Is there "center" feature in Pr?

[JAH_1]

Is there a feature in Pr that will allow me to choose a point on a source frame and then Pr will “track” or center that point in the frames that follow as if I had manually changed the X/Y position of the source a frame at a time?

[David Arbor]

I'm not sure I understand the question, or what it is you're trying to achieve, but Premiere does have a mask tracker, which is detailed here: Masking and Tracking in Premiere Pro

This tracker allows you to do things like create an effect, mask it out, and then track an object. A simple and common example is blurring a face or license plate. You could add a blur effect to your video, mask out the face or license plate, and then track that mask.

If you're looking for a point tracker to attach a layer to the tracked point then you can use After Effects for that: Tracking and stabilization motion workflows in After Effects

[JAH_1]

Masking and Tracking is similar concept, but instead of moving the mask to follow the license plate what I'm asking for would move the frame. If it where a mask it would stay fixed in the frame. I would think it would actually be easier to do, but I have no idea what the feature would be called or if it even exist

[David Arbor]

What exactly are you trying to achieve? Maybe that will help me provide a better solution. It almost sounds like you're trying to stabilize something, in which case the Warp Stabilizer set to No Motion (rather than the default Smooth Motion) might accomplish what you're trying to do. If you shut off the automatic cropping you'll see black around your frame, but you'll also see that the image itself appears to be staying put. It's kinda trippy.

[JAH_1]

I'm trying to achieve exactly what I said. I realize it might sound like stabilization, but I simply want to visually pic a point in a frame and have that point become fixed in the composition.

[excited_Genie16B8]

I simply want to visually pic a point in a frame and have that point become fixed in the composition.

That is stabilization.

I find After Effects the better tool for this.

[JAH_1]

No not really.

[RobShultz]

Maybe if you let us know what you're trying to accomplish (end result) it would be easier for us to come up with a solution.

[RobShultz]

You can highlight the clip in the timeline, go to the effect controls panel and select the word motion. When you do this you will see the blue circle (Anchor Point) and you can drag the Anchor Point on to the point that you want to be fixed. This will do it for that clip in the timeline. If you need to apply this to other clips in the timeline you can select the modified clip. Copy it (Edit/Copy) and paste attributes, (Edit/Paste Attributes) on to the other clips; make sure that the motion tab is selected.in the paste attributes box.

[JAH_1]

I use that all the time, not what I'm asking about.

[David Arbor]

We're trying to help, but clearly we're all having difficulty understanding. Can you provide an example of someone else doing this and maybe we can reverse engineer how it was done?

[JAH_1]

davidarbor  wrote

We're trying to help, but clearly we're all having difficulty understanding. Can you provide an example of someone else doing this and maybe we can reverse engineer how it was done?

Unfortunately no. I have no examples except where I have done it manually which is very tedious.

Warp Stabilization would probably work, but it appears to be applied to the whole clip or nothing correct? Can't be "animated" like regular motion correct?

[David Arbor]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Adobe+JAH  wrote

Warp Stabilization would probably work, but it appears to be applied to the whole clip or nothing correct? Can't be "animated" like regular motion correct?

Correct. WS analyses the entire clip and applies the stabilization globally. Even if you could mask out the effect weird stuff would probably happen. What if you followed the steps I suggested above and then keyframed the position or anchor point of the clip? You'd have a lot more control and you should be able to keep your position steady with very few keyframes.

[JAH_1]

davidarbor  wrote

What if you followed the steps I suggested above and then keyframed the position or anchor point of the clip? You'd have a lot more control and you should be able to keep your position steady with very few keyframes.

That's what is so tedious.

[David Arbor]

Are you trying to do this on a ton of clips? I don’t think it would be that

tedious to add two or three keyframes to a clip. I’m not talking about

keyframing the move manually. Again, since it’s really hard to figure out

what you’re trying to do, our suggestions are only going to be so helpful.

[RobShultz]

Or use point tracking in After Effects and save yourself a ton of time and grief.

[JAH_1]

RobShultz  wrote

Or use point tracking in After Effects and save yourself a ton of time and grief.

Thank Rob, That looks like what I need...

Stabilizing footage to hold a moving object stationary in the frame to examine how a moving object changes over time, which can be useful in scientific imaging work.

...but have no experice with After Effects. How is it used with Pr?

[David Arbor]

It’s not in Premiere. I linked to the After Effects help article for the

point tracker above.

[JAH_1]

davidarbor  wrote

It’s not in Premiere. I linked to the After Effects help article for the

point tracker above.

I understand, how is it used? What's the workflow?

