Rick-
Thanks so much for the feedback!
Most of my starts and ending points will not stay in the screen. You wrote:
"If the start and end point of the path do not stay in frame, like in your example, the best option is probably Camera Tracking. You establish an origin and ground plane, then position a big enough solid to cover the entire path in the 3D scene. When that is correct you can take the pen tool and draw a path on the solid and use that path for a shape layer or the stroke effect. I would probably use a shape layer."
That's exactly what i did with this video: Hole Intro on Vimeo
The problem with this (and hopefully this is something that you can help me with), is when I am filming lower to the ground- I can't figure out a way to make a big enough solid to cover the entire screen (my path would fill the whole screen on a close to the ground shot). Right now, I'm limited to making a "low" arc to stay within the solid. Even if i make the solid size massive (10000 pixels for example), the plane only only expands horizontally- but not vertically. If i change the x axis of the solid so that it covers the entire screen- my flight path gets whacky. Any solution to this problem? Again- i really appreciate your help! Im willing to send a link to a screen capture if it would help explain what im struggling with..
-Jonny
Try this:
- Camera track the shot
- Establish an origin and ground plane then add a solid and a camera using the same target
- Add the Grid Effect to the solid and stretch it out to cover the entire shot so you can decide if the track is accurate.
- Add a solid to the t-box using tracking markers that are attached to that surface
- Add a solid somewhere in the middle of the fairway halfway to the green using tracking points attached to that surface
- Add a solid to the green again using tracking points attached to that surface
- Run a preview and make sure that all of the solids stay attached to the ground
- Adjust the anchor point of the solid midway down the fairway so that it is at the bottom center of the Y axis, rotate 90º in X so that the reference solid stands up with the fairway and is directly under where you want the path of the ball to be
- Check the track again - if everything is good you have built the framework that will let you add a shape layer path to the comp
- Add a new shape layer, make it 3D
- Hold down the shift key and parent the shape layer (ball path) to the center fairway solid
- The anchor point of the shape layer will now be in the same position and orientation as the shape layer placeholder
- Move back in the timeline to where you want the ball path to start
- Select the pen tool and set the Shape Layer to only draw a stroked path then put it right over the Tee Box solid where you want to start the path
- Move to the spot where the ball will be halfway there and create another point and drag out the bezier handle about half way to the green
- Move down the timeline and set the last point exactly where you want the shot to end
- Return to the spot where the ball is going to be halfway to the green, hold down the Ctrl/Cmnd Key and draw a selection around the middle path point to select it
- Make any adjustments to the path, you can even make adjustments outside the composition frame
That's it. When you are done you can either delete, turn off or make the reference solids guide layers and you're done. If I get time later today I'll throw together a screenshot that shows a typical setup for this kind of thing.
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