Camera Tracking in After Effects

Introduction to Camera Tracking in After Effects

World-famous company Adobe Systems offers you the most popular video editing software, which is After Effect. We have different types of techniques and features in this software for making our work easy. Camera Tracking is one of its important features and used for giving tracking effects to any object with the motion of background objects. We can use Camera tracking for any type of video footage or animated object. Here in this article, we will understand Camera Tracking in a very simple manner and analyze important parameters of it to easily handle it for our graphics designing purpose.

How to Use Camera Tracking in After Effect?

Before starting our learning, let us have a quick look at the user interface of Adobe After Effect software for our better understanding of this software throughout this article.

Step 1: The user screen of this software is divided into many sections such as Menu bar for making the different adjustment in this software, Toolbar which provides the different type of tool for designing work, Project panel, which shows a number of the composition of any project, Effect Control shows you parameters of any effect or preset which is used in current composition, at the button of this screen we have Layer section which shows you parameters of layers of any project, next is Timeline section which is used for handling the parameters of animation.

Step 2: For Learning Camera Tracking in After Effect, we have to take a video. You can take your own video or can download it from the internet. For placing that video in After Effect software, go to that folder of your personal computer where you have saved your video. Pick this video from there with the help of the mouse button and drop it in the Project Panel section of After Effect software.

Step 3: Now drag this video into the Layer section by the pick and drop method.

Step 4: Now adjust the time of animation of this video according to your requirement from the Timeline section.

Step 5: Now go to the right side of After Effect software and click on the tab of Tracker option. Choose the Track Camera option from here.

Step 6: Or you can choose a camera tracking option from the Animation menu of the Menu Bar. A drop-down list will be open to choosing the ‘Track Camera’ option from here.

Step 7: Once you click on the Camera Tracking option, an Initialization tab of camera tracking will be open in the Effect Control panel next to the Project panel section. It will take a few minutes for the initialization of the camera. The initialization time of the camera will depend on the RAM capacity of your personal computer.

Step 8: Once the camera initialized, this type of screen will be opened.

Step 9: Now, choose a place on the video screen according to you where you want to add an object in this video for camera tracking purposes. Now make right-click in this position with the help of the right button of the mouse. A drop-down list will be open. Choose the ‘Create Text and Camera’ option from here.

Step 10: The text area will be generated here with white color. Select this area with the help of the mouse cursor. A Character parameter box will be open on the right side of the working screen.

Step 11: Click on the small color box of text at the Character panel to change the color of the text. You can choose the color of the text according to you.

Step 12: Now, type text according to you which you want to animate with the help of a camera tracker.

Step 13: Now adjust your text where you want to place it with the help of the “move and selection’ tool.

Step 14: Now select this text and take your desired Font Style and Size from the Character Panel of this text.

Step 15: Now go to the Layer section and click on the small arrow button of the Text layer. Properties of the text layer will be open.

Step 16: Now click on the small arrow icon of the Transform property of this text layer. A list of transform properties will be open. Set the value of X Rotation in this way so that the text will visualize in a vertical position.

Step 17: Now adjust the value of Orientation for adjusting the text like this. You can set the parameters of text property according to you.

Step 18: Now click on Text Layer and press the Ctrl + D button from the keyboard for making a duplicate copy of the text layer.

Step 19: We will use this duplicate layer as a shadow of this text layer. For our better understanding, let us rename this layer as ‘shadow’. Make right-click on this duplicate layer; a drop-down list will be open. Choose the Rename option from here.

Step 20: Now, type your desired name here. I will type ‘shadow’ as the name of this duplicate layer.

Step 21: Now click on the small arrow icon of this layer for opening the property list of this layer.

Step 22: Now click on the small arrow icon of the Transform property of this layer for opening the transform property list. Now make the value of X Rotation as ‘0’.

Step 23: Now go to the Character Panel of this layer to change the shadow colour. Click on the small color box of this panel.

Step 24: Choose black as the shadow color of this layer and press the Ok button of this color box.

Step 25: Go to the Opacity property of this shadow layer and decrease the value of opacity up to 60% or you can set this value according to you.

Step 26: Now go to the Preview tab for playing the camera tracking, which is on the right side of the working screen, or you can press the Space bar of the keyboard as the short cut of playing animation.

Step 27: Your animation will look like this.

In this way, you can use Camera Tracking in After Effect software and handle the parameters of Camera Tracking for getting the best result from this feature of After Effect software.

Conclusion

Now, after going through this article, you can better understand ‘what is Camera Tracking’ and how you can use it in After Effect software. You also have a look at the basic parameters of the Camera Tracking feature of After Effect so that you can easily handle this feature for making a highly professional project in the video editing field.

Recommended Articles

This is a guide to Camera Tracking in After Effect. Here we discuss an introduction and track a camera in after-effects in a step-by-step manner. You can also go through our other related articles to learn more –

1. Keylight in After Effects
2. Rotoscoping in After Effects
3. Export in After Effects
4. Mask in After Effects