I'm stuck at the very beginning. How can I add the track points? I've checked the View Option and it's set to Enable Layer Controls but I can't add any points. When I'm in the layer view mode, the lasso tool appears but still I can't seem to add points.
I'm using After Effects CC2019 on Windows10.
Thank you!
Adding points is done with Control Click, or Control Click and drag, so I'm assuming you've tried that and somehow the process is failing? Do you by any chance have Ae 2020 installed as well, and can try to see if there's any difference there? Can you submit a help ticket with either a collected project file, or a screen capture, or any additional information that might help us reproduce this issue? https://aescripts.com/contact/?product_id=1462
Cheers, Chris Lockdown Creator
Was this ever resolved? I am running into this same issue with 2018, 2019 and 2020 AE on a PC.
This bug should be fixed in our next release, so sorry about that. The next build should be out on Monday.
Cheers, Chris Lockdown Creator
Hi Chris,
As a workaround, I've tried breaking the shot up into smaller chunks, but I'm finding that while the dialog isn't popping up, Lockdown slows down to a crawl after about 500 frames; to the point where it really isn't usable. I have a nice fast machine with 128GB of RAM that AE is very comfortable with. Will this new release also address sluggishness with longer shots? All of the demos I've seen so far are only a few seconds long so I don't have a good sense of how well Lockdown scales to longer comps.
Update - testing 1.5 demo and still having problems with things getting slow. I'm working with 2K ProRes footage on macOS Catalina. I realize the demo videos speed things up but I'm getting long beachballs when checking the interpolate partial tracks box and the interpolated pants are not showing up. Wondering if lockdown has issues with large raster comps in macOS?
This bug should be fixed in our next release, so sorry about that. The next build should be out on Monday.
Cheers, Chris Lockdown Creator
Hi Chris,
As a workaround, I've tried breaking the shot up into smaller chunks, but I'm finding that while the dialog isn't popping up, Lockdown slows down to a crawl after about 500 frames; to the point where it really isn't usable. I have a nice fast machine with 128GB of RAM that AE is very comfortable with. Will this new release also address sluggishness with longer shots? All of the demos I've seen so far are only a few seconds long so I don't have a good sense of how well Lockdown scales to longer comps.
Update - testing 1.5 demo and still having problems with things getting slow. I'm working with 2K ProRes footage on macOS Catalina. I realize the demo videos speed things up but I'm getting long beachballs when checking the interpolate partial tracks box and the interpolated pants are not showing up. Wondering if lockdown has issues with large raster comps in macOS?
thanks!
--David
Hey, sorry about that. You can feel free to send in a help ticket and we can try to target this issue. We don't have a perfect fix for this, but now you can track a few hundred frames at a time, then after it completes, go to the end of the sequence, select all the points, and press "set to track right" then track a few hundred more frames. I'd expect "interpolate partial tracks" to go pretty slow on shots that are longer than 10 seconds. It's a long process where it considers the position of every point when tracking, to determine new positions for dead tracks. This is something we can optimize. Also, you can try to "Bake" any tracks that you're happy with, so they won't be considered the next time during the interpolation process, so everything will be faster. Baking just converts them to flat keyframes. I'm interested in seeing the kind of problems you're facing, most users are doing very short shots, and perhaps it's time we start considering long-shot optimization.
Yes. You can download the trial version to try it on mac. At aescripts.com/lockdown there is a green button in the top right of the page called "try".
Si. Puede descargar la versión de prueba para probarlo en Mac. En aescripts.com/lockdown hay un botón verde en la parte superior derecha de la página llamado "probar".
I recently purchased Lockdown (amazing!!) and now have the opportunity to use it on an upcoming project. However, before I commit I figured I'd check with the experts to determine whether I'm nuts to even attempt this.
The project consists of a couple of talking heads filmed at 1080, approx 15 mins in total. The idea is to create an illustration of each speaker's head (think Sterling Archer) and track/warp that so that we can replace the speaker's filmed head with the illustration. Doable or just nuts? One immediate concern that I can think of are blinking eyes and dealing with a closing and opening mouth.
