I have purchased lockdown and there is a black grid all over the screen making it unusable. How do I get rid of the black grid? It gets generated when I hit the Pre-Compose button.
And login. Your license is probably already generated and visible on this page, it only takes a few minutes. At the top of the Plugin, press "Register", paste in this code, and hit "activate". The grid will disappear. It's pretty unlikely, but it's possible that the watermark image may remain cached momentarily by After Effects. (The cache saves the last image given to it by the Lockdown). The cached watermark image will go away once you start working, and the plugin passes new, now un-watermarked images to the cache, so just adding a point and tracking it should do it.
is it possible to get a null object from points or center of the mesh to get make a simple tracking?
because i see it works like a pretty good planar tracking, is it possible to not use the mesh morphing of the mesh when i put a layer inside the stabilized? so for example, the text i'll put on the mesh will stay in the same size all the time but the mesh will be used for tracking only
is it possible to get a null object from points or center of the mesh to get make a simple tracking?
because i see it works like a pretty good planar tracking, is it possible to not use the mesh morphing of the mesh when i put a layer inside the stabilized? so for example, the text i'll put on the mesh will stay in the same size all the time but the mesh will be used for tracking only
Do you mean by averaging a series of tracks generated in Lockdown? Not automatically. You can select all the points you want, then externalize them, and copy and paste them to nulls. Then either take the null that's most centered to the area you want to track, or instead take all of them and average the positions together to a new null. However if you just want to track one large area, I'd probably just do it in Mocha, and extract the center point, since Mocha is basically made for that. (not to discourage use of Lockdown, just trying to get you the easiest solution for your particular problem.)
I'd imagine you could Lockdown two separate videos of two separate faces. Then inside the stabilized comps, cut out the face for each, then paste it into the other stabilized comp. But this tools isn't really made specifically for that, so it would take some careful consideration on a shot by shot basis. There's no true 3D analysis for the faces, so the actions would have to match very well to get a convincing swap.
Hi I bought Lockdown and I am trying it out. I have a face that I want to track. I add the tracking points and then hit step 4 (Track points) But the the blue dots then disappears and are nowhere to be seen when the tracking is done. I have selected the Lockdown filter in the effects panel. I am a bit at a loss here, can anyone help me out please?
Hi I bought Lockdown and I am trying it out. I have a face that I want to track. I add the tracking points and then hit step 4 (Track points) But the the blue dots then disappears and are nowhere to be seen when the tracking is done. I have selected the Lockdown filter in the effects panel. I am a bit at a loss here, can anyone help me out please?
Please submit a help ticket. You can always feel free to send over a sample of your shot and I'll take a whack at it. (There are very few shots in this world I can't at least partially whack.)
But for the fast response to your question- Our tracker deletes points if it has no confidence in them. This could mean they're changing shape a lot, or moving in quick or erratic ways. This happens a TON with mp4 footage because when the keyframe in the compression changes, the small details instantly switch texture. It's something that won't bother your eye so much, but will confuse our tracker. This also happens with some lighting changes. We're always working on tweaking out tracker, but it's not perfect. There are a few ways to improve our tracker's abilities. 1) denoise your footage 2) add a ton of contrast so the points you're trying to track are from the full range black to white.
There's a checkbox at the bottom of Lockdown "Track Always". If you check this button, it will track every single point in the frame, and not delete a single one, no matter how "unconfident" it is in the track. I'd recommend doing only 4 or 5 tracks at a time, because there's a chance you might get a few seconds of good tracking, followed by the track bouncing around the frame like a pingpong ball. I'd say to experiment with that, and depending on how your footage looks, it might be a good idea to track part of the shot with Mocha, which you can supervise as it goes.
Hi I bought Lockdown and I am trying it out. I have a face that I want to track. I add the tracking points and then hit step 4 (Track points) But the the blue dots then disappears and are nowhere to be seen when the tracking is done. I have selected the Lockdown filter in the effects panel. I am a bit at a loss here, can anyone help me out please?
Please submit a help ticket. You can always feel free to send over a sample of your shot and I'll take a whack at it. (There are very few shots in this world I can't at least partially whack.)
