I published a video a couple of days ago covering
my first impressions of the Object Tracker in Final Cut Pro's update 10.6. Now iIve had time
to work with the new built-in tracker this video is an in-depth look at some of the different ways
to use the Object Tracker. If you just take one thing away from this video it's how critical it
is to select high contrast items in your tracking. You'll see how important this is at the end
of the tutorial when I track a logo to a wall. The object of this video is that there's a little
bit about the tracker but it's mainly a focus on how you'll use it and what you'll use it for.
For example blur out a license plate, or track color mask, pixelate faces, and depth of field, color grade
backgrounds behind objects, track multiple faces, add logos and text to walls and billboards.
I'll show you how to do all of these effects and along the way you'll see shortcuts about general
techniques that'll speed up your editing in Final Cut. There are some things that you need to be
aware of in regards to changing the speed of clips and to the stabilization of a clip. I'll discuss
those a little later in the video. If you want to jump there, they're in the timestamps below.
This tutorial is much longer than normal and it's got a lot of detail. In fact I've been
tossing up making it into several separate videos. but I've opted to put it all in here. If you're
just looking for a particular technique to learn then check the time stamps below. You can also
save this tutorial and refer back to it later. It's not just a long tutorial to view. This has
taken much more time than usual to research and produce so it's really appreciated if you please
like and subscribe and of course press the bell to be notified. But before I get into discussion
about Object Tracking, I just wanted to mention some minor items in the release notes to the
Final Cut Pro update that I didn't mention in the last video. Along with Object Tracking and Cinematic
Mode Final Cut Pro included a new effect called Neon, that can be added to text and generators and
even clips, and you'll see Neon added in the red arrows in this tutorial. I'll also publish a fast
and easy video that will feature the Neon effect. Also in the update was XML 1.10, though the earlier
version 1.9 can still be used, and I suggest you check with any person you're transferring the XML
to check that they're able to accept 1.10 XML and make sure that they've got that version on their
Final Cut Pro. If in doubt I'd suggest you continue to use version 1.9, at least in the meantime. Anyway,
on to the in-depth look at Object Tracking. During my recent frequent use of the inbuilt Object
Tracker I can absolutely now confirm it's faster than any other tracker that i've used. In my last
tutorial I concentrated on the manual method to add the Object Tracker to the Inspector. That's
using the + tracker option in the Inspector. Now I've used it for a while it's much easier just
to drag the title the generator or the effect into the viewer and let it select a face or an object.
Not only are faces automatically selected for you but it also attempts to select other objects as well.
Even giving them different names that's "face" or "object". I think it's worth pointing out here
though - so that you're absolutely clear - that the tracking feature is always active. You just choose
to use it when you want - no need to turn it on or off, just ignore it if it's not needed. So let's
review how to simply add a title to be tracked. Select the clip in the timeline - press the "X" key.
This selects all of the clip so that when you add the title it'll cover the whole clip, and not just
the portion from where you play header's placed in the timeline. Find the title that you want to
use, and drag it over the object in the viewer. There's a face, so it'll find that and
label it, or objects will be named object. Notice that the title covers the
full clip in the timeline now. Select Analyze at the top left of the viewer and
the whole clip is analyzed. There are left and right choices, but you'll only need those if you
want to just analyze from the left or the right of the playhead, and that's most likely to happen
when you re-analyze a clip. In case you don't see Analyze - right click in the viewer and select
Transform. You can move the Title to any place on the viewer - the tracking information
stays attached to the clip in the timeline. When you play the Title it may jump, and
there are a number of things you can do. The most obvious is to turn off Rotation in the
Inspector. Select the effect being tracked and go to the Inspector ,click the film strip tab and to
the right of transform you'll see a Rotation. Turn it off. You can also adjust the different tracking
analysis options that are in the main clip. Select the clip this time, in the timeline, rather than the
effect and again with the film strip tab selected, then at the bottom of the Inspector there are
choices Automatic, Machine learning, and Point cloud. Normally you'd leave it on Automatic, but Point
cloud appears to remove more jitter than the automatic mode. Point cloud is supposed to be less
susceptible to changes in the motion of an object being tracked. And a warning here - Point cloud will
stop working if the object moves behind a tree or something else that hides the face for a moment. Machine learning will be much more forgivable.
