Tracking on a Jib Shot

[Dave Horwell] "I've got to put some writing on a beach, I've made the text in photoshop and I just need to match the jib camera move... I'm running a demo of cs6 until I sign up for the cloud so I don't have mocha. Any tips would be gratefully appreciated !"

Have you tried the new 3D tracker?

See this introductory video by Todd Kopriva [link].

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog - What I'm thinking when my workstation's thinking
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[Dave Horwell] "I did have a look but it rather over-complicated what i hoped would be fairly straight forward"

The 3D tracker is pretty straightforward to use (see the video I linked to), and it may give you much better results than you're getting with the point tracker, faster and with less manual intervention.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog - What I'm thinking when my workstation's thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Dave Horwell] "Your tutorial is great, thank you, it'll definitely be useful."

That's from Todd Kopriva, Adobe employee and AE genius.


[Dave Horwell] "Sadly this shot seems to lack contrast, i only get a handful of tracking points, mostly on the walking figure rather than than the pebbles on the shore."

That could explain why you're having so much trouble getting a good track with the point tracker, too. You might have to step through the track frame by frame and correct it where it goes off the rails.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog - What I'm thinking when my workstation's thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Dave Horwell] "If I've used the camera track how can I bring in an object and 'fix' it to one the the after effects created tracking points ?"

Once you've tracked the footage, with the layer selected in the timeline panel and the 3D Camera Tracker effect selected in the Effects Controls panel, hover the mouse around the comp viewer and locate a point at or near the spot you want to stick your object to. Right-click (or control-click) and choose Create Null and Camera.

With the new moving camera, all 3D layers will track now.

Copy the position from the null and paste it on whatever other 3D layer you like to get it roughly positioned in 3D space. Tweak its orientation and position as necessary to fine-tune the location.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog - What I'm thinking when my workstation's thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events