But for the fast response to your question- Our tracker deletes points if it has no confidence in them. This could mean they're changing shape a lot, or moving in quick or erratic ways. This happens a TON with mp4 footage because when the keyframe in the compression changes, the small details instantly switch texture. It's something that won't bother your eye so much, but will confuse our tracker. This also happens with some lighting changes. We're always working on tweaking out tracker, but it's not perfect. There are a few ways to improve our tracker's abilities. 1) denoise your footage 2) add a ton of contrast so the points you're trying to track are from the full range black to white.
There's a checkbox at the bottom of Lockdown "Track Always". If you check this button, it will track every single point in the frame, and not delete a single one, no matter how "unconfident" it is in the track. I'd recommend doing only 4 or 5 tracks at a time, because there's a chance you might get a few seconds of good tracking, followed by the track bouncing around the frame like a pingpong ball. I'd say to experiment with that, and depending on how your footage looks, it might be a good idea to track part of the shot with Mocha, which you can supervise as it goes.
Cheers, Chris Lockdown Creator
Thank you for the answer! I will have a look at the solutions you suggested. If it is still a problem, I'll submit a help ticket.
Hey Chris, I'm getting the error "After effects error: invalid filter ( 25 : 3 )", any idea what that might be? I see people fix this problem by installing OpenCL, thats on Win, I'm on Mac.
Hey Chris, I'm getting the error "After effects error: invalid filter ( 25 : 3 )", any idea what that might be? I see people fix this problem by installing OpenCL, thats on Win, I'm on Mac.
My best guess is you're using an earlier version of After Effects, 2018 or earlier. We use a later API. Also, are you using the latest version of Lockdown? Please give as much info as possible.
Hey Chris, I'm getting the error "After effects error: invalid filter ( 25 : 3 )", any idea what that might be? I see people fix this problem by installing OpenCL, thats on Win, I'm on Mac.
My best guess is you're using an earlier version of After Effects, 2018 or earlier. We use a later API. Also, are you using the latest version of Lockdown? Please give as much info as possible.
Cheers, Chris Lockdown Creator
Thanks for answering, I downloaded the "try" version, and I am using the latest version of After Effects 2020 17.0.3. Any Idea? Other plugins works pretty well.
Just downloaded the new 1.13 - and it appears that the Mocha Pro AE plugin (hosted plugin - not the standalone) still isn't working for importing Mocha data?
I can not get this plugin to work... I don't know if its the recent update. I can't see any track points. I have a feeling it is just hanging on a message "Pre-Composed Cleaning Up" I am running the latest 2020 version of After Effects and the Trial Version.
Could you please submit a help ticket with as much info as possible, and the operating system you're on? Also can explain where you're seeing the message "Pre-Composed Cleaning Up", since that's not a message we've written into Lockdown. (At least I'm 99% sure we haven't). "Render Points" should be on by default, are you saying that was off by default when you applied the Plug-in? Unless you opened an existing project that already had Lockdown in use with that setting checked.
Just downloaded the new 1.13 - and it appears that the Mocha Pro AE plugin (hosted plugin - not the standalone) still isn't working for importing Mocha data?
Dan, I'm sorry, we suck. We re-wrote a ton of the tracking engine this time around, and I think everyone on our team was so focused on our larger responsibilities, we all just assumed someone else had taken this tiny task, but it slipped past each of us. I just asked my team if we could make a dot release with just that fix, apologies for the delay.
Hello Chris The plugin looks awesome - I am currently trying out the watermarked version. One question I immediately wanted to ask you - is it possible to import 2d tracking data from other software, for example 3D equalizer? Right now I can import the 3DE tracks to AE as a bunch of nulls, but would it be possible to use for example the externalize points feature to link these together somehow??
Hello Chris The plugin looks awesome - I am currently trying out the watermarked version. One question I immediately wanted to ask you - is it possible to import 2d tracking data from other software, for example 3D equalizer? Right now I can import the 3DE tracks to AE as a bunch of nulls, but would it be possible to use for example the externalize points feature to link these together somehow??
Best regards
Piotr
It would require a little bit of scripting but it should be possible. As far as I understand, the 3DE tracks are 3D data, right? First you'd have to convert them to 2D since Lockdown currently only supports 2D tracks. But there's an expression for that. You can use a separate null object, and on it's position track, link to the 3D object, and after it use .toComp([0,0]).
So off the top of my head, the position expression for the 2D null would look something like 3DTrack0001.toComp([0,0]);
Then once those keyframes are baked, they could be copied and pasted into Lockdown's externalized tracks.