[David Arbor]

I haven’t been able to access the forums since yesterday and can only

respond through email, so I don’t remember who suggested the point tracker,

but I was hoping they would respond back with how to achieve what you’re

looking for. You can easily track a point in After Effects but that doesn’t

get you anywhere. I suspect the workflow might involve applying the

tracking data to a null and then using an expression to connect the

position of your video to the null, which has the tracking data applied as

position keyframes, and then having the two cancel each other out or work

against one another to kill movement.

I tried this yesterday in After Effects, but didn’t accomplish what you

described. If you could post one of your tediously manual keyframed

examples it would help us figure out what the workflow is. I’m not going to

try to figure out the proper expression when it’s still unclear what you’re

trying to do. I know you explained it twice (maybe three times), but again,

nobody here is able to figure out what you mean without a visual example.

[JAH_1]

davidarbor  wrote

I haven’t been able to access the forums since yesterday and can only

respond through email, so I don’t remember who suggested the point tracker,

but I was hoping they would respond back with how to achieve what you’re

looking for. You can easily track a point in After Effects but that doesn’t

get you anywhere. I suspect the workflow might involve applying the

tracking data to a null and then using an expression to connect the

position of your video to the null, which has the tracking data applied as

position keyframes, and then having the two cancel each other out or work

against one another to kill movement.

I tried this yesterday in After Effects, but didn’t accomplish what you

described. If you could post one of your tediously manual keyframed

examples it would help us figure out what the workflow is. I’m not going to

try to figure out the proper expression when it’s still unclear what you’re

trying to do. I know you explained it twice (maybe three times), but again,

nobody here is able to figure out what you mean without a visual example.

Have no clue what you are talking about. "Null" in my world means unknown and there is nothing about this that is not known. I did not say I have a "tediously manual" example, simply a manual one; however, to do what I need to do on some other footage it would be extremely tedious. If you want to see a manual example look at this video (2016.12.10.01 Marvin Wright Rocket - YouTube) from time index 0:47 to 0:56 During the time I used key-frames to move and scale the image keeping the rocket in the center of the frame, but making it look like the centering and zooming was accomplished by the camera. Now imaging having to do this for minutes of footage not just a few seconds. As I mentioned before, what I need is the inverse of using a mask. Instead of mask moving to follow the footage I need the footage moving to follow a fixed pint in the frame. Really don't know how much clearer I can be. Looks like Pr just can't pull it off 😞

[David Arbor]

Thanks for posting that. Try to understand that you know exactly what you're trying to achieve, but we don't, and often a visual is necessary. We're only here to help out other users, it's not like we're trying to make things difficult.

No, this isn't a task for Premiere, but After Effects can do it.

See the attached video. I didn't record any audio because, but I'll give some brief steps.

Motion tracking and locking an object - YouTube

1) Import your clip into After Effects. You can do this via Dynamic Link or by copying and pasting your clip from Premiere to After Effects. I would use Dynamic Link if you're editing, but know that when you try to play the clip back in Premiere things will be slow because the Ae render engine is processing the clip, and it's meant for compositing many layers, not real-time playback.

2) Open the Tracker panel from the Window menu or by choosing the Motion Tracking workspace from the top

3) Use the Point Tracker to track your object Tracking and stabilization motion workflows in After Effects

4) Create a Null Object, which is a nothing object, often used to control other layers. You can do this by right-clicking below your video layer in the dark gray area of your timeline and choosing New>Null Object

5) Back in the Tracker panel click Edit Target, choose the Null, which should already be selected, and then hit Apply at the bottom of the Tracker panel. Choose OK for the X and Y option

6) Click on the Null object. If you don't already see the Position parameter with a bunch of keyframes then simply tap the P key

7) Alt+Click on the stopwatch to create an expression. The parameters will turn red and you'll see a text field with a blinking cursor. Type "value*-1"

     This expression will lock the values of the keyframe and then multiply all of them by negative 1, thus counteracting the tracked movement, i.e. making things lock in place.

8) Parent the video clip to the Null object by dragging the pickwhip (the curly icon below the Parent column in the timeline) to the Null object, or by changing the dropdown from None to Null 1.

9) Hit play. After Effects might not play back in real-time. If it doesn't you can try lowering your playback resolution by changing it from Full to half. See the attached screenshot for what the bottom of the Comp panel looks like.

10) Now you're left with a clip where your tracked object doesn't move but everything moves around it. You can scale up your video layer by clicking on it and tapping S or you can take the comp that you created and drop it in a new comp and scale it up there.

[JAH_1]

So... I do this to the Clip "before" (separate from) it's use as as an item in Pr? Essentially "clean it up" first before it is composed into final video.

[David Arbor]

You could, or you could cut just the section you want to use in Premiere and use Dynamic Link to send it to After Effects.