I recently purchased Lockdown (amazing!!) and now have the opportunity to use it on an upcoming project. However, before I commit I figured I'd check with the experts to determine whether I'm nuts to even attempt this.
The project consists of a couple of talking heads filmed at 1080, approx 15 mins in total. The idea is to create an illustration of each speaker's head (think Sterling Archer) and track/warp that so that we can replace the speaker's filmed head with the illustration. Doable or just nuts? One immediate concern that I can think of are blinking eyes and dealing with a closing and opening mouth.
Your advice would be very welcome. Many thanks,
Ole
It might be possible, but would have to be extremely limited in terms of total point count. I hate to say this, but even for a 15 second shot, the sheer amount of tracking data is going to bog down After Effects. For 15 minutes worth of footage, The "Extremely Accurate" vectors would take very long to render, and their total file size on disk could be hundreds if not thousands of gigabytes. I always delete the vectors after every project and just keep the After Effects files, but it's still an insane amount of bloat to deal with and process. You probably don't want to use rendered vectors at all.
So I'd say if you were going to make this work, I'd use the After Effects Face Tracker, almost exclusively as the source for point tracking. It only kicks out a few dozen points, and quickly, so it would stay lightweight. Of course that won't look quite as good because there aren't a lot of points to define the face. I'd consider the "Extremely Accurate" vector tracking as totally non-viable, and instead use "Fast" vector tracking. I don't advertise this in any tutorials, but you actually don't need to render the Vectors before tracking. They are TECHNICALLY generated on the fly, so with the Fast vectors, you can track with them without rendering to EXR first. I would not advise this for any project except yours, which requires so much footage.
You might need to mark some key points for detail on the talent's face, so it's easier for the fast mode to track. "Extremely Accurate" will track every little detail down to the pores of the skin, provided you have enough raw camera information, and no noise. "Fast" only notices high contrast movements, so you likely want markers.
The project is doable, but it would definitely be an absurd amount of manual effort, not just in tracking, but also in breaking up your projects into separate shots. Feel free to send in a help ticket if you want to talk more, send in a test shot, etc...
Just bought Composite Brush and Lockdown after trying them while they were free do to pandemic. I love Composite Brush. Tried my first Lockdown job today and I cannot figure out what I'm doing wrong. I'm well versed in AE and compositing in general. I'm doing some retouching similar to a beauty cleanup. Followed all instructions, created linked vectors (preserved RGB), point cloud worked well, mesh auto triangulate works well, locked down easily. Checkerboard shows a good track. I used the clone tool on the appropriate layer in the stabilized precomp, and viewing it within the precomp, it's doing exactly what I think it should do, across the whole precomp. When I go back to my main comp, I cannot get the clone layer to show. I've tried adding text in the stabilized pre-comp, and that works fine in the main comp. The checkerboard layer works fine in the main comp. Is there something I'm missing?
I'm on Apple MBP 2016, 16GB RAM, OSX 10.15.2, AE 2020, Lockdown 1.5.3
I can send a zipped project folder if that's useful, but didn't want to post here.
Would really appreciate your help. I have 2 shots due EOD Monday. I have other methods to use, but really want to go with this one.
Just bought Composite Brush and Lockdown after trying them while they were free do to pandemic. I love Composite Brush. Tried my first Lockdown job today and I cannot figure out what I'm doing wrong. I'm well versed in AE and compositing in general. I'm doing some retouching similar to a beauty cleanup. Followed all instructions, created linked vectors (preserved RGB), point cloud worked well, mesh auto triangulate works well, locked down easily. Checkerboard shows a good track. I used the clone tool on the appropriate layer in the stabilized precomp, and viewing it within the precomp, it's doing exactly what I think it should do, across the whole precomp. When I go back to my main comp, I cannot get the clone layer to show. I've tried adding text in the stabilized pre-comp, and that works fine in the main comp. The checkerboard layer works fine in the main comp. Is there something I'm missing?
