Setting Up the Trackers

Before you begin tracking in a sequence, you need to set up the trackers that will draw the motion paths. The various components of each tracker are described in the previous section. This section describes how to activate trackers and how to position them in the Fx Viewer.

Activating Trackers

By default, tracker number 1 is activated in any new tracking operator. You can activate any of the other three as needed.

To activate a tracker

In the FxTree, double-click the Tracking operator to open its property editor and preview it in the Fx Viewer.
Click the Trackers button to display the Trackers page.
On the tab of the tracker you wish to activate (Track2, Track3, and so on), select Enable.

Once you activate a tracker, its controls appear in the Fx Viewer.
From the Color Space list, choose a color space for the tracking algorithm to use: Luma, Red, Green, Blue, RGB, or Alpha.

Positioning Trackers

To change the position of a tracker, you must reposition and resize its components in the Fx Viewer.

Note

You cannot position a tracker using the controls on its tab in the Tracking property editor. These controls are for reference only.
The trackers are only visible in the Fx Viewer when you are editing the Tracking operator, and its property editor is set to the Trackers page or the Options page.

Generally speaking, you'll want to set the initial position of each tracker and then begin tracking. During the tracking process, you may need to reposition or resize one or more of a given tracker's elements in order to keep tracking along the same path. See Creating Motion Paths for more information.

To position tracker elements

Click+drag any element of the tracker. The other elements will also move, or not, as follows:
- When you move the template area, the search area moves such that their relative position stays the same.
  
  If you have not moved the track point or set a keyframe for its position, the track point will snap to the center of the template area.
- When you move the search area, no other elements move.
- When you move the track point, no other elements move.
It's best not to move the track point after the initial setup because you'll want the motion path to use the same point all the way through. If you need to offset the track point mid-way through the tracking process, you should move the template area instead. See Repositioning the Template and/or Search Area for more information.
You can move all three elements at once by Shift+dragging the template region.

To resize the template or search area

Do one or both of the following:
- Click+drag the resize handle at any corner of the template or search area to resize in both X and Y simultaneously.
- Click+drag the resize handle on any side of the template or search area to resize in either X or Y.

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