Track Averaging and Mask Tracking

Track Averaging and Mask Tracking

A couple of techniques have long been popular but
reserved to the select few willing to set them up; with the
addition of a script called TrackerViz (credited at the front
of the book), there’s no need to undergo the pain in order
to get the benefi t.
If you are having a diffi cult time getting an After Effects
track to stick, there’s an alternative to continually reworking
a single track; several not-so-accurate tracks, averaged
together, will often be more accurate than any alternative
approach. The setup involved is a slight pain, however,
which is where the script comes.

TrackerViz also lets you interchange tracked nulls and mask
points, making it possible to effectively track in a mask. You
fi rst track a set of nulls, each with a unique name, corresponding
to vertices on the shape. Select them in the order.

that you would draw them, and in TrackerViz choose and
apply Layers to Shape in the Function menu. The result is
not a shape layer but much more usefully, a solid with a keyframed
mask applied to it. The mask can be used to replace
any equivalent hand-drawn masks applied to layers.