After Effects Motion Tracking How To - Visual Effects 101

Watch Walter fight it out with the Devil and learn how to do Motion Tracking in After Effects!
In today's video, you will learn:
How to set up your track points correctly
How to track the movement of a person
How to store the tracking data in a Null Object
How to attach elements to your Null Object so they follow the tracked person
I hope you enjoy the latest SurfacedStudio VFX tutorial :)
Any and all feedback welcome!
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Thank you!
Video & Music - Copyright © 2012 SurfacedStudio

[@SurfacedStudio]

Glad to hear you are enjoying my tutorials :) They are a lot of work to make, but it's awesome to hear it's paying off!

[@SurfacedStudio]

Thank you very much! Always happy to hear that people find my tutorials useful :)

[@SurfacedStudio]

Check out my After Effects Basics Beginner tutorial :) AE does not export audio by default, but I show you which option to enable during export in my beginner tutorial :)

[@SurfacedStudio]

All of the effects in the video were created directly inside of Adobe After Effects :) If you are looking for free stock footage, check out detonationfilms(dot)com. Also check out videocopilot for more great tutorials!

[@SurfacedStudio]

Thank you very much for the support! It is greatly appreciated :)

[@CoachTopher]

This was Outstanding! It was Entertaining, Extremely Informative and had great Production Value. I have been watching a lot of Tutorials lately and this was hands down the best for so many reasons. Always cool to see people making such great content on KZbin :)

[@SurfacedStudio]

Coach Topher Thank you very much for the awesome feedback! I am a big fan of edutainment and glad to hear that it's being appreciated by others out there :)

[@SurfacedStudio]

Thank you :) Great to hear you are finding my tutorials helpful!

[@SurfacedStudio]

Thank you very much! I'm glad you are enjoying my tutorials :)

[@SurfacedStudio]

Glad you're enjoying my tutorials! Thanks :)

[@MrBenzene33]

This has been the most helpful tutorial I've seen. Tobias doesn't just tell us what to do but explains why we are doing what we are doing. It's the perfect way to learn.

[@misterdanger5203]

This is one of the BEST tutorials I have ever seen. I've been working in broadcast TV for the past 26 years and when I need a quick answer, a tutorial like this is perfect. Concise, well thought out, informative and to the point. Again, just WONDERFUL!!!

[@SurfacedStudio]

Wow, now that's a big positive comment - and I very much appreciate it :) I aim to deliver a little bit of value and some (whacky) entertainment and it's really humbling to receive such great feedback. Thank you very much, and I am glad you enjoyed the video :)

[@SurfacedStudio]

Great to hear you found my tutorial useful :)

[@SurfacedStudio]

That's great to hear :) Always happy to know that my tutorials are helpful! Thanks

[@SurfacedStudio]

Glad to hear you're getting some use out of my tutorials! Good luck with your videos :)

[@SurfacedStudio]

Thank you very much :) I'm glad you enjoyed my tutorials!

[@SurfacedStudio]

Happy to hear you enjoyed the tutorial :)

[@SurfacedStudio]

If you are looking for a download link for After Effects, you can get a free trial directly from the Adobe website :)

[@SurfacedStudio]

Just hop over to my main channel page or do a search on my channel :) The video is called 'Adobe After Effects Basics Beginner' tutorial

[@SurfacedStudio]

Glad to hear you're enjoying them :D

[@SurfacedStudio]

Glad you enjoyed the tutorial :) Good luck with your animation course!

[@SurfacedStudio]

I just turned the 2D layer for the devil horns into a 3D layer and hand animated it to follow my head by keyframing the X, Y and Z orientation of the layer :) With what I know now, I could probably do it a bit easier, but it worked fine

[@bigmannentfx4802]

Man, you've got extraordinary skills in breaking down complex ideas to simple few words everyone can understand....Your subscriber for life.

[@SurfacedStudio]

Thank you very much for the feedback!

