Tracking problems

jrb101 wrote on 9/12/2018, 7:45 AM

I'm running Vegas 16 (261) and I've been trying out the motion tracking bezier feature.

When it worked it was pretty accurate, but for no discernable reason it's stopped working now...

Now, when I try to do the analysis it shows the progress dialog, switches to good/best in the preview window, places one set of position keyframes in the bezier plugin, then just stops.

I've tried it on several clips, tried different masks (1 to 5), different shapes, tried with GPU acceleration on and off, I've even tried a program reset of Vegas, but it still doesn't work.

Has anyone else come across this problem?

Cheers,

Jon

(Spec should be in signature)

Jon Baker - Experienced in music creation, still a newbie at the video game 😉

(YouTube and Instagram - "Jon's Musical Musings")

PC: AMD Ryzen 3 2200G Desktop w/16GB DDR4 and Radeon RX570 (4GB) , ~5TB of storage across various HDDs, Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 audio interface, Mackie CR5BT studio monitors, 24" 1080p monitor (not anything special!)

For capture: Olympus PEN E-PL6 camera (1080p30) with external mic input adaptor and Olympus ME51S electret lavalier and Takstar SGC-598 shotgun mic and a Samsung Galaxy S10e (4K30 or 4K60) with Filmic Pro or stock video apps and external mic adaptor.

Comments

Kinvermark wrote on 9/12/2018, 8:48 AM

No. It's working fine here. Either you have a unique situation or you are doing something wrong. Can you provide details (screen grabs, video capture) to help explain?

Maybe start with something simple to try to get anything working: New project / new clip / one mask. Different media types?

PS The behavior you describe would happen as expected if you try to track a low contrast area that it cannot detect.

jrb101 wrote on 9/12/2018, 9:01 AM

No. It's working fine here. Either you have a unique situation or you are doing something wrong. Can you provide details (screen grabs, video capture) to help explain?

Maybe start with something simple to try to get anything working: New project / new clip / one mask. Different media types?

PS The behavior you describe would happen as expected if you try to track a low contrast area that it cannot detect.

I'd agree that it could be due to low contrast, but it worked on the same clip before... And Resolve can easily track the points too (so the clip is okay constrast if Vegas has done it before and Resolve is fine with it). I wonder if there is some cache or metadata file that prevents a clip from being tracked more than once if the original tracking is deleted (clutching at straws here 😂)?

I've got a horrible feeling it's my computer configuration... That's going to be more tricky to track down!

Jon Baker - Experienced in music creation, still a newbie at the video game 😉

(YouTube and Instagram - "Jon's Musical Musings")

PC: AMD Ryzen 3 2200G Desktop w/16GB DDR4 and Radeon RX570 (4GB) , ~5TB of storage across various HDDs, Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 audio interface, Mackie CR5BT studio monitors, 24" 1080p monitor (not anything special!)

For capture: Olympus PEN E-PL6 camera (1080p30) with external mic input adaptor and Olympus ME51S electret lavalier and Takstar SGC-598 shotgun mic and a Samsung Galaxy S10e (4K30 or 4K60) with Filmic Pro or stock video apps and external mic adaptor.

jrb101 wrote on 9/12/2018, 9:03 AM

I'll see if I can get some screen grabs later when I'm near my PC to show the issue.

Jon Baker - Experienced in music creation, still a newbie at the video game 😉

(YouTube and Instagram - "Jon's Musical Musings")

PC: AMD Ryzen 3 2200G Desktop w/16GB DDR4 and Radeon RX570 (4GB) , ~5TB of storage across various HDDs, Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 audio interface, Mackie CR5BT studio monitors, 24" 1080p monitor (not anything special!)

For capture: Olympus PEN E-PL6 camera (1080p30) with external mic input adaptor and Olympus ME51S electret lavalier and Takstar SGC-598 shotgun mic and a Samsung Galaxy S10e (4K30 or 4K60) with Filmic Pro or stock video apps and external mic adaptor.