I'm on Apple MBP 2016, 16GB RAM, OSX 10.15.2, AE 2020, Lockdown 1.5.3
I can send a zipped project folder if that's useful, but didn't want to post here.
Would really appreciate your help. I have 2 shots due EOD Monday. I have other methods to use, but really want to go with this one.
Thanks in advance Chris.
best,
Chris Blankenship | ProductionFor
Can you double check that the layer you painted on is not a guide layer? It defaults to a guide layer now because most users were not actually doing paint work on the stabilized. Feel free to send whatever projects in through a help ticket!
Just bought Composite Brush and Lockdown after trying them while they were free do to pandemic. I love Composite Brush. Tried my first Lockdown job today and I cannot figure out what I'm doing wrong. I'm well versed in AE and compositing in general. I'm doing some retouching similar to a beauty cleanup. Followed all instructions, created linked vectors (preserved RGB), point cloud worked well, mesh auto triangulate works well, locked down easily. Checkerboard shows a good track. I used the clone tool on the appropriate layer in the stabilized precomp, and viewing it within the precomp, it's doing exactly what I think it should do, across the whole precomp. When I go back to my main comp, I cannot get the clone layer to show. I've tried adding text in the stabilized pre-comp, and that works fine in the main comp. The checkerboard layer works fine in the main comp. Is there something I'm missing?
I'm on Apple MBP 2016, 16GB RAM, OSX 10.15.2, AE 2020, Lockdown 1.5.3
I can send a zipped project folder if that's useful, but didn't want to post here.
Would really appreciate your help. I have 2 shots due EOD Monday. I have other methods to use, but really want to go with this one.
Thanks in advance Chris.
best,
Chris Blankenship | ProductionFor
Can you double check that the layer you painted on is not a guide layer? It defaults to a guide layer now because most users were not actually doing paint work on the stabilized. Feel free to send whatever projects in through a help ticket!
Cheers, Chris Lockdown Creator
That was absolutely it - guide layer was enabled. Simple fix for an elegant tool. Thanks Chris. Really happy with this, and sharing the link with friends.
Just bought Composite Brush and Lockdown after trying them while they were free do to pandemic. I love Composite Brush. Tried my first Lockdown job today and I cannot figure out what I'm doing wrong. I'm well versed in AE and compositing in general. I'm doing some retouching similar to a beauty cleanup. Followed all instructions, created linked vectors (preserved RGB), point cloud worked well, mesh auto triangulate works well, locked down easily. Checkerboard shows a good track. I used the clone tool on the appropriate layer in the stabilized precomp, and viewing it within the precomp, it's doing exactly what I think it should do, across the whole precomp. When I go back to my main comp, I cannot get the clone layer to show. I've tried adding text in the stabilized pre-comp, and that works fine in the main comp. The checkerboard layer works fine in the main comp. Is there something I'm missing?
I'm on Apple MBP 2016, 16GB RAM, OSX 10.15.2, AE 2020, Lockdown 1.5.3
I can send a zipped project folder if that's useful, but didn't want to post here.
Would really appreciate your help. I have 2 shots due EOD Monday. I have other methods to use, but really want to go with this one.
Thanks in advance Chris.
best,
Chris Blankenship | ProductionFor
Can you double check that the layer you painted on is not a guide layer? It defaults to a guide layer now because most users were not actually doing paint work on the stabilized. Feel free to send whatever projects in through a help ticket!
Cheers, Chris Lockdown Creator
That was absolutely it - guide layer was enabled. Simple fix for an elegant tool. Thanks Chris. Really happy with this, and sharing the link with friends.
I recently purchased Lockdown (amazing!!) and now have the opportunity to use it on an upcoming project. However, before I commit I figured I'd check with the experts to determine whether I'm nuts to even attempt this.
