Learn the ins-and-outs of After Effects’ Motion Tracking and Stabilization techniques with special effects expert, Richard Lainhart.

Have you ever wanted to transform your “Shaky-Cam” hand-held footage into a smooth as silk Steady-Cam shot? How about seamlessly replacing the words on a road sign as it was shot from a speeding car? You can with this tutorial on Adobe After Effects: Motion Tracking and Stabilization.

This stealth technology, first developed for military use for intrusion detection and facial recognition is a standard feature in After Effects. It’s a “must know” technique that every video producer and editor has got to have in their personal production arsenals.

Join star trainer, Richard Lainhart, as he demystifies the motion tracking process. You’ll learn the how to accurately map the X/Y pixel data of an object in a scene. Next, you’ll see how to use that very same data to generate the necessary coordinates to stabilize a scene and/or track an object’s motion as it moves through a scene. Though this not the simplest of processes, Richard Lainhart breaks it down into easy to follow, understandable steps.

Using handheld footage he shot specifically for this tutorial Richard completely smooths out a jiggly, nervous surveillance video shot of a fugitive hummingbird trespassing on a fence. Then in the very same scene, employing motion tracking techniques, he completely pixelates out the the “perp” hummingbird’s face as he/she flees the scene of the crime. This is awesome stuff! And there’s more ...

Next Richard takes motion tracking to a new extreme by seamlessly replacing the text on a “moving” sign using advanced mulit-point tracking and corner pinning. The sign’s changing perspective makes this an very interesting task! Many different techniques come together to make this kind of advanced video voodoo possible and Richard is there, explaining everything, every step of the way.

So check out this hip new tutorial by our special effects maestro Richard Lainhart and you’ll be excited to include motion tracking and and stabilization into your next production.

Table of Contents:

1. Introducing Motion Stabilization and Tracking
2. Stabilization Basics
3. Adding A Tracker
4. Setting The Search Region
5. Stabilizing The Layer
6. Scaling And Positioning The Stabilized Layer
7. Setting Up Rotation Stabilization
8. Adjusting the Rotation Track Points
9. Applying the Tracked Rotation Data
10. Setting the Motion Track Point
11. Creating an Adjustment Layer
12. Masking the Adjustment Layer and Applying the Mosai...
13. Replacing the Mosaic with a Blur
14. About 4-Point Tracking
15. Specialized Tracking Cursors Explained
16. Pre-stabilizing the Effect Shot
17. Creating the Replacement Text
18. How Corner Pinning Works and Tracking the Shot
19. Applying the Track
20. Destabilizing the Final Shot