And Combined - it uses both Machine learning and Point cloud. My suggestion is to try
the different methods if you've got jitter. You can add another title, effect, or generator to
the viewer and use that same tracking information. Drag the title above the clip
where you want it to appear. Make sure the title is highlighted
and resize and position it. Click the downward arrow and select the tracker. One other thing I've learned is that if you
don't yet know what title or effect you want to use, then you can track the clip first and then
select the effect later. Select the clip in the timeline and then in the inspector's film strip
tab, at the bottom, click the + sign - that's to the right of the trackers. The grid appears,
and you can select what you want to track and then press Analyze now press "X" to select the whole
clip. Go off and decide what effect you want to add. Press "Q" and that effect is added above the
whole clip. Notice it goes across the whole clip because you press the "X" key to select the
clip in the timeline in the first place. Highlight the effect in the timeline
and right click in the viewer. Select Transform - click the downward arrow and
select Object Track. Most likely the tracking of text is the first thing that comes to mind
when you're thinking about the Object Tracker. But let me tell you the use of tracking Shapes
will be much more useful to you. Let me explain. Your first thought when you think of
shapes will be how to track Color masks. So let's cover that with this
clip of the two friends meeting. At the same time I'll show you how different faces
can be tracked in that same clip. It's got previous tracking information that I don't want, so I can
remove that previous tracker by highlighting it in the inspector - make sure the yellow lines
are around it - and press the delete key. I want to reduce some of the brightness of the girl's
face with a Color mask. In the effects browser, I've selected Color wheels, and drag that over
the face. You can adjust the grid if you need. Press Analyze. You'll notice some
differences from when you tracked the title. In the viewer you'll see Shape with the link icon
highlighted, rather than Transform and the link item not highlighted. You'll also see that the
effect in the inspector has a Shape mask added. It always pays to scrub through the clips at
this stage to check that the tracker has followed the face even after the hand obscures it for a
moment. You'll see the Shape mask in the viewer, and it's got a feather area around it ,that's over
the background. The result of this will be that it'll highlight the background as well as her
face. That feather in the Shape mask can be adjusted to suit, but a warning first. If you
change the shape mask now, it'll also change the grid for the tracker. Which will affect the
tracking information already attached to the clip. So click the link icon to unattach the Shape mask
from the tracker grid. Now you can adjust the feather and the shape mask without changing the
grid. The secret to adding Color correction, that's in almost all situations, is to make
it as subtle as possible. Otherwise it's going to look unrealistic. But for this exercise
though I'll exaggerate that correction so you can easily follow the effect and see it. Also
notice that the tracking has been interrupted by the hand passing in front of the face. You
could re-analyze that after the hand passes. So right-click on the clip in the timeline and
select "Show tracking editor". Find a point after the hand passes in front of her face - click and
drag in the lighter blue line and select Analyze. If that doesn't work you can add Keyframes
to move the shape mask after the hand passes. Click in the timeline where the hand is passing
the face. In the Inspector, add a keyframe - move the playhead to the point that the face comes back
into view, and adjust the shape mask over her face. Now Blur to a face. Let's hide the other face
with a blur, or we can pixelate it - first though it's a good idea to label the different face mask
so you know which is which. With the clip selected in the timeline - in the Inspector - double-click
the word "Face track" and change it to Girl's face. Select a Gaussian blur in the effects browser ,
and drag it onto the boy's face. And for this one, it probably would pay to increase the size of
the grid a little, as you want to be sure to cover the whole face, and your viewers will accept that
part of the background will be covered as well. Increase the blur amount, and even boost it a bit.
Press Analyze. Finally rename the tracker's name in the inspector to Boy's face, and notice
when you select the trackers in the inspector the different marks show up in the viewer.
Now let's look at blurring a license plate. I'll use the pixelate for this exercise. Select "All" in the effects browser and
search for pix. Drag pixelate to the license plate. Then reshape it to fit that license plate and
make sure that you select a high contrast area. Move the center circle over that contrast area.
