John222,
I am by no means an expert, but I believe this is relatively simple to do in Adobe After Effects. I have seen similar things in AE templates one can find on-line.
Tom

I think the OP's question is about creating the text and boxes, rather than the composting. Anyway, use a program like Photoshop, Paintshop Pro, Correl Draw, etc. to create text and lines (i.e. boxes) on a transparent background. Save as a PNG file (which supports transparency) and use in Vegas, HitFilm, etc. In Vegas, you may have to set the media properties to either Straight or Pre-multiplied to make the alpha channel show up.

In After Effects and Boris Red, you can create the lines/boxes and text directly within the application, and keyframe the letters so they drop in like in the clip that you referenced.

Peter

You should be able to do that in NewBlue Titler Pro. In VP11/12 it came bundled.

The box would be a rectangle shape with an outline style and the lines would just be thin solid rectangles. Everything can be rotated in 3D space. It also has lots of animations you can use for the text without keyframing.

You could draw the box and lines in Vegas by using a solid color media generator and then use masks to cut away what you don't want. For the box a positive and negative nested mask, and then simpler rectangle masks for the lines. This is a little work but, you can save you mask as a preset to use again. Then use track motion to place the event/box in 3D space like the commercial.

Those don't look anything special. Use one track for the box, already drawn. Use the pan/crop mask to show it. Use another track with ProType doing the text.

IMHO the harest part is the tracking. Look closely and you'll see they're moving in 3D. And it's not the 3D that's hard, it's the matching so it look good. 8) The matchmoving is the only thing I'd use besides Vegas, unless I wanted to use a 3D model for the box & text.

Totally agree with THF: drawing the boxes is a no-brainer. I would use Adobe Illustrator.

The real sell is getting a 3D camera solve so the boxes "stick" to their subjects and then move and change perspective correctly. I would do this in After Effects CS6 using the built-in camera tracker. Should be straightforward.

I don't have enough hair left to do that manually in Vegas. Not no way I would even attempt that.

I also use Cinema 4D, which now has a built-in tracker so one can solve camera moves for 3D models right inside Cinema. That is massive overkill for your application, but I have no idea what tools you might have in your box.

You need more than just point tracking, you need a 3D camera solver plus a 3D compositor. I think HitFilm Express lacks the camera solver, but HitFilm Ultimate does include Mocha HitFilm -- a dumbed-down version of the excellent Mocha Pro tracker. This could easily be done in After Effects, but since this is a rather simple task, you could do it in HitFilm Ultimate (though I must add that I personally don't think much of FxHome products).

Peter

You don't need 3D tools if you will be satisfied with the efx generated in compositing based on layering. VegasPro can do this, and I prefer to assemble the boxes in tools like NewBlue Titler Pro3. This comes closely enough to a desirable Ancestry animation, that I would not bother with the trouble of other complex 3D tools.

The issue is that the sample clip had changes in perspective for which you need to do a camera solve and then apply it to the text box. Right now, there is no method that I know of to import a camera solution into Vegas from a third-party tracker, thus my statement on using a 3D compositor with an integrated camera solver. If the camera was locked down on a tripod and there was only panning in the clip, then you could merely do simple tracking and layering.

Peter

I'll check the bundled titler Pro.. I didn't think of that. I could do without the 3D.

I don't have Illustrator or After Effects. I would really like to pick up 2nd hand AE software from ebay, but ever since Adobe started to do the cloud move, demand for the full software has driven the price way up.

Not being proficient in any high level modelling software or AE, I reckon that Corel's cheap "Motion Studio 3D" would be quite capable of doing this project, entirely.

Also at a stretch I reckon that I could also get close in a Vector drawing program (Xara) that can animate and output AVI.

Just my $0.02 worth, if you wanted to look at cheap options with very quick learning curves.

Right now, there is no method that I know of to import a camera solution into Vegas from a third-party tracker, thus my statement on using a 3D compositor with an integrated camera solver.

Blender could actually do the whole thing, edit, track, put in the 3d object & render out. Cheaper then AE/etc.

I should put the Syntheyes to Vegas script on the front burner, I'd find it useful.

I give Blender a try. The price is right. Also, I noticed that I can export tracking data from Mocha Pro if I add the MochaBlender software for only about $37.

Blender can do the motion tracking on its own. One Tip: If you are new to Blender, go to preferences and swap the mouse click to the more standard left click primary. The application interface becomes more intuitive with left click. NVIDIA GPU excels in blender for renders, AMD is not really supported.

I downloaded and looked over Blender, great software but considering my seemingly simple task at hand, the learning curve is too great. All I need is a still frame of a text box with leader lines on a transparent background. I'm doing the video in Vegas and then exporting to HitFilm. In HitFilm I can overlay the single frame image make it a 3d plane and track it to the actor. There must be a free software package that can draw a simple geometric shape on a transparent background.

ps. I tried the Gimp approach. I use Gimp all the time for lower thirds, but for drawing simple geometric shapes, it's like building a swiss watch with Lego's.

Can you not just create a plane in hitfilm flip it to 3d mask it out so just the edge showing link to track data, job done! can apply some effects to the resulting frame like gradient bevel etc. to make it look nice.

Blender is awesome but as learning curves go it's exponential :-)

Mark e,

Thats exactly what I'm doing but didn't have software to draw the box and leader lines. However, I just found Inkscape. It's free and perfect. Withing 10 minutes i drew the text, boxes and leader lines. Exported as a .png and then added the png to my composite shot in HitFilm. Then made the .png a 3d layer with a camera. And finally linked it to tracking data from the video.