One thing to be aware of though- Lockdown's externalized tracks are sort of deceptive. The data is NOT really live. Expressions don't work on those tracks, it only accepts copied and pasted keyframe tracks. (There's a longer story to why that is, but it's to make interpolation of partial tracks possible)
Hello Chris The plugin looks awesome - I am currently trying out the watermarked version. One question I immediately wanted to ask you - is it possible to import 2d tracking data from other software, for example 3D equalizer? Right now I can import the 3DE tracks to AE as a bunch of nulls, but would it be possible to use for example the externalize points feature to link these together somehow??
Best regards
Piotr
It would require a little bit of scripting but it should be possible. As far as I understand, the 3DE tracks are 3D data, right? First you'd have to convert them to 2D since Lockdown currently only supports 2D tracks. But there's an expression for that. You can use a separate null object, and on it's position track, link to the 3D object, and after it use .toComp([0,0]).
So off the top of my head, the position expression for the 2D null would look something like 3DTrack0001.toComp([0,0]);
Then once those keyframes are baked, they could be copied and pasted into Lockdown's externalized tracks.
One thing to be aware of though- Lockdown's externalized tracks are sort of deceptive. The data is NOT really live. Expressions don't work on those tracks, it only accepts copied and pasted keyframe tracks. (There's a longer story to why that is, but it's to make interpolation of partial tracks possible)
Cheers, Chris Lockdown Creator
Thanks for a speedy repsonse.
As for the type of track - there are many options but as AE is rater limited in the 3D department I always bring them as 2D tracks (the raw, unsolved point track data). So to say simply - baked 2D point positions. In case anyone else wonders - whatever you use to make your tracks - the https://tracksperanto.guerilla-di.org/ project exists to convert to any format you would need.
I understand that it's just a matter of pasting them into the external channels. Will try this soon and report back how it went.
Do you think it could be a possibility to one day add functionality to import externalized points from an external file?
Hello Chris The plugin looks awesome - I am currently trying out the watermarked version. One question I immediately wanted to ask you - is it possible to import 2d tracking data from other software, for example 3D equalizer? Right now I can import the 3DE tracks to AE as a bunch of nulls, but would it be possible to use for example the externalize points feature to link these together somehow??
Best regards
Piotr
It would require a little bit of scripting but it should be possible. As far as I understand, the 3DE tracks are 3D data, right? First you'd have to convert them to 2D since Lockdown currently only supports 2D tracks. But there's an expression for that. You can use a separate null object, and on it's position track, link to the 3D object, and after it use .toComp([0,0]).
So off the top of my head, the position expression for the 2D null would look something like 3DTrack0001.toComp([0,0]);
Then once those keyframes are baked, they could be copied and pasted into Lockdown's externalized tracks.
One thing to be aware of though- Lockdown's externalized tracks are sort of deceptive. The data is NOT really live. Expressions don't work on those tracks, it only accepts copied and pasted keyframe tracks. (There's a longer story to why that is, but it's to make interpolation of partial tracks possible)
Cheers, Chris Lockdown Creator
Thanks for a speedy repsonse.
As for the type of track - there are many options but as AE is rater limited in the 3D department I always bring them as 2D tracks (the raw, unsolved point track data). So to say simply - baked 2D point positions. In case anyone else wonders - whatever you use to make your tracks - the https://tracksperanto.guerilla-di.org/ project exists to convert to any format you would need.
I understand that it's just a matter of pasting them into the external channels. Will try this soon and report back how it went.
Do you think it could be a possibility to one day add functionality to import externalized points from an external file?
Probably! Although if you're already able to get them into a ton of null objects automatically, it might be faster and easier for us to just scan the whole composition, and copy in the positions data from every null. That way we could take data from any other way people generate nulls.
Hello Chris The plugin looks awesome - I am currently trying out the watermarked version. One question I immediately wanted to ask you - is it possible to import 2d tracking data from other software, for example 3D equalizer? Right now I can import the 3DE tracks to AE as a bunch of nulls, but would it be possible to use for example the externalize points feature to link these together somehow??
Best regards
Piotr
It would require a little bit of scripting but it should be possible. As far as I understand, the 3DE tracks are 3D data, right? First you'd have to convert them to 2D since Lockdown currently only supports 2D tracks. But there's an expression for that. You can use a separate null object, and on it's position track, link to the 3D object, and after it use .toComp([0,0]).
