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Tracking preparation

Lesson 1: Track and solve

Evaluating the tracking of a point

 

Learning Resources > Tutorials > Getting Started with Maya > Live > Lesson 1: Track and solve > 

Tracking object points in a shot

In the next steps, you track the motion of a flower. Tracking points on the ground is common practice and the flowers are easy targets to track.

To track objects in the shot

1. Go to frame 1.
2. Click the Create button in the Track control panel. Live places a track box in the center of the shotCamera view, ready for you to reposition.

   If you don’t see a full-color image of the scene in the view, go one frame forward in the Time Slider and go back to the start time to refresh the view.

3. Before you reposition the track box, enter flower1 in the Name box in the Track control panel. We recommend you name track points for future reference.
4. In the Track control panel, click the track box tool so you can reposition the track box.

   

   If you switch to another tool, such as rotate, remember to select the track box tool again if you thereafter need to move track boxes.

5. In the shotCamera1 view, drag the track box down to the fourth clump of flowers from the right.

   

   This pair of flowers is good to track because it is visible in all frames. Strive to track points that are visible for a large number of frames.

6. In the pointCenteredCamera view, drag the image until the track box cross-hair is centered over the flower closest to the fence. Dragging in this panel has the opposite effect from the shotCamera view, because you are actually panning the camera, not moving the track box.

   

   Notice that the track box resizes if you drag the edges. For this track point, keep the boxes at the default size. Choose Edit > Undo if you resize it accidentally. It may require a number of Undo commands to return to the original configuration of the track box.

   The point you are tracking is at the center of the track box cross-hair. To track this point, Live uses the pattern of pixels defined by the inner box. The outer box is the range Live searches for the target pattern.

   

7. Make sure Tracking Direction is set to Forward.

   During the course of creating track points, you will change this setting often. Depending on the situation, you might track Forward, Backward, or Bidirectional.

8. Click the Start Track button.

   First a progress dialog box appears, then a movie of the track point. These point-centered movies are important tools for evaluating how closely the track point stays on target (see the following steps).