In the film, "District 9", the big mother-ship hovered in the sky motionless, while the camera jerked all around in the "hand-held" style.
It occurs to me that all they would have needed for those shots was two-dimensional tracking, because any large object seen from a distance looks pretty "flat" anyway. Slight motion of the viewer from side to side won't show any 3rd dimensionality of a large object, simply because it's too far away.
So, a film maker could probably get a pretty convincing shot of a UFO floating stationary in the sky and looking as if it were filmed hand-held, by simply applying a 2D motion tracking effect.
Which brings me to the question: does anybody know if there is any inexpensive 2D motion tracking software out there that works with common NLEs such as Premiere Elements or Pinnacle?
I've googled until I'm blue in the face, but no luck. ?:(?
Thanks,
Kurt.
I believe Adobe After Effects does, but I'm just started working with it. someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
I'm new...Yeah, so what?
quote:
Originally posted by masterspud
I believe Adobe After Effects does, but I'm just started working with it. someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
You're right, Masterspud, but you must have a different definition of "inexpensive" than I do!! ?;)?
Or a bigger bank account.?:)?
Cheers, anyway!
Um, yes After Effects does. I know it's stupidly expensive (I'm running the trial right now... 12 days left!), but it might be worth checking out the trial version.
PFhoe is significantly cheaper than AE (probably because it's specialized) however. http://www.pfhoe.com/
I'm fairly certain the examples with PFhoe and stuff are what you're getting at with the tracking fx ideas, but if not hopefully it will lead you in the right direction. 🙂
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http://vimeo.com/corax
Corax, that PFhoe looks very interesting!! And the price, for the Hobby Version at least, is even more fascinating....
I'll definitely take a look at that.
Thanks.
quote:
Originally posted by Kurt
Corax, that PFhoe looks very interesting!! And the price, for the Hobby Version at least, is even more fascinating....I'll definitely take a look at that.
Thanks.
Glad I could help. 🙂 I actually found the program through an amazing demonstration of 3D combined with its tracking abilities on Vimeo. The demo version is limited (you can't really... export 3D parameters haha) but the full version looks like it has some really fleshed out capabilities. You can even export to Blender if you wanted to do some 3D modelling for free.
Haven't bought it myself though, but it sure looks nice.
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http://vimeo.com/corax
Corax, I watched a couple of the tutorials, and it looks straightforward enough.
The only thing still puzzling me is exactly how these kinds of programs work.
What I mean is, can you do the entire process within the program, then save/render the result to an .avi that can be placed into an NLE and used as a scene?
That is, can you import a clip of video into the program, run the tracking process, then insert a jpeg image which will then conform to the tracking points generated and appear to be part of the original footage?
Or do these programs simply add camera reference points which need to be exported to and interpreted by a 3D program?
Sorry for all the questions.?:)?
Cheers.
