locking movement of one track to another

tbakersv wrote on 3/14/2012, 1:58 PM
I have a video of hands (empty) opening up to the camera. I want to take a logo from a second track to look like it is floating in the hands. Now I can do that but how can I get the logo to move with the natural movement of the hands. To make that clearer once the hands open up and the logo keys in, the logo is completely still whereas the hands have a natural shake to them. I want the logo to move with the hands so it appears the hand movement effects the logo movement.

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 3/14/2012, 2:50 PM
I'm guessing you're using track motion on the logo? Just keep adding more keyframes and adjusting them. Vegas doesn't have any sort of motion tracking.
RRA wrote on 3/14/2012, 3:04 PM
Hi,

You can use motion tracker from Boris BCC7, then save tracker results to file, then use Vegasaur in order to apply motion tracking as keyframes on another track (track motion keyframes).

Best regards,
vtxrocketeer wrote on 3/14/2012, 3:28 PM
If you're not using some kind of motion tracker, I hope you have a lot of hair: you'll be pulling out tufts of it. I once tried what you're doing by 'eye-balling' keyframes; that took a long time and the results were simply pathetic. That was before I learned of motion trackers.

The recommendation for BCC7's motion tracker is a solid one, if you don't mind dropping the coin for BCC7 (you get a heck of a lot of other cool plugins, too). It is pixel-based motion tracker, i.e., you would pick a pixel on the hand and allow BCC7 to follow it and generate keyframes as the hand moves. Link your logo to the keyframes. Done.

If you're not wedded to Vegas for this piece of your production, consider that After Effects has a native motion tracker that works similarly. Also, AE 5.5 came bundled with Mocha for AE, which is a third party planar tracker. That's probably overkill for your project, but I thought I would mention some other options.

-Steve
farss wrote on 3/14/2012, 5:53 PM
Motion tracking as an after thought scares me. Based on how those in the know do it life can be simplified if you plan ahead.
In this case I'd get a ball, larger than than the world will be. Paint it chroma key green and stick a tracking marker on it. Then the problem of occlusion is solved by chroma keying, the marker is dead easy for the tracking software to lock to. Most importantly the hands now move as they should when holding something.
To really sell the shot and what should be the most work is adding reactive lighting to the hands.

Bob.
Steve Mann wrote on 3/14/2012, 6:03 PM
"You can use motion tracker from Boris BCC7, then save tracker results to file, then use Vegasaur in order to apply motion tracking as keyframes on another track (track motion keyframes)."

How would you do that? I have BCC7 and Vegasaur, but motion tracking is still a black art here.
vtxrocketeer wrote on 3/14/2012, 7:58 PM
Bob, I really, really like your idea. It isn't clear whether the OP is at a stage to benefit from it. Perhaps some careful masking of the hands would be a first step toward the 'reactive lighting' element.
[r]Evolution wrote on 3/14/2012, 8:46 PM
May be possible to use something like NewBlue FE Film Camera.
It has 'shaky' presets:
- Hand Cranked, Earthquake, Electrical Storm, Slight Shake, Train Ride, etc

May not be precise but with a little tweaking, it may get it close enough.
RRA wrote on 3/15/2012, 12:07 PM
Hi Steve Mann,

Apply any FX from BCC7 which has Motion Tracker implemented (for example 'witness pretection') - then you have to perform motion tracking procedure (there is good tutor from John Rofrano about it on YouTube).

When tracking is done, you can save results to external TXT file (choose from motion tracker buttons).

Then start Vegasaur (you have to have the lastest version (1.6 if I'm not wrong) - which has implemented import of 2D motion tracking data). Just start this dialog for new track and specify location of saved TXT file. Rest is done automatically : Vegasaur will add keyframes to track motion.

At the end you just have to insert some prerendred (like model or text in Bluff Titler or BCC7 or other) as animation with alpha channell object to this track, just adjust size with pan/crop and done. Very powerfull, you can do almost everything - if you plan carefully yours takes, you can fake even 3D tracking.

Best regards,