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elyseel66972734
elyseel66972734
Participating Frequently
December 31, 2018
Answered

AE track text moving shot

  • December 31, 2018
  • 3 replies
  • 1148 views

Hi guys, just a warning that I am a huge noob to this and follow tutorials to do most things in all ,adobe apps.

Ok so I am trying to make a video (in a game (halo)) where i follow a 'person', at the beginning ive made the camera face to the right mostly, then slowly as a the characters moves forward, i pan to the left slowly showing a large wide hallway on the left, my problem is that while im moving the camera to the left the corner wall is still showing in the frame, but my text shows through that wall, to explain in another way, imagine a video where a camera is going forward, starts panning to the left slowly to reveal some text around a corner, but imagine the text isnt right and you can see the text before you can actually see around the corner.

What i need to know is how to hide that text before the corner, i very nooby and all i can think of is something like a mask that stops the text from being shown, but i am a visual learner and do best like that.

sorry for the bad wording of the question, and any help is much appreciated. /// as you can hopefully see in the screenshot, the wall is on the left, but the letters are showing through (if they were how i wanted them to be then the "GINS PROD" section would not be visible)

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer imeilfx

ok so i did do the masking, all done, i really do enjoy masking, could do it for hours without a problem.

i figured out my mask problem as well.

so the update:

problem:

the tracking doesn't seem to be spot on like imeilfx has said, it is better then i had it a while ago though so to make it more clear ill send screenshots:

(don't mind my walls i got rid of them and did the masking)

one can see that the text has moved from screenshot 1 on screenshot 2 and is now in a different place.

how would this be possibly solved

my 2nd problem is now that the text doesn't look 100% like its sitting properly and kinda looks funny

screenshot:

my 2nd question is how would i make it look more 'there' as in you could feel like its actually sitting there, would the simple fix be for me to extrude my words and give them a light and front colour? so it looks 3d? i fear that would not work and the text would still look like it is weirdly placed and not sitting properly, my other question relating to this is: the first time i went to make 3d words i changed to 4D rendering to get the geometry options for the text, but masking the text would not work, so i fear if i do the same, my masking will suddenly decide to not work with the 3d words

once again thanks for the help


Ok so it is really hard to say exactly what is happening but:
a) your tracking is not so good if your text moves during playback and only thing to do is to make better tracking and make sure that you are placing your layer as close as possible to points that you are tracking
b) as for your text not sitting properly - you have to make sure that all parameters like rotation, skew, scale and position are correct and close to diameters of your scene
c) as for making it sit more "there" it al depends on how much there you need it to be. For sure you can do some extrusion, for sure give some lights (placing them as close to direction of lights ligting your scene on footage. You can also put some shadows that your text will cast on your round. But if you need it to make 100% believable you can prepare your text layer with some close to your footage texturing, bump maps, etc.

3 replies

Mo Moolla
Mo Moolla
Legend
December 31, 2018

Have. look at this thread:

how do i make so you cant see parts of a track solid object at certain frames

Rick Gerard​ did a great little demo that I am sure will help you out

Mo

elyseel66972734
elyseel66972734Author
Participating Frequently
December 31, 2018

so i looked at that csgo footage, and there was that tutorial that was really helpful, i tried out the solid, and your probably about to cringe at what im about to say, i made one solid, then inverted alpha etc, then i tried to add a 2nd solid but i cant make it turn transparent like i did the first one with alpha invert.

imeilfx
imeilfx
Inspiring
December 31, 2018

here also 2 tutorials that I found that are maby not the best but will show you what I meant in my previous post and give you idea how to accomplish what you need.

and best for you would be to learn some AE basics: After Effects tutorials | Learn how to use After Effects CC

Mo Moolla
Mo Moolla
Legend
December 31, 2018

imeilfx​ Nice tut pity part 2 uses FCP lol

elyseel66972734
elyseel66972734Author
Participating Frequently
December 31, 2018

i just realised the other one is hidden so ive hidden the 2nd one, is that a permanent solution even when finished and rendering, those walls will or wont show up?

imeilfx
imeilfx
Inspiring
December 31, 2018

Shorter answer: MASKS
You have to duplicate your footage (movie clip) mask out (or roto brush) that part of the wall that have to cover your text. Track that, and put your text between your bacground and your cutout wall as foreground.

elyseel66972734
elyseel66972734Author
Participating Frequently
December 31, 2018

Thanks for your reply! i decided to give masks a go and it refused to work with my 3D text outright. so i restarted and used flat normal text, i got that to work and made the mask etc, then my adobe ae crashed, which has never happen but i thought oh well, but now i have 2 problems, my mask doesn't seem to work anymore, after I've duplicated the footage and i get a mask, all goes well, but the second i press "mask path" it just seems to lock the handles of the mask and make it 1 single non malleable item. i don't know why since it worked before.

the other problem im still having which i think is my biggest problem which i really need someone else to give me the idea, and may be hard to explain without video, but basically, while the camera is panned to the left and is looking at the text, the text doesn't really stay still, you can see this obviously at the start when the camera looks at somewhere where you should be able to see a letter or 2 (but you cant see them at all), and then when the camera turns all the way to the left to look at the text you can look at that exact same point where you looked before and suddenly the text it there, i know 3d tracking cant be perfect so there has gotta be a way to fix this right? i just have no clue how that would work.

sorry for the long messages, just been trying for about  9 hours now on something that should be a 30 min job probably haha.

if a video needs to be put up i am more than happy to do so, im also at the point where i will pay for someone to record them doing what i want to do so i can copy it and try myself. although i am more keen to get it myself i am worried i wont be able to on this project.

and with the videos, i have watched beginner ones but i tend to do projects within months of each other so i usually forget anything special i did in past projects, will watch again now though.

thanks

imeilfx
imeilfx
Inspiring
December 31, 2018

As for tex not staying where it should - I'm not sure what you describing but I guess it is because of not so good tracking. If that is the case - maby you are using wrong tracking method.
As for hiding your text/object behind foreground object there is also several methods:
- simple masking and puting layers in desirable order as I described and you see in short vid that I put for you (simple masking and/or mask tracking and voila. If your foreground is flat 2D not 3D and it is above your text layer - it should and will cover your text)

- using Mocha Tracker (second yt vid that I posted above or f. eg. also that one:

- or method with track matte that Rick showed in topic mentioned by Mo Moolla

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