You may need to resize the viewer to see it better. Unlock the shape of the viewer - reduce the feather. Select the tracker again and Analyze. You
could add a pixelate to the other cars without having to analyze them. Drag pixelate
to the second license plate and resize the grid, unlink it - reduce the feather - select the
downward chevron and select Object Track. You could use the same technique
to magnify an item on the screen. I've previously got a clip
where I've used the magnification. Now let's sharpen a face, and this was really
useful where you've had a camera set on autofocus and it's focused on the background rather than
fully on the face. This is much the same technique as using blur or pixelate effect. You're using
the sharpen effect instead. But as you'll see, there's a real way to be able to do this for just
part of a clip. In the clip of the boy on the bike you may have noticed that the camera follows the
face and it goes out of focus for a second or two. So let's try and fix that. Find the point that
the focus changes, and with the "B" key held down, scissors appear, click to cut each position and
release the "B" key. Drag the sharpen effect from the effects browser over the face in that cut out
section. Adjust the sharpening in the inspector. And just as with color grading try to make the
amount of adjustment really subtle. Now to add Depth of field to a clip. With this clip I want
the person getting the haircut to be featured and the rest of the background to be blurred. Drag the
Gaussian blur over the person and adjust to cover as much of him as possible, without overlapping
too much of the background. Analyze. The blur is on the person, so to Invert that. Select the
Shape mask icon to the right of the View masks. Adjust the amount of blur. In a similar vein
we can color grade backgrounds behind objects. This is very similar to the last
example, and you can use a number of effects. Color wheels or Colorize for instance. In this case
let's use Colorize. Drag it to the face or object you want to feature, and as in the last example
Invert the mask and then adjust the color effect. In this next example we'll put a logo on the
wall, and it will track as the clip moves. This effect requires the logo to look believable
as part of the wall. So it's important to meld it into the substance of the wall. So let's add
that logo to the wall behind the breakdancer . Select the clip and press the
"X" key. Drag the logo to the wall, looking for a really good contrast point.
Adjust it to cover just that high contrast area. Click Transform and resize the logo to fit,
and use Distort and Rotation if you need to. It's a good idea to select Overlay to
make it look as if it's part of the wall. You may want to reduce the Opacity a little,
so that the texture of the wall shows through. Select Tracker at the top of the
viewer and press Analyze. Now play. You could turn off Rotation and select
Point cloud analysis if necessary. As iIve said several times,
and I can't emphasize enough. The contrast of the object point being tracked is
just so very important. In fact, it's absolutely critical. Look at this clip with the
hand just roughly selected with the grid. Now compare the motion of the tracking with
the same clip with the contrast is very carefully selected. From time to time you may
be confronted with situations that could affect the tracking analysis. Let's consider some of those
so you know what's likely to happen in advance. First, let's look at Speed changes. From the testing
I've done, Speed changes don't seem to affect the original tracking information after the analysis.
Let's try this clip here with the boy on the bike. I'll select a blade speed by using the Shift+B
and slow down the end of the clip. Then extend the text over it. Now I'm
playing that and it looks quite fine. Now stabilization. If you're stabilizing a clip I
suggest you do that first before adding a tracker. Let's look at this clip it's got a bit of camera
shake. That can be removed by selecting the stabilization first. Now select the track
and press "X". Now add a title to the face. Resize and Analyze - the green outline shows
that the tracker has followed the face, if it turns red then it means it's
not following well or in fact it may have lost the track point altogether. Now
let's play that through and it looks fine. But this clip which has already been analyzed,
if I stabilize it now it'll not be as smooth. So right-click on the main clip,
and select "Show tracking editor" Select all of the light
blue line and click Analyze. Now let's play it again and it's much smoother. Now let's have a look at "Scale". So what this
will do is, it'll scale the size of an object being tracked as the subject comes closer to
the camera. So we're using that same clip. I've selected the clip and pressed "X" and now I'll
add a custom title and drag that over the face. I'm going to turn off "Rotation" and turn on
"Scale" and I'll change the text to the word "Bigger". I find that the tracker is better with
Point cloud in this situation. As we play it you'll see the text increases in size as she gets
closer to the camera. One final thought. The initial application of the tracker effect is very
intuitive after you've used it for a few times but to make it seamless don't be frightened to
adjust and to re-analyze. These are the things to consider. Positioning the tracker. Make sure
you've got a good contrast point selected with the grid, and resize the grid just to fit what you're
tracking, and if you're using shapes don't forget to unlink so you can do things like feathering.
Adjusting for jitter and unwanted movements. first turn off Rotation then change the Analysis method,
you can add keyframes, and you can re-analyze by selecting the "Show tracking editor" and
that's by right-clicking in the track. As with anything - practice makes perfect.
I hope you've learned something from this video, so please LIKE, SUBSCRIBE and press the BELL
to be notified of new tutorials every Sunday.