[@SurfacedStudio]

No worries! Glad you liked it :)

[@hoodysoft]

The Best Motion Tracking Tutorial on KZbin :)

[@SurfacedStudio]

Paul Ree Thank you very much :)

[@SurfacedStudio]

Check out my Adobe After Effects basics beginner tutorial :)

[@SurfacedStudio]

You're very welcome :) Glad you liked it!

[@SurfacedStudio]

Nice to hear you're enjoying it :D

[@SurfacedStudio]

Really glad you find the tutorials useful :D Thank you!

[@SurfacedStudio]

Thanks! Glad you found the tutorial helpful - will put the request on the request list!

[@SankaraJayanth]

The most simplest presentation I have ever seen for motion tracking. And the angel and devils were funny. Thank you!

[@SurfacedStudio]

You will have to change the inner and outer rectangle as they define the element to be tracked and the area (per frame) to track it in. If your footage shakes a lot or there is no single distinct element in it it might be hard to track

[@zacharyshore6752]

Nice! I've been looking for a good basic AE tracking tutorials for a while. Keep up the good work!

[@SurfacedStudio]

:) Glad to hear you enjoyed it!

[@SurfacedStudio]

Thank you! To be honest the tracking of the halo and the devil's horns in the intro and outro are a combination of the simple 2D tracking from the tutorial and lots of manual animation to match up to the 3D movement of the heads using simple 3D layers in After Effects :) For that effect I should have been smarter about how to shoot the video - e.g. use a more distinct background and maybe add some tracking markers (e.g. white dots) to my head to be able to track things more easily :)

[@SurfacedStudio]

no worries man, glad you liked it!

[@telejeff]

I've really been enjoying your tutorials. Love how you put in all the essential information and speed up all the superfluous stuff. Many people don't take the time to do this. I started watching one tutorial where the narrator took a couple minutes to find and locate the file he was trying to import! Some thoughtful editing, like you do, can make our learning so much more useful!

[@SurfacedStudio]

astrojeff Thank you very much for the feedback :) I do indeed do a LOT of editing to make the video as concise as I can without skipping (what I consider to be) the important stuff. Great to hear that it comes across well put together

[@SurfacedStudio]

The dark smoke cloud (as well as the sparks) are created with Particular in After Effects. The particles use a simple smoke image as their texture and move upwards and fade out just after they have been spawned. You can probably produce this effect with the inbuilt Particle World effect as well :)

[@MaxHogendijk]

Hahaha! that was a great in and out movie. Love the effects and how you make all the tutorials.

[@SurfacedStudio]

Thank you :) Glad you enjoyed it!

[@SurfacedStudio]

Glad to hear the video helped :)

[@Kopite91LFC]

Thanks a lot for all these. Next year in my animation course I need to work on a final project. I'm looking to use flash or 3d but now that I've come across some of your videos I want to try incorporate motion tracking with some fire effects, electricity, explosions. It's actually encouraged me even more so thanks a lot! :D

[@SurfacedStudio]

Glad you enjoy my videos :)

[@TheDoore91]

All of your tutorials are pretty awesome and pretty helpful. I look forward to using them in my own films!!

[@Distortion1990]

These tutorials are awesome. Totally looking forward to more. Keep them coming, you're great!

[@SurfacedStudio]

The effect is available in After Effects - it's an inbuilt effect called 'Advanced Lightning'. Check out my Lightning Hands tutorial to learn how to use it :)

[@SurfacedStudio]

Thank you very much :) Glad you liked it!

[@SurfacedStudio]

Glad you enjoyed the tutorial :) Thank you!

[@SurfacedStudio]

Glad you enjoyed the tutorial :)

[@SurfacedStudio]

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed the videos :)

[@SurfacedStudio]

Glad you liked it :) I go a bit more in depth in my 'Moving Blood Hit' tutorial and give tips on how to get it back on track.