So off the top of my head, the position expression for the 2D null would look something like 3DTrack0001.toComp([0,0]);
Then once those keyframes are baked, they could be copied and pasted into Lockdown's externalized tracks.
One thing to be aware of though- Lockdown's externalized tracks are sort of deceptive. The data is NOT really live. Expressions don't work on those tracks, it only accepts copied and pasted keyframe tracks. (There's a longer story to why that is, but it's to make interpolation of partial tracks possible)
Cheers, Chris Lockdown Creator
Thanks for a speedy repsonse.
As for the type of track - there are many options but as AE is rater limited in the 3D department I always bring them as 2D tracks (the raw, unsolved point track data). So to say simply - baked 2D point positions. In case anyone else wonders - whatever you use to make your tracks - the https://tracksperanto.guerilla-di.org/ project exists to convert to any format you would need.
I understand that it's just a matter of pasting them into the external channels. Will try this soon and report back how it went.
Do you think it could be a possibility to one day add functionality to import externalized points from an external file?
Probably! Although if you're already able to get them into a ton of null objects automatically, it might be faster and easier for us to just scan the whole composition, and copy in the positions data from every null. That way we could take data from any other way people generate nulls.
Cheers, Chris Lockdown Creator
I got the full version now and can confirm using externalized points worked no problem. Imported the 3de tracks as 2d nulls - copied their values to externalized points. The process was a little tedious but the stabilization was super solid. If there was a way to copy position values from all nulls in the comp that would be awesome. Thanks for the tips Piotr
I've donwloaded the update [1.4], quick question will I need to purchase a new licence come May, to work with the update or will it rollover with my current purchase? Also, the update featured a new plugin [GenerateVectors.plugin] but no update to the lcokdown script, I'm assuming this will run ok with the current script I have. I have sent a support ticket through regarding the installation of the GV.aom file, please ignore as it appears to be working as a template now. Amazing update btw! Many thanks, Rich.
I've donwloaded the update [1.4], quick question will I need to purchase a new licence come May, to work with the update or will it rollover with my current purchase? Also, the update featured a new plugin [GenerateVectors.plugin] but no update to the lcokdown script, I'm assuming this will run ok with the current script I have. I have sent a support ticket through regarding the installation of the GV.aom file, please ignore as it appears to be working as a template now. Amazing update btw! Many thanks, Rich.
Hey, sorry, but I forgot to update the Readme installation file when I uploaded. I just corrected it, but here's a video with the exact installation instructions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsQaBtlNh1U The JSXBIN from older versions can be deleted, and GenerateVectors and Lockdown Plugin go in the Plugins folder. The old script panel will not work, all script functions are included in the new plugin.
Lockdown 1.4 is a free update to anyone who already has a license of Lockdown, and the old previously installed license will work. The temp licenses expire May 1st for anyone who has never bought Lockdown.
Hey Chris. Just commenting to say you've done an amazing job. I've bought this plugin to support and create art, haven't used it for any paid projects yet. But hopefully soon.
Hey Chris. Just commenting to say you've done an amazing job. I've bought this plugin to support and create art, haven't used it for any paid projects yet. But hopefully soon.
Keep it up! Love this update...
I really hope you like it! Please always feel free to share your feedback, or the cool work you're doing, we'd love to see it!
I've rendered out a vector sequence using your steps with exr. I have interpolated the rgb like you said, but after I track, the points disappear as if their is something wrong with the exr sequence. I did the levels trick like you've shown but I only get solid grey color with no details emerging. I imagine there is something not right with the vector rendering? Could it be an issue of project bit depth or some other render setting I am missing?
I've rendered out a vector sequence using your steps with exr. I have interpolated the rgb like you said, but after I track, the points disappear as if their is something wrong with the exr sequence. I did the levels trick like you've shown but I only get solid grey color with no details emerging. I imagine there is something not right with the vector rendering? Could it be an issue of project bit depth or some other render setting I am missing?
I think I already answered you via Youtube (I'm a mess, swatting down tickets and questions on all platforms as they come) but my guess is your project isn't in 32 bit mode. We regrettably forgot to note in the documentation. There's supposed to be a pop up message that tells you if you try to work in 8 or 16 bit, but I guess it's not bulletproof. Please make sure the EXRs are rendered from a 32 bit project, and tracked in a 32 bit project. Sorry for the omission of vital information!
