After Effects: motion tracking, no rotation checkbox

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
July 6, 2019
1 reply
3171 views

I am not a new to after effects. I am trying to track a moving object in my clip by creating a "Track Motion" Tracker to track both the position and rotation. But the Rotation checkbox is inexplicably grayed out and un-clickable. I've tracked things, including rotation, before on my system. This is a new problem.

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Roei Tzoref

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sidfa80925810Author

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Rick Gerard

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I do most of my motion tracking before I add another layer

me too

it throws in an extra step. You ought to at least be able to disable the tracking if you have an effect applied to a layer

how do you mean "disable the tracking"? if you don't apply to anything then it's not doing anything. if you do hit edit target, the only reason it's enabled is that it has effect with position coordinates applied to the layer (which is kinda rare for tracking a video anyway). if you do have another layer in the layer stack (before the tracking), it will default to the 1st layer, if you don't, it will default to the effect in the layer itself because that's the only option. that seems intuitive to me.

in the case where you have the another layer in the layer stack, and effect applied to the tracked layer - the default would be the other layer

in the case where you don't have the another layer in the layer stack, and effect applied to the tracked layer - it defaults to the effect in the layer and not another layer in the layer stack - in this case I would support the default would be the other layer, and not the effect. but that's my personal preference, I am not sure how many users prefer that. it's only one click to choose from.

it's actually the first time I have seen a user in the forums get in trouble for having effect being the default but in all fairness - there is no other layer in the layer stack anyway

I almost always track first, then add a layer or a null and either use the null or layer as a target or tie expressions to the tracking data directly.

Having the data of an effect with Point Controls set to as the default and then not being able to deselect it before you track seems like a bug or at least a not very well thought out workflow. If you want to apply the tracking data to an effect you should select it when you choose the target instead of having the target chosen for you automatically. What if you have two effects that have Point controls? Now you have to either put the one you want at the top or add them later. There is also nothing keeping you from tracking position, scale and rotation then applying only the position data to an effect, then using the same tracking data to tie something else to a null or another layer. Here's what I mean, One track applied to multiple layers and effects. You can't do the track if either of the effects has been applied to the layer before tracking. You would have to delete them or add the Null. I admit it's a minor point, and it probably won't get changed, but at least one user is having problems because of the default behavior.

Adding the effects after the track lets you choose.

The choice comes back if you add another layer.

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