[@darklandman]

After struggling with tracking for a while, I fin ally understand. First tutorial to properly explain the boxes.. and setting a proper target null, thanks :)

[@SurfacedStudio]

You need to use an expression on the lens flare position and parent it to the null object that contains the tracking data

[@JuliaGuliaProductio1]

Your tutorials help make sense of all the complicated effects thanks!

[@SurfacedStudio]

Did you have your camera on a tripod for the shot? Increasing the size of the inner square for your trackpoint to give it a larger area to track might help too.

[@SurfacedStudio]

If your frames are very blurry due to a very fast or hectic shot you might not have anything that is distinct enough during every frame to track. You could either manually tweak the track points for the frames that the tracker can't follow or - if the shot is totally crazy - you may have to reshoot (maybe at a higher shutter speed = less blurry frames)

[@whodatj0ny]

man the quality of production that you make this videos is amazing! How con someone have so many ideas in 2012?!? Congratulations! and thanks!

[@SurfacedStudio]

+JervPT - Vasconcelos - Gaming Haha, no worries, thanks for the feedback :) Random thoughts come often!

[@SurfacedStudio]

You are welcome :) Glad it worked out!

[@killuauchiha6689]

I like all of ur tutorials they're very easy to understand keep up the good work

[@SurfacedStudio]

Glad you enjoyed it :D

[@Ricadamu]

This was really easy to understand. Nice man.

[@SurfacedStudio]

Oh, you do NOT mess with Walter! :D He's got some kick ass skills haha He's appeared in a few other tutorials (and a short film) but so far hasn't shown any other skills besides being nerdy and nervous in front of a camera XD

[@akaREPTILIAN]

Wow! Nice clear and concise tutorial!! straight to the point! That's what makes a great tutorial!

[@SurfacedStudio]

Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks :D

[@SurfacedStudio]

Merry Christmas to you too :)

[@SurfacedStudio]

I actually did that by hand :) Was a bit laborious, but otherwise you'd have to do 3D object tracking and I wasn't really gonna go that far for a few horns moving haha

[@SurfacedStudio]

Thank you very much :) Do let me know if you have any questions on the topic!

[@ottoelperro]

Nicely explained. I always HAD trouble with motion tracking but this explains it very clearly. Thanks!

[@SurfacedStudio]

After Effects has an inbuilt lightning effect :) I can see 'Lightning' and an 'Advanced Lightning' effect in CS6, either one should be able to give you what you want!

[@SurfacedStudio]

I'm assuming you are using the 'Lens Flare' effect that's available in AE? Parenting a layer with lens flare to a null object won't work too well, you will have to link up the 'Flare Centre' property to the position of the null via an expression.

[@SurfacedStudio]

I don't actually know too much about Mocha, I've only used it a couple of times as I haven't done too much planar/3D tracking as of yet. And since I recently upgraded to After Effects CS6 I'm not sure I'll get around to learning enough about Mocha to make a tutorial on it - in CS6 you have an inbuilt 3D camera tracker :) So I can't promise anything, but I will put it on my request list :)

[@Sturney]

Still around using your tutorials, all is going great and will be uploading some videos soon! Thanks again for your great tutorials

[@SurfacedStudio]

The first one! After Effects Basic Beginners Tutorial 1/6 - How To Create Cool VFX

[@bool2max]

Amazing tutoiral, simple, clean, straight forward and short! BTW, I really liked the intro and the outro of the video :D

[@SurfacedStudio]

Bogdan Mitrovic Thank you very much :) Glad to hear you enjoyed the video!

[@SurfacedStudio]

Hi, sorry I don't think I understand. You are trying to do what? Adding stock footage layers to your clip? Do you mean you get a white background? Where did you get the stock footage from?

