From the course: After Effects CC 2021 Essential Training: VFX

Types of tracking - After Effects Tutorial

From the course: After Effects CC 2021 Essential Training: VFX

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Types of tracking

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- [Instructor] In visual effects, artists are commonly tasked with incorporating elements into live action footage to create the illusion that those elements were shot in camera. To create that illusion, the technique of motion tracking is used. Tracking is a process by which we can have After Effects follow the position, scale and rotation of a given area of the footage. From here, we can use the tracked information to link up any other element and integrate it into the scene. There are two methods of tracking. Point and planar tracking. Point tracking follows a particular pixel around in the frame, while planar tracking uses planar surfaces found in the footage to derive motion. In addition, After Effects is able to use the point tracking information to extract the camera motion used to capture the footage. In this chapter, we'll take a look at the various methods that will enable you to track elements into your footage.

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