Tracking a flying object on drone footage?

[The Stubbies]

So working on a shot where I have a horse rider who is trying to outrun a dragon. I get how to use tracking data to use on elements attached to the ground but is there an easy way (read as not frame by frame) to get a flying asset and it's shadow to generally follow the action while maintaining that perspective of vertical distance? Thanks.

[Mylenium]

Without seeing your footage nobody can advise specifically. Generally you would still try to simply create a 3D track, but of course that could prove difficulat if the whole scene wasn't shot with later processing in mind. That and of course even then you couldn't track anything if there's too much sky or the ground just a grey mush. That's why such stuff is typically done with motion control devices and recording their sensor data to calculate the orientation. anyway, show us what you have and we may be able to offer guidance.

Mylenium

[Rick Gerard]

I have done a lot of similar projects. Sometimes Translation, Rotation, Scale, Shear and Perspective tracking in Mocha AE is all that is necessary. Sometimes Camera Tracking will do most of the work. You might need to combine Camera Tracking, a guide layer as a ground plane, a motion path drawn on the ground plane, and some expressions to tie position animation to the "dragon" you are trying to insert. Sometimes all you need is Motion tracking. Sometimes it's motion tracking in Mocha AE. Sometimes, it is better if you motion-stabilize the shot, so the object you are trying to follow doesn't move, then animate the 'dragon,' then put the motion back in the shot and add it to the dragon. I do a lot of that kind of thing.

If you can share the shot or at least a still frame of the shot, we will have a much better chance to suggest an efficient workflow.