26 Tracking and Matchmoving Tutorials

26 Tracking and Matchmoving Tutorials

    Man, its been over a year since the last tracking tutorial roundup. This time around were gonna check out all kinds of different tutorials for all tracking apps, whether or not they utilize After Effects or not. You might not have the apps, but a lot you can get Personal Learning Editions and trials from so make sure you check it out!

    • Video Copilot – 3D Ledge

      This tutorial uses some basic AE tracking from markers on a green screen to create the illusion that Sam Loya is sitting on the edge of a building contemplating a jump.

      View Tutorial

    • Video Copilot – 3D Light Casting

      Andrew uses some reverse motion tracking in this tutorial to stabilize and then set the footage back to normal to make this lightball look properly composited in the scene.

      View Tutorial

    • RGTV – Building an Airport Scene

      Mathias Mohl shows you how to create an airport scene by compositing several elements together and motion tracking the scene with Mocha and his own MochaImport script.

      Part 1 Part 2

    • Martin Brennand – Unlink Tracking Techniques to Solve Panning Camera

      Sometimes it is difficult to track things that are long pans or moves, for this you need to use some handy techniques like the ones in this tutorial.

      View Tutorial

    • Chris Heur – Roto Workflow to Convert 2D To 3D

      Chris Heur of Free Fall FX shows you how he used Mocha to transform an old film like Nosferatu into a 3D anaglyph movie.

      Part 1 Part 2

    • Martin Brennand – Tracking Foreground Obstructions with Mocha Shape

      You are always going to run into situations where you might have someone walk in front of your object or fingers playing with a cell phone. This tutorial will help you get past those.

      Part 1 Part 2

    • Ben Heusner – Roto Techniques for Mocha, Mocha Shape and AE

      Ben from Curious Turtle (who has some awesome training available) shows you how to use Mocha to speed up roto with less keyframes and procedural mattes.

      View Tutorial

    • Ben Heusner – Workflow for Logo Replacement

      Ben shows us a way to replace the logos on some objects using the planar tracker in Mocha as well as a few of the roto tools.

      View Tutorial

    • Ben Heusner – Exporting Track Mattes to AE

      Ben shows us how to stabilize within Mocha and export track mattes back to After Effects.

      View Tutorial

    • Layers Magazine – Mocha AE v2

      Layers Magazine takes a look at the new version of Mocha that ships with AE CS5 and shows you how to take a piece of footage, track it, and blur it to your liking, for some depth of field effects.

      View Tutorial

    • Brad Zimmerman – Match Moving with PFHoe

      In Episodes 90 and 91 of Church Media Design TV, Brad takes a look at tracking motion in PFHoe and inserting some 3D text into your scene.

      Part 1 Part 2

    • Jacob Owens – Double Stuffed Tracking Walkthrough

      Recapping on some of our older tutorials, Jacob walks us through using Mocha to create those awesome looking HP ads.

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    • Mathias Mohl – Tracking a Head Wound

      Another older tut from the vaults, Mathias shows us another use with his MochaImport script to track a wound to a person walking by the camera.

      View Tutorial

    • Adam Everett Miller – Basic Match Moving with PFHoe

      Adam shows you how to work in the interface within PFHoe and track some basic stuff into a scene with minimal effort.

      Part 1 Part 2

    • Greyscale Gorilla – Make the JibJab Effect using After Effects and the Tracker

      The title kind of says it all doesn’t it? Basically learn how to track your subject and then insert a head to make a JibJab effect!

      View Tutorial

    • Chris Martin – Match Your 3d Animation to Live Action Footage using Syntheyes, C4D, Realflow, and AE

      In this CGtuts+ tutorial, Chris takes a load of programs and matchmoves 3D text into place, uses RealFlow for the dynamics and composites in After Effects.

      View Tutorial

    • ProJuice.org – Thought Bubbles

      Using the basic AE tracker, learn how to track a thought bubble to walk with someone while they think about whatever their minds wish.

      View Tutorial

    • AE Apprentice – Motion Tracker and Stabilizer

      From Trish and Chris Meyer’s book this is one of the video tutorials explaining the motion tracker and stabilizer tools.

      View Tutorial

    • CGSwot.com – The UFO Hoax

      If you want to convince your friends and family that there really are aliens in the backyard, watch this and it will seem like a piece of cake!

      View Tutorial

    • Eran Stern & Artbeats – Bionic Lab

      Using Mocha, Eran shows you how to replace a screen quickly and then add in some graphics and compositing.

