp Stabiliser fixes the vertical stabilisation but I need to find something for the "stepping jitter". I dont even know where it comes from which is alarming!!!
Any ideas guys and gals?
Would a point tracker be useful? Any tips on this.

FWIW
By trial and error in AEFX and after a lot of research of this very common issue...better described as "judder"...I appear to have a satisfactory "fix" to what was two "issues". Float and Judder..
Warp Stabilise>"Position"> Smoothing 110% (This resulted in absolute minimal scaling of 101.345% indicating how little float there was)
plus..
Comp Setting> Advanced> Motion Blur> 360% Shutter
Camera Tracking speed was not the issue at 12 sec, 10 and 8 respectively but what may be worked against this specific shot was that these wine bottles, labels and text are very hard edged and vertical. "edgy and contrasty".

Tracking lines in exported video

I am creating my demo reel and I have different qualities of video, some standard def, some high def. My project settings are in 1080p but whenever i export the video I am getting screen tearing and lines appearing in tracking shots. But this only for the standard def clip. The original settings for the SD clip is 720x486. Anyon have any ideas of what i can do to make sure I dont get the tearing? When i tried to convert the original to mp4 I was getting tearing even before I imported it into final cut. When I watch the original video I do not have any problems with it, there is no tearing, only when I export through final cut, or converting to mp4.
Thanks

OK, a couple of things:
Computer screens can't display interlaced video correctly.
FCP only shows a single field if your Canvas size is set to something other than 100%.
If your work is going to be shown on the web, transcode to ProRes and set the field dominance to none.
If you are going to be using DVD as the medium, don't deinterlace. TVs play the material correctly.

Stabilizing a dolly/tracking shot

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for