[@SurfacedStudio]

Glad to hear! Thanks :)

[@SurfacedStudio]

Yes, if you have your video set to low quality, that can affect your tracking. You should set the quality to Full during the tracking. You can set it back to low once the tracking is completed :)

[@SurfacedStudio]

I highly suggest using a tripod for any shots where you want to replace the background unless you're prepared to do a full camera tracking -> replacement VFX. If your footage is jittery, the trackpoints should be jittery because they just follow your footage. You can stabilise your footage in AE, then precompose, then replace the background on the stabilised clip :) You might see blurry frames though depending on your shutter speed

[@SurfacedStudio]

:) Glad you liked it!

[@IPat]

Very good tutorial and the uploader still answers questions: Best tutorial channel for vfx :)

[@SurfacedStudio]

I always try to answer all questions :)

[@lianaamani]

one of the best tutorial i ever seen thank you

[@SurfacedStudio]

Glad to hear, thank you! :D

[@SurfacedStudio]

Can you play any of the files in your normal video player? You likely just don't have QuickTime installed

[@VarunWarrierGameplays]

One of the best tutorials ever,Thankyou very much.

[@SurfacedStudio]

No worries, glad you liked it!

[@SurfacedStudio]

Thank you, glad you're enjoying my tuts! If you're just starting out with AE, I recommend checking out my beginner series to get you familiar with all the basic concepts and tools :) Check out my basic masking tutorial

[@eyarbroughzone]

Excellent tutorial. I think I finally get it now. Thanks!

[@SurfacedStudio]

Ellen Yarbrough :) Glad to hear, thanks!

[@vixin3384]

omg this tutorial is the best i needed to know how to do this for years thank you so much you are the best at after effects i have ever seen THANK YOU SO MUCH I WILL LIKE YOU VIDEO....i do not need to subscribe because ive already been subscribed since like june or something but yeah your tutorials are the best ever since i found your channel you've made after effects so much easier for my Thank you so much Surfaced Studio YOU ARE THE BEST!

[@SurfacedStudio]

You can use After Effects for something like that, but there's plenty of alternatives out there. Sony Vegas seems popular or Motion if you have a Mac :) Just have a look at some of the software products available and see what best suits your needs

[@SurfacedStudio]

The halo and the horns are just solids with masks in After Effects :) I don't have images or anything for it

[@edmcstyller]

Congratulations! great tutorial and great fun!

[@SurfacedStudio]

Thank you very much Edu Vasconcelos :D

[@XPepo123X]

This is an excellent tutorial! Nicely paced, you stayed on topic, you're very clear and you explain how it all works. Thanks to you, I've now got my head around tracking! Thank you :D

[@SurfacedStudio]

+PJ Saysell :) Thanks for watching and for the awesome feedback!

[@SurfacedStudio]

Glad to hear that! Thanks :)

[@SurfacedStudio]

Thank you :D That's awesome!

[@SurfacedStudio]

I do have After Effects CC and there is an Apply button in the tracker controls if you 'Track Motion'

[@harishk8333]

that was simple, crisp and clear... excellent work.. keep rolling on ..

[@SurfacedStudio]

Harish K Shall do! Rollin' is what I do :D

[@SurfacedStudio]

How far have you gotten with the effect and where/what are you stuck on?

[@JoeHahnm]

I love your Motion Tracking videos! :-D

[@SurfacedStudio]

Thank you! :D

[@ayyTD]

Thanks for doing all these tutorials, Helping out with my production.

[@SurfacedStudio]

+Honest Tech Glad to hear :)

[@SurfacedStudio]

That depends on what you are looking for. You can do motion tracking in other programs too, but I'm not sure what exactly you want to do with the programs. You can find free trials of Premiere and After Effects from the adobe website :)

[@SurfacedStudio]

Thank you very much! :)

[@SurfacedStudio]

Lightning is an inbuilt effect in After Effects, the halo is just a solid layer that I cut out and placed in my scene, added some Glow to make it look all holy-like :D

[@zacharyshore6752]

Nice video I've been looking for a basic AE tracking tutorial for a while! Keep u

[@SurfacedStudio]

If you want to automate that you have to use something called 'object tracking' as opposed to the standard motion tracking. I just animated them manually in 3D space to follow my head :)