The project consists of a couple of talking heads filmed at 1080, approx 15 mins in total. The idea is to create an illustration of each speaker's head (think Sterling Archer) and track/warp that so that we can replace the speaker's filmed head with the illustration. Doable or just nuts? One immediate concern that I can think of are blinking eyes and dealing with a closing and opening mouth.
Your advice would be very welcome. Many thanks,
Ole
It might be possible, but would have to be extremely limited in terms of total point count. I hate to say this, but even for a 15 second shot, the sheer amount of tracking data is going to bog down After Effects. For 15 minutes worth of footage, The "Extremely Accurate" vectors would take very long to render, and their total file size on disk could be hundreds if not thousands of gigabytes. I always delete the vectors after every project and just keep the After Effects files, but it's still an insane amount of bloat to deal with and process. You probably don't want to use rendered vectors at all.
So I'd say if you were going to make this work, I'd use the After Effects Face Tracker, almost exclusively as the source for point tracking. It only kicks out a few dozen points, and quickly, so it would stay lightweight. Of course that won't look quite as good because there aren't a lot of points to define the face. I'd consider the "Extremely Accurate" vector tracking as totally non-viable, and instead use "Fast" vector tracking. I don't advertise this in any tutorials, but you actually don't need to render the Vectors before tracking. They are TECHNICALLY generated on the fly, so with the Fast vectors, you can track with them without rendering to EXR first. I would not advise this for any project except yours, which requires so much footage.
You might need to mark some key points for detail on the talent's face, so it's easier for the fast mode to track. "Extremely Accurate" will track every little detail down to the pores of the skin, provided you have enough raw camera information, and no noise. "Fast" only notices high contrast movements, so you likely want markers.
The project is doable, but it would definitely be an absurd amount of manual effort, not just in tracking, but also in breaking up your projects into separate shots. Feel free to send in a help ticket if you want to talk more, send in a test shot, etc...
Cheers, Chris Lockdown Creator
Hi Chris, thanks a stack for that detailed feedback. I'm going to take your advice but look forward to using Lockdown on a more suitable project. Thanks again.
I have a question about the EXR pass method for tracking. Plugins works fine, but i can't manage to get the EXR pass working properly...When i set up the "full vector setup", the EXR render queue is working. My EXR pass seems to render OK. But...when the setup is over, the EXR layer is automaticalky added, i check the "Preserv RGB" but nothing tracks : the EXR seems really to be a full blank image (even when trying to add contrast or something to see something up) and tracking doesn't seem to work.
I mus add that usual track works pretty well...but i want to use the EXR pass ! I do not understand what's going on, maybe i'm doing something wrong but i just followed tutorials and i can't get what's wrong.
I have a question about the EXR pass method for tracking. Plugins works fine, but i can't manage to get the EXR pass working properly...When i set up the "full vector setup", the EXR render queue is working. My EXR pass seems to render OK. But...when the setup is over, the EXR layer is automaticalky added, i check the "Preserv RGB" but nothing tracks : the EXR seems really to be a full blank image (even when trying to add contrast or something to see something up) and tracking doesn't seem to work.
I mus add that usual track works pretty well...but i want to use the EXR pass ! I do not understand what's going on, maybe i'm doing something wrong but i just followed tutorials and i can't get what's wrong.
Can you see ? THanks for your help !
This has become our most common issue, and we need to simplify this EXR setup. Please take a look at this video that shows all the places an EXR pass can go wrong:
Bit Depth and Composition Background color are the two most common issues. It sounds like your issue must be bit depth, because you should be seeing lots of detail in that EXR pass. Please try to re-render using just 5-10 frames to get it up and working quickly!
As i see, lockdown only CPU. My GPU (eGPU) is not running at all. Could you please let the lockdown prefer to use GPU to track?
When we started building Lockdown, it was 100% CPU, because that's by far the easiest code to get working on all machines. We've been steadily adding more and more processes to run on the GPU, but it's taking time because there are many types of GPU out there, and not all GPU code works on all GPUs, and we have to support and test for each. Our goal is make Lockdown as fast as possible for the majority of computers, but it's not like there's an easy way to split tasks to use both CPU And GPU at the same time, because each piece of hardware requires specific code written for it.
