"(For those who used Adobe's mediocre one-point tracker in older versions, watch CS4 and weep.)'

Alright, alright. I'll install CS4. SO many people even here telling me how good the new trackers are I should go see what all the fuss is about.

As for putting this kind of functionality in Vegas, why?
I can think of many things that SHOULD be in Vegas that if I needed them and went elsewhere to get them I'd likely not be coming back. Trackers are not one of them.

Bob.

No Premiere, No AE, . . me, NO show . . :-(

Grazie

Should an NLE have a motion stablizer? Off course it should. Hopefully Version 9.0 will have one "built in". Every version that is released adds something more.

Sony Vegas keeps getting better. SoFasSoGood :)

why motion tracking?
camera stabilization, censoring things, and minor/simple compositing jobs (e.g. adding thought bubbles to people, etc. etc.)

another approach would be "open video in video editor"... though that would require a 3rd party app and it would be clunkier.

Is this true for After Effects CS4?

Jerry

[i]>(For those who used Adobe's mediocre one-point tracker in older versions, watch CS4 and weep.)[\i]

I don't quite understand how you figure Vegas can do motion tracking.

Since it's a 2d (x/y) tracker only, odds are we could do pretty much the same thing with track motion. Would be a little more work (or less, depending on what you're doing).

Thanks for the info.

3D is much more involved but still is fun to experiment with but
almost every 3D app you need to write some code to get the camera data
to work properly
.
2D image stabilization is still needed in Vegas IMHO.

The literature seems to indicate that Patchmaker DEMO is free, but the full version requires purchase. The DEMO is limited to 30 frames.

John

> SO many people even here telling me how good the new trackers are I should go see what all the fuss is about.

Not only are the new point trackers good... but CS4 comes with Moca for After Effects which is a planar tracker that blows away any point tracker you've ever used. I can't believe the results you can get from it. Extremely awesome! ;-)

~jr

(For those who used Adobe's mediocre one-point tracker in older versions, watch CS4 and weep.)

Yes.

Since it's a 2d (x/y) tracker only,

The built-in one-point tracker is 2D only, but it comes with an additional 2.5D tracker ("planar tracking") that does four-point tracking also when most of the tracking points go off-screen (which the one-point tracker can't handle)

odds are we could do pretty much the same thing with track motion. Would be a little more work (or less, depending on what you're doing).

Of course you can do the same thing with track motion.

But YOU will be doing all the work, instead of IT doing all the work, and it can be incredibly tedious.

BMW ran a series of 30 second TV commercials last fall, where the planar tracking made it possible to create the spots on a smaller budget (the tracking took a few minutes instead of a week if I remember correctly).

3D motion tracking software has a different purpose: it analyzes your footage and figures out how your camera moved. You then pass this camera data on to a 3D program like Lightwave, Maya, Cinema4D, etc. to control its virtual camera, so that some CGI "thing" you've created will look like it's part of the scene you put it in.

> Since it's a 2d (x/y) tracker only, odds are we could do pretty much the same thing with track motion. Would be a little more work (or less, depending on what you're doing).

It would be a LOT more work. We're talking about tracking objects with frame level precision. It would take hours to accomplish this with Track Motion. You need to use a motion tracking tool to really appreciate the time savings.

Also the planar tracker in CS4/Moca can adjust perspective. So, for example, you can replace a sign on a bus and as the bus turns the corner the sign skews to maintain the proper perspective and turns the corner with it. This can all be done in a couple of minutes.

Yes you can do primitive motion tracking with track motion in Vegas but for anything beyond a simple straight line track at constant speed, a motion tracker pays for itself the first time you use it.

~jr

The literature seems to indicate that Patchmaker DEMO is free, but the full version requires purchase. The DEMO is limited to 30 frames.

It was pointed out on blenderartists that the history says it's free now:
http://patchmaker.net/enu/history.php

he literature seems to indicate that Patchmaker DEMO is free, but the full version requires purchase. The DEMO is limited to 30 frames.

It was pointed out on blenderartists that the history says it's free now:
patchmaker.net/enu/history.php
==============
Great. Thanks for that.

John

Hey Happy,
Thanks for the link.
Let me ask you, because I've avoided all masking up to now, mostly because everything I want to do is too tedious and I have no budget for any external programs to help.
This will work with Vegas, all by itself? Have you tried it or the "Claxa" download? If so, how bad is the learning curve? I don't have the time to indulge for a few days.
TIA

I've tried some test videos & you need a relatively clear set of pixels for it to track. A higher shutter speed is recommended. Still playing with it.