Sticking text to an object

Question

I've been trying for days now to stick text on a flat roof in a drone footage.
It's a liniair flight, but at some point de camera is tilting so the text is drifting away from the roof.
Is it possible to realy anchor text precisely in After Effects?

Rick Gerard · Accepted Answer

From 0:53 it's going wrong.You have not got the surface of the roof picked accurately. Place the object on the roof at the end of the shot and make sure that the target accurately matches the roof. I usually add a solid, add the grid effect and then double check both perspective and position. You can then add a text layer, convert the layer to 3D, hold down the Shift key and parent the 3D layer to the accurately placed solid and snap it into position. That's an awfully long shot to be used in a video. The normal practice is to work on only the frames plus maybe a few frames to act as handles so you can fine-tune the timing in the final edit. 90% of my comps are less than 7 seconds because 7 seconds is an eternity in a film. Nobody can pay attention to one shot for much more than that unless there is something really interesting going on.The shot also has some lens distortion. To make things really accurate I would try and remove that.Hope this helps.

Rick Gerard · Answer

If you are trying to stick something to a tracking shot:

The track must be accurate down to the pixel

That's about it. If you are using Camera Tracking then the origin and ground plane must represent the actual ground plane and exactly where you want the world center for your shot. If there is any lens distortion you have to figure out how you are going to compensate for that problem or the object will drift as it moves toward the edge of the frame.

If you used Camera tracking and the new roof is not sticking then you probably did not:

Get an accurate Camera Track and/or
Accurately select the origin and ground plane and accurately target the plane of the roof

Either problem will cause the placed objects to slip because the selected target does not precisely match the plane of the surface you are trying to replace. Camera tracking easily put the camera and reference plane (null, solid or text layer) in the wrong place if you do not correctly pick the first target. This is particularly true when Camera tracking drone footage because of compression and surfaces that can be difficult to make out from such a wide shot. Drones usually also have wide angle lenses and the lens distortion can foul up the calculations.

In many cases for something like attaching a new roof Corner Pin tracking in Mocha or what I call Advanced corner pin tracking using Moca, CC Power Pin and Corner Pin is your best solution. It all depends on the shot.

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