VEGASPascal wrote on 9/12/2018, 9:06 AM

I believe this no problem of Vegas or the plugin. Could you show us your footage?

The motion tracker stops for different reasons. One of them is that the object is moving outside the video or the tracker is losing the object because it is covered by a second object.

Please upload this video snippet to Dropbox or Onedrive and send me the link.

Kinvermark wrote on 9/12/2018, 9:25 AM

@VEGASPascal

While the OP looks for "evidence" can I ask a couple questions?

1) Is there any way to de-couple the track point from the mask so that, for example, if you wanted to mask a low contrast area, you could still track the camera footage movement (shake, etc.) but using a different high-contrast area?

2) How do you mask and track the entire top half of an image (eg sky above horizon line)? The mask cannot be placed past the limits of the image (AFAIK) so any tracking movement will pull the mask away from the edges of the image (you don't want this.)

jrb101 wrote on 9/12/2018, 10:15 AM

The attached video shows the start-stop behaviour on the tracker. Am I doing something stupid here?

OK - I am doing something stupid! I had 3D Source Alpha selected on the track compositing... Switched it off and ut works again!

Thanks for all the help :-)

Sorry for wasting people's time with a trivial issue - maybe it'll help other people with similar issues though.

Jon Baker - Experienced in music creation, still a newbie at the video game 😉

(YouTube and Instagram - "Jon's Musical Musings")

PC: AMD Ryzen 3 2200G Desktop w/16GB DDR4 and Radeon RX570 (4GB) , ~5TB of storage across various HDDs, Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 audio interface, Mackie CR5BT studio monitors, 24" 1080p monitor (not anything special!)

For capture: Olympus PEN E-PL6 camera (1080p30) with external mic input adaptor and Olympus ME51S electret lavalier and Takstar SGC-598 shotgun mic and a Samsung Galaxy S10e (4K30 or 4K60) with Filmic Pro or stock video apps and external mic adaptor.

altarvic wrote on 9/12/2018, 10:23 AM

I had similar problem with my test footage ( http://www.mediafire.com/file/9dub7kd1icl3jg7/Motion_tracking_sample.mp4/file )

Tracking always stops at frame 162

altarvic wrote on 9/12/2018, 10:42 AM

1) Is there any way to de-couple the track point from the mask so that, for example, if you wanted to mask a low contrast area, you could still track the camera footage movement (shake, etc.) but using a different high-contrast area?

I think this can be done with a script, but native solution would be better

VEGASPascal wrote on 9/13/2018, 12:08 AM

@Kinvermark 1. At the moment it is not possible to de-couple the tracking area and the mask region. We are working for a native solution that you are able to copy the tracking information from one effect or mask to any other like the beta script is doing.

2. The Bezier Mask effect is a object tracker not a region tracker like a Roto Brush in AE. The sky in your example is not trackable with keypoints within the frame (without moving outside the borders). I would use a curve without automatic tracking and interpolate with keyframes. But we will discuss this for a future update.

@altarvic I will check what happens but an object with 3 or 4 keypoints is enough but losing 1 or 2 of them because of motion blur compression (fastest movement at frame 162) is a reason to stop tracking. You can restart some frames later but I will check what happens here.

BTW... it is impossible with the tracker to follow a small white dot on a black screen. In this example are no keypoints like edges to follow in tracking.

karma17 wrote on 9/13/2018, 2:14 AM

This is very helpful information. Thank you.

Kinvermark wrote on 9/13/2018, 10:36 AM

@VEGASPascal

Thanks for the answers.

For the "sky" example I am envisioning tracking a fixed part of the horizon (so really just matching camera shake) so an object tracker should in theory work fine.

The main thing is to be able to make the mask extend into the border past the image edge (like pan/crop tool does).

Being able to zoom in to the preview window would be a great help for this use, as well as for setting up the tracking of small objects / details.

PS The tracker is very good. The new stabilizer is also very good. Thanks!