- Could you share what are the best practices for getting most accurate calculation?
- When I am working with flat profile footage - would adding brightness and contrast result in higher quality of the vector pass?
- As the calculation is very slow (at the moment ) would it make sense to calculate the vectors on a reduced resolution? I mainly mean workin on 4K footage and up - for example: generate vectors in 1080p version of the clip for faster solve and upscale?
- Could you share what are the best practices for getting most accurate calculation?
- When I am working with flat profile footage - would adding brightness and contrast result in higher quality of the vector pass?
- As the calculation is very slow (at the moment ) would it make sense to calculate the vectors on a reduced resolution? I mainly mean workin on 4K footage and up - for example: generate vectors in 1080p version of the clip for faster solve and upscale?
This is so amazing. Great job!
Piotr
Brightness and contrast could only help for accuracy, I'd add them and use the full colorspace. The vectors won't work if they're at a different resolution than the footage, even if you scale them. I agree that 4k can be pretty slow, we'll have to make tools on our end to speed this up. One option which might not be so bad, is to set the Vectors to "Fast" instead of "Extremely Accurate" when working at 4k. Fast mode is definitely not as thorough in analysis, but since your resolution and detail are so much higher on 4k footage, it'll likely do a pretty good job because higher resolution is objectively easier to track. I'd get started there. We'll hopefully have a few more options for speeding up the vector rendering process very soon.
I'm having the same issue as Justin Brown below, and after seeing your note to him, went back into my project, and made sure everything was running in 32bit mode from the get-go, while following everything else in your tutorial step-by-step (including "preserve RGB"), but am still seeing the tracking dots disappear immediately after it finishes calculating from "Press to track points".
I'd be happy to share the test project I'm working on, if you think that might help.
I'm having the same issue as Justin Brown below, and after seeing your note to him, went back into my project, and made sure everything was running in 32bit mode from the get-go, while following everything else in your tutorial step-by-step (including "preserve RGB"), but am still seeing the tracking dots disappear immediately after it finishes calculating from "Press to track points".
I'd be happy to share the test project I'm working on, if you think that might help.
Just let me know.
Cheers!
Hey, thank you both very much for helping us solve this issue. To anyone else reading, the issue was that the After Effects Composition Background color needs to be set to pure black for the vectors to work correctly. If you render them with a white background (which is a pretty common thing, to change your comp background color) it mixes with the vectors and sends the points way off. This was something we had just totally not considered. If anyone else is having the same issue, please set your composition background color to Black and it should solve this issue!
I've rendered out a vector sequence using your steps with exr. I have interpolated the rgb like you said, but after I track, the points disappear as if their is something wrong with the exr sequence. I did the levels trick like you've shown but I only get solid grey color with no details emerging. I imagine there is something not right with the vector rendering? Could it be an issue of project bit depth or some other render setting I am missing?
Hello Mr. Vranos! First off, love Lockdown. The changes to 1.4 are awesome. I have an older project I was hoping to revisit. I think in Lockdown 1.2 (maybe).
I reopenend the file now that I have updated to 1.4 and lockdown just seems to not work. Everything is red, and I cannot see the comps it is applied to. Anyway to resurrect this project or will I need to play around with rolling back?
Hello Mr. Vranos! First off, love Lockdown. The changes to 1.4 are awesome. I have an older project I was hoping to revisit. I think in Lockdown 1.2 (maybe).
I reopenend the file now that I have updated to 1.4 and lockdown just seems to not work. Everything is red, and I cannot see the comps it is applied to. Anyway to resurrect this project or will I need to play around with rolling back?
Thanks.
This sounds like a driver issue. What version of After Effects are you using? 2017? My best guess is that we added a ton of new features that use parts of the Ae 2019 SDK that were not present in 2017. We often get reports of a layer going entirely black when applying Composite Brush or Lockdown to it in Ae 2017 or earlier. Would it be possible to send in the shot via a help ticket? Or could you try to open the project in Ae 2020? Also, it might be a good idea to re-open the project with your older version of Lockdown, 1.3 or earlier, and internalize all the points. We had to get rid of the externalized points feature in Lockdown 1.4, because we found it was slowing everything down. We will create another method to export and import points soon, it just can't be through that same interface.