      View Tutorial

    • Eran Stern & Artbeats – Crime Avenue

      This tutorial uses some PFHoe to match some stock footage of a city with the text inside of After Effects.

      View Tutorial

    • Levi Borland – Rapid Cellular Regeneration

      Levi shows you how to recreate that Heroes type of effect where Claire heals herself. This uses basic motion tracking within After Effects.

      View Tutorial

    • Jeff Foster – Believable Hand Held Motion Tracking

      This is a little old, but Jeff Foster was so impressed with Mocha in AE, that he decided to make a tutorial about how well it works replacing things like the sides of trucks.

      View Tutorial

    • Chris Martin – Spooky Wall Tracking

      Chris shows you how to take some ordinary live action footage, track it with Syntheyes and insert some CG elements.

      View Tutorial

    • Chris Martin – Tracking the COW

      Here is another video tutorial showing you how to use Syntheyes along with Cinema 4D to matchmove some elements into a live action scene.

      View Tutorial

    • Carl Larsen – Horizon Replacement with Mocha

      Carl shows us how to replace a horizon with a bunch of seals by tracking the rocks and replacing the background.

      View Tutorial

    • If you enjoyed this post, please give it a vote on Digg or a stumble to say thanks!


Topher Welsh is TopherWelsh on Videohive
  • http://vfxhaiku.com Kert Gartner

    Hey, I’ve got an Eyeon Fusion tracking tutorial here:
    http://vfxhaiku.com/2009/10/automating-rotoscoping-with-trackers/

    Hope you enjoy it!

    • http://visualfxtuts.com Topher Welsh
      Author

      Hey Kert! sorry I didn’t get you in here…. didn’t see your tweet till this morning…

      Thanks for posting though!

  • chetan

    man i needed this! good one topher.. keep it up.. liking the website back again.. an one serious suggestion.. U have to improve the quality of tuts man.. :( this is actually getting simpler as possible.. i knwo there is a lot of begginers to follow.. but yet.. something more interesting would keep up on our toes to work along.. :( thanks though for this post..

    • http://visualfxtuts.com Topher Welsh
      Author

      Hey man! thanks… are you talking about the tutorials on AEtuts+? I am actually not the editor, despite what a lot of people think, and the amount of content I have online… haha.

      The problem though, is the fact that this is basically a user content run site, which means, if Adam is only getting in mediocre tutorials (beginner to intermediate level) that is all he can post. We need some amazing artists that just really wanna teach people and show us how they do their awesome work that is in their demo reels, and then we can have better tutorials.

      I do have some of my own in the works that will be pretty cool, and I am sure Adam does too, but I have 2 kids, and Adam runs a marketing company, so there is only so much time in the day.

      Thanks for the advice though, and I do agree with you, we just need a call to action for some amazing artists!

      • http://patrickman1994.deviantart.com Patrick

        Why not a competition? I realise you already pay for these tutorials but a competition would really get it out there and the most “advanced” one could be voted upon by the users of the site. That way everyone that is complaining about the lack of advanced tutorials gets a chance to contribute and choose what it is they actually want.

        Just my two cents, I love this site anyway. It’s so easy to use and if there’s no new content I can always just find something old I may have missed from ages ago.

      • chetan

        thanks for the reply dude.. now i understand.. i was in a shell thinking that u ppl have everyone on earth working for you.. an was expecting complex tuts because of it. but for sure this was the first site from which i started an i have learnt a lot an gone to next level.. so my first step was sturdy enough because of u guys. hope u ppl keep making other students life good.. thanks a lot for hearing though.
        an tell my regards to your kids man ;) be happy..

  • Allen Zayden

    Thanks Topher! This really helps for teaching me and every VFX artist how to learn tracking!

    I saw this tutorial also, the guy said part 2 will focus on tracking. Really cool Iron Man 2 effect:

    http://www.kdvideo.it/blog_en/

  • http://www.inorganika.com luka rebell

    Hey, love it! very helpfull. Thanks a lot…

  • http://www.youtube.com/v4vfx ramesh

    ur roundups are just mind blowing now i dun search for the tuts just wait for ur posts.
    btw is there any good site/s for learning vue ?

    Best Wishes !

    • http://visualfxtuts.com Topher Welsh
      Author

      Geekatplay.com is a good one… thats really only one i know about… they have tons of tuts on Vue though…

      • http://www.youtube.com/v4vfx ramesh

        thanks man !!