I am working on the trial but at this moment I dont see a chance of buying this plugin since it is not working for me!
I am using 2160p50 footage (tried different codecs) and want to use the Extremely Accurate Connected Vectors method on it like explained in this tutorial:
I am working on the trial but at this moment I dont see a chance of buying this plugin since it is not working for me!
I am using 2160p50 footage (tried different codecs) and want to use the Extremely Accurate Connected Vectors method on it like explained in this tutorial:
We don't support After Effects 2018. I'm not sure if that's the problem, but I would definitely recommend trying with 2020. If you could collect/send a project file I'd be glad to take a look, or you could just send the footage and I can do a screen capture to show the process start to finish. I'm sure I can get it to work. I don't think anyone has ever sent in a project file and I haven't managed to get it tracking. (Except that one time someone sent in an 8k shot, and our frame buffer literally didn't allow that many pixels. But we patched that bug fairly quickly!!)
I am working on the trial but at this moment I dont see a chance of buying this plugin since it is not working for me!
I am using 2160p50 footage (tried different codecs) and want to use the Extremely Accurate Connected Vectors method on it like explained in this tutorial:
We don't support After Effects 2018. I'm not sure if that's the problem, but I would definitely recommend trying with 2020. If you could collect/send a project file I'd be glad to take a look, or you could just send the footage and I can do a screen capture to show the process start to finish. I'm sure I can get it to work. I don't think anyone has ever sent in a project file and I haven't managed to get it tracking. (Except that one time someone sent in an 8k shot, and our frame buffer literally didn't allow that many pixels. But we patched that bug fairly quickly!!)
Cheers, Chris Lockdown Creator
Wow! Thanks for the fast and detailed reply! 2018 it is then I guess! I am trying it on 2020 on my laptop before bothering you with sending the project to you! If it works I will have to update my desktop. But I have some pretty bad exeperience with up-to-date Adobe software. Always full of bugs. I hope they did better with 2020 Thank you so much!!!
I am working on the trial but at this moment I dont see a chance of buying this plugin since it is not working for me!
I am using 2160p50 footage (tried different codecs) and want to use the Extremely Accurate Connected Vectors method on it like explained in this tutorial:
We don't support After Effects 2018. I'm not sure if that's the problem, but I would definitely recommend trying with 2020. If you could collect/send a project file I'd be glad to take a look, or you could just send the footage and I can do a screen capture to show the process start to finish. I'm sure I can get it to work. I don't think anyone has ever sent in a project file and I haven't managed to get it tracking. (Except that one time someone sent in an 8k shot, and our frame buffer literally didn't allow that many pixels. But we patched that bug fairly quickly!!)
Cheers, Chris Lockdown Creator
It works just amazing in CC 2020! What a great Plug-In! I will buy it tomorrow! Keep up the great work, thanks a lot! :-)
hi, I'm having the issue that, after rendering vector if I click the track points suddenly AE goes to not responding and after some time it pops us the box telling "Lockdown must remain selected while tracking points and view enable layers must be on at all the time while interesting with lockdown". when I see in view option it's already enabled. but this issue is not in tracking where the accurate is selected. pls help me to solve this
hi, I'm having the issue that, after rendering vector if I click the track points suddenly AE goes to not responding and after some time it pops us the box telling "Lockdown must remain selected while tracking points and view enable layers must be on at all the time while interesting with lockdown". when I see in view option it's already enabled. but this issue is not in tracking where the accurate is selected. pls help me to solve this
That being said, make sure you update to the latest version, we fixed a few issues where that error message would pop up more often than it should. The Plug-in shouldn't go non-responsive when you try to track using Vectors. It's a very light and fast process. Are you sure you rendered the vectors as an EXR pass, and they successfully replaced the composition they were rendered from? If you try to track using the live Generate Vectors Composition (Without rendering the EXR pass), that would explain the long delays, because each frame might take 10-20 seconds to render before the points can be pushed along. It might also explain the error message, because that error message is partially linked to a timeout which may indicate the UI processes aren't functioning. A screen capture or project file would help, submitted through a help ticket. Also, I'm not sure what you mean with your last comment about accurate being selected. The tracking mode needs to be "Connected Vectors" when tracking with an EXR pass.