Hello Mr. Vranos! First off, love Lockdown. The changes to 1.4 are awesome. I have an older project I was hoping to revisit. I think in Lockdown 1.2 (maybe).
I reopenend the file now that I have updated to 1.4 and lockdown just seems to not work. Everything is red, and I cannot see the comps it is applied to. Anyway to resurrect this project or will I need to play around with rolling back?
Thanks.
This sounds like a driver issue. What version of After Effects are you using? 2017? My best guess is that we added a ton of new features that use parts of the Ae 2019 SDK that were not present in 2017. We often get reports of a layer going entirely black when applying Composite Brush or Lockdown to it in Ae 2017 or earlier. Would it be possible to send in the shot via a help ticket? Or could you try to open the project in Ae 2020? Also, it might be a good idea to re-open the project with your older version of Lockdown, 1.3 or earlier, and internalize all the points. We had to get rid of the externalized points feature in Lockdown 1.4, because we found it was slowing everything down. We will create another method to export and import points soon, it just can't be through that same interface.
Cheers, Chris Lockdown Creator
Hey Chris... Sorry, might be a misunderstanding. original shot was 2019, with lockdown v 1.2, I believe. Now I am opening in 2020, lockdown V1.4 Can send the project without footage, for sure. Footage is a slightly sensitive nature so cannot share right now.
I just downloaded version 1.4 - and it seems that the JSXBIN files are missing now. Are those still needed? It mentions them in the installation instructions
I just downloaded version 1.4 - and it seems that the JSXBIN files are missing now. Are those still needed? It mentions them in the installation instructions
No, I actually forgot to update the readme file when I uploaded 1.4. You don't need the JSXBIN. Please take a look here for the actual install instructions. (I did fix the readme, but I think a lot of people downloaded it the first day when it was incorrect.)
I was going through the installation steps and AE keeps crashing when I try pressing the "Full Vector Setup". All drivers and AE updated.
Thanks for this amazing plugin - looking forward to work with the 1.4 version!
https://aescripts.com/contact/?product_id=1462 a help ticket might be the easiest place to discuss this, although I saw your comment on Youtube as well and made some suggestions there.
No, I actually forgot to update the readme file when I uploaded 1.4. You don't need the JSXBIN. Please take a look here for the actual install instructions. (I did fix the readme, but I think a lot of people downloaded it the first day when it was incorrect.)
Got the install instructions from that video thanks, but heads up just downloaded it now and the readme is still outdated.
Though I'm wondering, does 33 hours sound accurate for rendering the vectors of a 6 minute video?
Yeah, our first version is not exactly impressive in terms of speed. You can do the dirty old trick of launching multiple instances of After Effects to speed that up. Rendering the vectors faster is high on our priority list.
And find the link to fill out the form at the top of the page. I'd post the form link directly, but want to make sure to link the homepage instead, just in case that link changes. We know the home page will always be up to date.
Though I'm wondering, does 33 hours sound accurate for rendering the vectors of a 6 minute video?
Yeah, our first version is not exactly impressive in terms of speed. You can do the dirty old trick of launching multiple instances of After Effects to speed that up. Rendering the vectors faster is high on our priority list.
Cheers, Chris Lockdown Creator
I had to look that up! So would I basically have it render different sections of the same file at the same time?
Though I'm wondering, does 33 hours sound accurate for rendering the vectors of a 6 minute video?
Yeah, our first version is not exactly impressive in terms of speed. You can do the dirty old trick of launching multiple instances of After Effects to speed that up. Rendering the vectors faster is high on our priority list.
Cheers, Chris Lockdown Creator
I had to look that up! So would I basically have it render different sections of the same file at the same time?
Basically, you set your render template to "Skip Existing Files", then save your project with just the Vectors sequence saved to the render queue with that setting enabled. Then you launch multiple instances of After Effects, and open that project in all of them. Then when you render, all of them will render at the same time, each taking alternating frames, speeding things up. At some point I'll do a tutorial for it, I'm a little swamped with tickets today. It's a good strategy for speeding up renders, except you have to be careful not to launch too many instances or it may crash some of them. (That is a magical number you can only find out through testing though)
This tool seems to be insane! Any plans to add 3D track/camera solve functionality? Would be so cool if you could create 3D nulls based on mesh etc. Anycase thanks for creation of this tool!
