Corner Pin Tracking

2D Stabilization (new tutorial)

2D Stabilization (old tutorial)

See also :

• 2D tracking tutorial : http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/q/tracking/

In case you missed it, Blender got a GSOC this year to integrate Libmv into it. Which means by the end of the summer we should have 3D tracking available in Blender (at least in a branch if not in Trunk).

But the first step to that is to implement 2D trackers, and Sergey did already a great job for integrating this feature. I just tested it today, it is of course very new and not so stable, but we are really close to be able to do nice FX. Actually all I’m missing to start and really play is being able to use the tracking data as f-curves and re-use them into the compositor (which according to Sergey, should be enable soon).

Exciting days are coming my friends

First Screencast

blender camera tracking test from Fish on Vimeo.

Camera tracking integration – Step 1 from Sergey I. Sharybin on Vimeo.

How to play with it ?

You will need to get a version of blender which is build against the Tomato branch in the SVN. You can build it yourself, or try to find one at Graphicall

To build it yourself, I recommend you to follow those following tutorials :

• Building Blender : Windows , Mac OSX (wiki , blenderCookie), Linux
• Checkout this sources (instead of trunk) from SVN : https://svn.blender.org/svnroot/bf-blender/branches/soc-2011-tomato/

Introduction

Create an instance of an effect with one click™. Behind the scenes the script makes a copy of the effect and links it with expressions in a way that allows the instance to be anywhere including a different comp.

Download

Script : ft-Effect Instance

AEScript is a great place to find many different kind of scripts or filters which can make your life easier on a every day basis. I would encourage you to go through all the scripts & filters list to see what exists. Because you might not need all them right now, but most of it have been made to solve problem people encounter with AE, so being aware that a script exists somewhere in case one day you have an issue with After Effect is a great knowledge for a user

As for today several filters and one script which I made are available there, but again check all the other ones as well, there are all incredible!

• ft-Toolbar : create your own tool bar to apply Effects, presets, scripts, … in ONE click !
• ft-CombineRGBA : let you swap channels or combine them from two different sources in 32bpc
• ft-Cubic Lens Distortion : (un)distort your footage with a lot of accuracy using Syntheyes algorithm. Add or erase Chromatic Aberration as well
• ft-Brightness Check : show you if pixels are too bright or dark in your comp, great to check if it “Broadcast-safe”
• ft-Technicolor : mimic a 2-strip & 3-strip technicolor process
• ft-Filmic Contrast : a one click contrast filmic looking using Perlin Gain.
• ft-UVPass : re-texture directly in After Effect
• ft-Clamp : clamp pixels value between defines one. Perfect to solve blending mode issue with 32bpc comp
• ft-PPass2Matte : use a Point Pass to create 3d masks
• ft-Auto White Balance : color balance in one click footages which had a bad white balance at the shooting time
• ft-Vignetting : add a vignette effect to your comp

Please if you use them, let me know or post comment, show us what you did with it

This script gives the ability to make your own custom toolbar with Effects, presets or any commands you use the most often.This script gives the ability to make your own custom toolbar with Effects, presets or any commands you use the most often.

Toolbar’s features :

* Edit UI : add, delete, order, config buttons of your toolbar.

* 5 kind of buttons:

• EFFECT : set the name of the effect you want to use (See usage details below).
• ANIMATION PRESET : select an animation preset file (ffx) to apply.
• SCRIPT LAUNCHER : select an script file (.jsx or .jsxbin) to launch.
• MENU : set the exact name of any menu item you want to call. For example : Time-Reverse Keyframes.
• JAVASCRIPT : type any javascript that AE understands. More advanced, but you can do some crazy macro command with it.
• OS : Any Operating System command you can run into your terminal can be set here. For example calc (on Windows) or open -a Calculator (on Mac) would start the calculator.

* Buttons Icon : You can assign a custom image icon to each button. You can create your own icons or download a free icon pack below. All icons will be downloaded and saved into the config file. When you export the config file (xml) for use on another machine all the icons will be included so no need to keep the .png files.  The buttons size can be set to any size you like, but it is a good idea for it to match the size of your icons.

* Import/Export : you can import and export the config file to set the same configuration on several computer or for making backups

* Configuration file path (xml) : you can set the path of the saved config file (xml) anywhere you want. (ie. to a dropbox folder to keep all your computer sync with the same config). The config file will include encoded versions of any custom icons.

Download

Script : ft-Toolbar for CS3, CS4 & CS5

This filter which works for After Effects & Photoshop, will color balance your footage based in case the white balance wasn’t set properly at the time you were shooting it.

All you have to do is select a mid-tone color in your footage and the filter will do the rest.

Download

Pixel Bender shader : ft-Auto White Balance

How to install it ?

Just copy the .pbk file into your “Support Files” folder in your AE install directory

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I believe this filter is the only one handling Position pass in After Effect. By rendering an Object P Pass, you will be able to create 3D mask which stick on your objects.

This techniques comes from several Nuke scripts. Look at the following videos :

Download & Sources

• Pixel Bender shader : ft-Ppass2Matte

How to install it ?

Just copy the .pbk file into your “Support Files” folder in your AE install directory

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