Chris, I have a strange issue. I purchased the plugin, and was quickly able to use it to create the desired effect.. HOWEVER. Although all the precomps and comps look good when I preview the video, when I render the file, it is as if the plugin was never used. In this instance I am covering up an item on a rooftop. Both Media Encoder and the internal render queue will disregard the effect a if it is a Guide layer (It is not).
Any tips on taking a 15 sec mp4 and reducing the 6hr long EXR pass render?
You could try rendering in the "Fast" mode for the vectors if the motion is not very complex. "Extremely Accurate" is extremely slow, but I've found it's typically a huge time saver despite that. It's usually a good idea to try "Fast", but if the points just aren't tracking well, you'll usually save time just waiting for "Extremely Accurate", rather than trying to manually track the issues in "fast". Sorry there isn't really a solution, we are working on it though. 6hrs seems a little slow for a shot at 1080, I'm usually hitting around 2hrs for a 15 second shot. Maybe cropping to the necessary area could save some time?
Hi, I have a problem with the new version. Sometimes I get the alert: "Unable to execute at line 181. null is not an object"
How can I solve the problem. I work with AE 2020. Thank you!
You should send in a help ticket, and let us know what button you're pressing to get this error, and any other info about your machine, After Effects install, and version of Lockdown.
Chris, if I use Media Encoder to render Linked Vectors am I SOL?
Without testing to confirm, I'm gonna say probably. Motion vectors are extremely heavy, and Media Encoder does not like heavy effects. Also, I don't even know if our Plug-ins render in Media Encoder, I've had reports that they don't, and admittedly it has fallen onto the back burner. If you just need to render in the background, launch a second instance of After Effects. On Windows, you just create an Ae shortcut, and reset the target to :"C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects 2020\Support Files\AfterFX.exe" -m I believe it also works on Mac!
I have a project with a very difficult track, is it possible to use this just as a tracker?
Yes, you can select up to 4 points, and press "Externalize selected points". They will be revealed as keyframes at the bottom of the effect, and you can do with them whatever you like. If you need to take two, and convert the two points to position/rotation/scale 2d track data, you can paste them into the built in Ae motion tracker, then export the normal way to another null. Or you can paste them into a cc power pin if you're attempting to do a planar track.
Please see link for question regarding "Internal Keyframe Time Ref".
Thanks Boss!!!
I guess I can't imagine why you'd want to move that keyframe? Is it just that you want the whole layer to be moved around?
Moving that keyframe is likely to cause absolute chaos. When you track, I think it's either just before, or just after the tracking process is finished, that keyframe is placed at your layer's in point. All of the internalized tracking points are given an additional hidden value that says how far, or how close their in point is to that "Internal Keyframe time reference" in time. So by moving that point, then purging the memory, or re-opening After Effects, all the internal keyframes are going to look to it's new position in time, and move accordingly. So if you move it 10 frames forward, it's going to move all tracking points 10 frames forward. This point is automatically placed and managed by the Plugin every time you track. So I with that preface, why are you trying to move it? Do you just need to slide the layer and animation forward? If you let me know what you're trying to do, I'll likely be able to figure something out.
How do you go about quickly creating duplicate lockdown comps in the same pre-composed layer that you first create? I'd like to have multiple blend effects on the same background comp.
