Adobe After Effects - Green Screen Motion Tracking

Author

Green Screen Motion Tracking

zackba

2006-12-06, 8:14 pm

Good Day,
When attempting to track motion using the Motion Tracker, AE 6.5 is not able to track the tracking points. Only when I convert the footage to black and white or use a luminance curve and drastically adjust the contrast and brightness to make the tracking
points more visible, will the tracker, track the tracking points.
I thought perhaps the points were too light, however my partner uses the same footage with AE 6.0 and has no issues at all, works flawlesly.
At this time I highly suspect my capture card (Black Magic Design "Extreme") maybe the way the AE reads the video?
The video is captured SDI 4:2:2 via the Black Magic Design "Extreme" card.
If anyone has a clue. PLEASE ADVISE.
Thanks in Advance

SYSTEM-
OS: XP Professional SP2
Editing interface: Premiere Pro 2.0 / AE 6.5
Motherboard: Super Micro P4SCT+II
Processor: Pentium 4 3.4GHz (Extreme Edition)
Memory: DDR-266 PC2100 (x4)
Hard Drives: System Seagate-200GB SATA / Media Storage (x4)400GB SATA RAID

silversurfer@adobeforums.com

2006-12-06, 8:14 pm

What are your Tracker Point settings?

zackba

2006-12-06, 8:14 pm

Thanks for responding, my tracking options are...

Channel: LUMINANCE
Track Fields: UNCHECKED
Subpixel Positioning: CHECKED
Adapt Feature on every Frame: UNCHECKED
Process before match: UNCHECKED

I've tried variations on all the settings, but did not seem to make the tracker work.

silversurfer@adobeforums.com

2006-12-06, 8:14 pm

You have to grab on to areas of high contrast (light & dark) at full resolution. Are you tracking it at Full Rez?

"Only when I convert the footage to black and white or use a luminance curve and drastically adjust the contrast and brightness to make the tracking points more visible, will the tracker, track the tracking points."

You know...you can duplicate the tracking layer, apply your FX to adjust contrast / luminance, track that layer, then copy the keyframes from what you did there & paste them on the clean video layer.

- Joey

zackba

2006-12-06, 8:14 pm

I am tracking at full resolution.

Duplicating the layer is a great option...THANKS!
That will save a lot of time, untill I can figure out what the problem is to why I need to do it in the first place.

Thanks a Billion Joey!

Zack

David_Wigforss@adobeforums.com

2006-12-06, 8:14 pm

I usually use RGB and have Adapt every frame CHECKED. But my stuff is pretty easily tracked (animation panning bgs, occasionally truckins/outs...

zackba

2006-12-06, 8:14 pm

Thanks David, yeah I've experimented with the sizes of the search and feature regions, it even helps sometimes to offset the feature reigion within the search reigon by making the search reigon a rectangle and offset the feature reigion to the right, left
, up or down depending which way you are tracking the shot.

This fourm is great I really appreciate the feedback, there are some talented folks here...Thanks Again

Zack