Tracking, Tracking, Tracking...

[Felasco]

#1 - Can the motion tracker only work with clip art in the Graphics panel?  

As example, I'm testing/learning tracking with a bouncing ball video.  Can I add any photo of my choosing to track the bouncing ball?  Or only content found in the Graphics panel?  I've tried dragging in my own photo from the desktop and it seems to work, but poorly, so I'm trying to understand where the problem lies.

#2 - How do you match the length of time the graphic displays to the length of movie?

That is, how do you make a graphic track the object in the video for the entire length of the video?

#3 - Does Adobe offer a DETAILED explanation of this feature anywhere? 

@steve, if you're reading this, do your tutorials explain this feature in exhaustive detail, or is it more a case of repeating Adobe's hyper-concise instructions?

@Adobe, if I have to buy instruction from others to get this feature, you just lost a CC subscription.

Thank you.

[Steve Grisetti]

1. No. You can also use any media that is in your Project Assets panel, including titles you created prior to opening Motion Tracking.

2. Animated graphics have a set length. Otherwise graphics will appear from the point your playhead was positioned when you added the graphics until the end of your tracking.

3. Adobe offers some information in its Help document as well as a free tutorial on eLive. This information is available from other sources on the web, including my course on lynda.com.

[Felasco]

#1 - thanks for clarifying that.

#2 - been testing it all morning, graphics added to a tracker go for a few seconds and then die.  Movie continues on without them.

#3 - Adobe help document on this topic basically worthless.  Didn't know about elive tutorial though, will try that, thanks.

[Felasco]

Here's what happens...

When you add the image which is supposed to track an object in the video, it automatically imports at about a 2 second length in the timeline.

PE correctly creates the keyframes for tracking.  But it can only do that for the first few seconds, because that's how long PE says the image is.

You can go in after setting up tracking and edit the time length of the image, but that doesn't help you because the tracking keyframes have already been created, ONLY for the first few seconds. So the tracking works for 2 seconds, and then dies, the video goes on without it.

I've read the online manual, the PDF, the help files, and watched the eLive vid.  None of this is explained anywhere.

And all of that would be ok, IF Adobe was here ON THEIR OWN forum to fully explain features which they've not been able to adequately explain elsewhere.

Consider what's in Adobe's interest.   Why would any customer having this experience with a hobbyist level product be inspired to upgrade to, say, After Effects, when that will be far more complicated (and expensive)?  Why would a customer pay a lot more money to be a lot more confused?  What's appealing about that??

Adobe apparently sees participation on their own forum as a favor they occasionally do for we the customers.   I see that same thing as their very best sales opportunity, which they are ignoring.