OT - Some advice on planar tracking & masking work flow

Jessariah67 wrote on 11/25/2019, 10:49 AM

Hi All!

We're currnetly developing a project that will involve several clips, where we will be putting shadows on walls within the clips. The camera will be moving sometimes, and there will be subjects "in front of or passing across" the shadows at times as well. I am not an expert in compositing, and have very little experience in tracking/masking, so my inclination was to hire this work out.

In my research, I saw that Mocha Pro (which I don't own "yet") can integrate with VP (17), so I'm wondering if I should look to try and do this within VP & MP, or in After Effects (I believe what I need done can be accomplished with the included Mocha AE). I'm assuming that doing it within VP will cut down at least one render for each clip, but I don't know if it will be that much more cumbersome/not function as well. Some of this probably boils down to the masking abilities of AE's roto bruch, vs. Mocha's masking tools.

I will still likely outsource this, so if anybody wants to throw their hat in the ring for the job - either way of doing it - I would love to discuss a bit more with you privately.

Thanks for any help!

Comments

fr0sty wrote on 11/25/2019, 11:12 AM

Mocha Pro is going to be your best bet. Mocha in AE is limited. I would only go with AE if I was in a rush and had no time to learn how to do it in Mocha. There's also the route of using Vegas Effects (part of the Post package), which is basically hitfilm which has motion tracking and mocha compatibility as well. If you do a lot of AE>Vegas work, that app is worth keeping an eye on.

frmax wrote on 11/25/2019, 12:40 PM

As a cheaper compromise you can use Hitfilm Express for free and buy Mocha Hitfilm as a plug-in for $50. It doesn't offer the full functionality of Mocha Pro, but imho it's much better than Vegas Pro tracking.
If it's still not enough in a few cases, you can buy the Pro version.