Motion Tracking in After Effects

Download Project Files here.

Intro

Motion Tracking is a super cool tool within After Effects that allows objects to automatically follow along any piece of footage. It’s easy to use, and once put into place, eliminates any complicated keyframing or effects otherwise needed. Any object will just animate following a chosen point in just three steps. It’s a technique seen quite a bit especially with text within ads and online promos that utilize footage.

Overview

The first thing we’ll be doing is creating a new Null Object. This will be later on, for directing how we want our objects to follow the footage. Then we’ll actually track the footage using the easy Motion Track tool. We’ll parent our object to the Null Object, position it just right, and it’s done!

From there, we’ll repeat the process with the other text layer. After that, we’ll do this one last time with the circle layer after making that visible. Lastly, we’ll just make the action line layers visible and we’re finished!

Let’s get to it!

Dog Fact Tracking

1. Go up to the top toolbar, and find Layer > New > Null Object.
2. Select the new Null Object layer.
3. Hit Return (Mac) / Enter (PC) and rename it to Dog Fact Null.
4. Here’s the cool part! Select the dog footage layer.
5. Go up to Animation > Track Motion.
6. A little box will appear. Position this box over the left edge where the grass meets the trees by clicking and dragging on it.
7. In the rightmost options bar that appears, hit the right triangle button to Analyze. Give it a few seconds or so.
8. Once complete, hit Edit Target.
9. Select Dog FactNull from the list.
10. Hit OK.
11. Hit Apply.
12. On the popup, click OK.
13. Now the Null is animated according to that tracked motion point. On the Dog Fact layer, pick whip it by clicking and dragging the swirly icon to the Dog FactNull.
14. Select the Dog Fact layer.
15. Hit P for Position.
16. Change the values to 480, 385.
17. Hit Spacebar to preview the animation. Now the text tracks along with the motion of the footage!

 Noble Desktop Text Tracking

1. Move the Playhead to about 0;00;04;00 or a bit further to get a visual on the Noble Desktop Text layer.
2. Create another Null by going to Layer > New > Null Object.
3. Hit Return (Mac) / Enter (PC) and rename it to Noble Desktop TextNull.
4. Like before, go up to Animation > Track Motion.
5. Place this box on the right side, where the tallest tree meets the sky. Basically, we want a high contrast area for the program to differentiate where it is.
6. Hit the right triangle on the Track Motion options to analyze the footage.
7. After it processes, hit Edit Target.
8. Select Noble Desktop TextNull.
9. Hit OK.
10. Now click Apply.
11. Click OK again.
12. Parent Noble Desktop Text to the Noble Desktop TextNull layer by clicking and dragging the pick whip to it.
13. Select the Noble Desktop Text layer.
14. Hit P for Position.
15. Change its Position to 655,330.
16. Hit Spacebar to preview the animation. Looking good!

Circle Tracking

1. Hit the Visibility icon next to the circle layer. It’s the box that contains a little eye icon.
2. Move the Playhead to 0;00;01;07.
3. Once more, go up to Layer > New > Null Object.
4. Hit Return (Mac) / Enter (PC) and rename it to CircleNull.
5. Again, go up to Animation > Track Motion.
6. Place this box around the dog’s nose! Pick a high contrast area within the box.
7. Click the right triangle once more to analyze the footage.
8. Click Edit Target.
9. Choose Circle Null.
10.  Hit OK.
11. Click Apply.
12. Once more, hit OK.
13. Select the circle layer.
14. Hit P for Position.
15. Change the values to 630, 357.
16. Turn on the Visibility of the Action Lines layers.

And that’s it!

Conclusion

Motion Tracking looks great and works with any object a designer could use. From Text layers to Precomps to Shapes, even other animated assets, Motion Tracking just needs a fixed high contrast point and a few seconds to work. Try it with animated logos, different pieces of footage, and more!

Happy animating!

Credits

Video by mds524680 from Pixabay

Video Transcript

Hi everyone. We are going to be doing a motion tracking tutorial today. All the files required for this project are local and the descriptions must get started. Will be going up to layer new no object and with the no object selected, hit enter or turn machine that you've got. We're going to be naming this one dog act. No, it's we're noodle mixed second and then we are going to select let's that we've got to get that dog spinach second dog spinach and we are going to be going up to animation track motion.

Right. Well, we're going to be positioning this box over here. We're like the grass roots. The tree is like a high contrast area over here.

And then over here, these are things that popped up. We are going to this rightmost button, this triangle, and on this forward we're going to wait for the whole thing to analyze. OK, once that's done, we are going to hit at a target. Change this to our new null, the dog park now know to apply to Y. Perfect.

So we're going to use to close all those options on each one. Then we're going to click on the dog fact later and we are going to grab this really bad and we're going to drag it over to dogs now. And I know you don't see anything yet. Let's and I'm going to push the for a little bit since you are working with and then we're going to hit P for position.

So we're going to be changing that position to about three 8435 and -145 and you might have to fiddle with it a little bit. The values might be different depending on where your playhead is at the moment.

But for the most part this should work and as you can see, the text will track along with this footage and scroll into the timeline. See, as a camera moves the text tracks along with it, we're going to be doing the same with the next bit of text Let's move this around for a second then, and we've got a visual on this second text layer.

We're going to be creating another null object layer, new object. We're going to be calling this one now. We'll just text now and like before we're going to select the dog bridge. We're going to go animation, track motion and this box I want on the right side, I want to put it where like the tree statement or a nice hot area now and like before, we're going to analyze everything all right.

Once that's done, we're going to hit add a target. We're going to choose our new normal desktop text now to apply X and Y. All these options open up. We're going to just going to close all them you so you're not overwhelmed and then let's format this next layer. We're going to keep the position and our values here are 655 and 330 for this animation.

There we go. Let's read. The last thing that we're going to be doing is turning on the visibility of the circle layer, which appears earlier. It's like one minute and change on the timeline the circle once more layer new, no object. We will call this one the circle now capitalize. And once more, I want to make sure I have my footage selected phones selected animation, track motion.

I'm actually going to put this one on the next notice. I want to put it on the middle of its head. And the nose seems to be a good viable point for this. And let's go analyze it all right. End it target circle now, OK, and apply X and Y. Perfect. Both options you wait too many options up to where our circle is when a position or plane hit right back or pick a circle to that circle.

Now, in this case, don't make sure to be around like negative to 174. You work for this one you know, as always, depending on where your plate is in the timeline, you may turn it differently, but obviously you just click and drag or you change the values down here to appropriate and as you can see tracks along with the footage.

Perfect. And the very last thing that we're going to be doing is there's a couple of actual lines here from the visibility for that now. And these are just some fun accents for the animation. So that's it. This has been super up from the desktop. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and happy animated.