This tool seems to be insane! Any plans to add 3D track/camera solve functionality? Would be so cool if you could create 3D nulls based on mesh etc. Anycase thanks for creation of this tool!
This tool seems to be insane! Any plans to add 3D track/camera solve functionality? Would be so cool if you could create 3D nulls based on mesh etc. Anycase thanks for creation of this tool!
3D solving is probably a long way away. However we are discussing an Alembic Export feature so you can at least get the 2D (technically 3D but with all Z depth on 0) into a 3D application. We'll look at putting in pseudo depth to those points as well when we can.
there is a black grid on the screen, it is because is a demo right? thank you
Yes, please go to aescripts.com/lockdown. There's a form at the top of the page you can fill out with your name and email, and sometime not too long after submitting, a license will be sent to you to remove the watermark.
And login. Your license is probably already generated and visible on this page, it only takes a few minutes. At the top of the Plugin, press "Register", paste in this code, and hit "activate". The grid will disappear. It's pretty unlikely, but it's possible that the watermark image may remain cached momentarily by After Effects. (The cache saves the last image given to it by the Lockdown). The cached watermark image will go away once you start working, and the plugin passes new, now un-watermarked images to the cache, so just adding a point and tracking it should do it.
Chris
Lockdown Creator
Cheers,
Chris
Lockdown Creator
Chris
Lockdown Creator
There are a few ways to improve our tracker's abilities.
1) denoise your footage
2) add a ton of contrast so the points you're trying to track are from the full range black to white.
There's a checkbox at the bottom of Lockdown "Track Always". If you check this button, it will track every single point in the frame, and not delete a single one, no matter how "unconfident" it is in the track. I'd recommend doing only 4 or 5 tracks at a time, because there's a chance you might get a few seconds of good tracking, followed by the track bouncing around the frame like a pingpong ball. I'd say to experiment with that, and depending on how your footage looks, it might be a good idea to track part of the shot with Mocha, which you can supervise as it goes.
Chris
Lockdown Creator
My best guess is you're using an earlier version of After Effects, 2018 or earlier. We use a later API. Also, are you using the latest version of Lockdown? Please give as much info as possible.
Cheers,
Chris
Lockdown Creator
Cheers
Chris
Lockdown Creator
The plugin looks awesome - I am currently trying out the watermarked version. One question I immediately wanted to ask you - is it possible to import 2d tracking data from other software, for example 3D equalizer? Right now I can import the 3DE tracks to AE as a bunch of nulls, but would it be possible to use for example the externalize points feature to link these together somehow??
So off the top of my head, the position expression for the 2D null would look something like 3DTrack0001.toComp([0,0]);
Then once those keyframes are baked, they could be copied and pasted into Lockdown's externalized tracks.
One thing to be aware of though- Lockdown's externalized tracks are sort of deceptive. The data is NOT really live. Expressions don't work on those tracks, it only accepts copied and pasted keyframe tracks. (There's a longer story to why that is, but it's to make interpolation of partial tracks possible)
Cheers,
Chris
Lockdown Creator
Cheers,
Chris
Lockdown Creator
Thanks for the tips
Piotr
The JSXBIN from older versions can be deleted, and GenerateVectors and Lockdown Plugin go in the Plugins folder. The old script panel will not work, all script functions are included in the new plugin.
Lockdown 1.4 is a free update to anyone who already has a license of Lockdown, and the old previously installed license will work. The temp licenses expire May 1st for anyone who has never bought Lockdown.
Cheers,
Chris
Lockdown Creator
Cheers,
Chris
Lockdown Creator
Cheers,
Chris
Lockdown Creator
Cheers,
Chris
Lockdown Creator
I have an older project I was hoping to revisit. I think in Lockdown 1.2 (maybe).
I reopenend the file now that I have updated to 1.4 and lockdown just seems to not work. Everything is red, and I cannot see the comps it is applied to.
Anyway to resurrect this project or will I need to play around with rolling back?
Thanks.
Cheers,
Chris
Lockdown Creator
Can send the project without footage, for sure. Footage is a slightly sensitive nature so cannot share right now.
Cheers,
Chris
Lockdown Creator
Cheers,
Chris
Lockdown Creator
And find the link to fill out the form at the top of the page. I'd post the form link directly, but want to make sure to link the homepage instead, just in case that link changes. We know the home page will always be up to date.
Cheers,
Chris
Lockdown Creator
Chris
Lockdown Creator