How do you go about quickly creating duplicate lockdown comps in the same pre-composed layer that you first create? I'd like to have multiple blend effects on the same background comp.
can the generated vector render be used in other effect/plugins, other than lockdown? like some of the re-vision plugins or motion blur effects which utilise motion vectors
can the generated vector render be used in other effect/plugins, other than lockdown? like some of the re-vision plugins or motion blur effects which utilise motion vectors
Probably not, because we all use different formats and scale factors. I'd bet you could find a way to convert, but you'd have to know a lot of specifics about each.
can the generated vector render be used in other effect/plugins, other than lockdown? like some of the re-vision plugins or motion blur effects which utilise motion vectors
Probably not, because we all use different formats and scale factors. I'd bet you could find a way to convert, but you'd have to know a lot of specifics about each.
Cheers, Chris
The standard motion vector format is pretty simple (https://revisionfx.com/faq/motion_vector/) and people that need it, are probably figuring out the format/scales even when you just output the raw data. Would be highly interesting for TDs!
Is there a way to mask out sections of an image to not be tracked?
For example, I have a closeup of a guy's foot in a very liquid-y mud (which is actually covered by a kind of soil or mulch and actually gives it a very trackable texture).
He's yanking his foot around which creates these waves in the water/mud. I'd love to map something onto the whole ground plane, but his foot moving (fairly erratically) kinda makes it hard. I've masked it out, but Lockdown is trying to track the edges of the masked and non masked areas.
I can DM a loom screen recording if that'd help!
edit: sorry I should probably be clearer. But is there a way for lockdown to treat a mask sort of like Mocha does for top layer masks? As an exclusion layer?
Is there a way to mask out sections of an image to not be tracked?
For example, I have a closeup of a guy's foot in a very liquid-y mud (which is actually covered by a kind of soil or mulch and actually gives it a very trackable texture).
He's yanking his foot around which creates these waves in the water/mud. I'd love to map something onto the whole ground plane, but his foot moving (fairly erratically) kinda makes it hard. I've masked it out, but Lockdown is trying to track the edges of the masked and non masked areas.
I can DM a loom screen recording if that'd help!
edit: sorry I should probably be clearer. But is there a way for lockdown to treat a mask sort of like Mocha does for top layer masks? As an exclusion layer?
Lockdown doesn't see masks, you're better off not having them. We are working on features to allow mask input, but at the moment that's not available. I'd recommend manually supervising each point, and when it's interrupted by the wrong motion, go to the last frame where it was correct, and delete keyframes forward, so it's not influenced by the incorrect motion. As you go through, edit each keyframe track so it has no keyframes that follow the wrong object, then use "interpolate partial tracks" after. Sorry about the masks, we know that's an important feature and it's coming eventually.
apologies if this was answered previously. just purchased Lockdown. loving it. Is there a way to render the mesh? simulating a "facial recogniton" scenario and would love to use the generated mesh from lockdown as the actual graphic.
apologies if this was answered previously. just purchased Lockdown. loving it. Is there a way to render the mesh? simulating a "facial recogniton" scenario and would love to use the generated mesh from lockdown as the actual graphic.
Yep! Put a distort/transform effect above Lockdown in the effects chain, then set the opacity to 0% on that effect. It'll just render the mesh.
apologies if this was answered previously. just purchased Lockdown. loving it. Is there a way to render the mesh? simulating a "facial recogniton" scenario and would love to use the generated mesh from lockdown as the actual graphic.
Yep! Put a distort/transform effect above Lockdown in the effects chain, then set the opacity to 0% on that effect. It'll just render the mesh.
Hi Chris, sorry, i guess i wasn't following correctly. Where and which iteration of Lockdown do I apply the distort transform (in which precomp) to get the mesh to render. cheers.
apologies if this was answered previously. just purchased Lockdown. loving it. Is there a way to render the mesh? simulating a "facial recogniton" scenario and would love to use the generated mesh from lockdown as the actual graphic.
Yep! Put a distort/transform effect above Lockdown in the effects chain, then set the opacity to 0% on that effect. It'll just render the mesh.
apologies if this was answered previously. just purchased Lockdown. loving it. Is there a way to render the mesh? simulating a "facial recogniton" scenario and would love to use the generated mesh from lockdown as the actual graphic.
Yep! Put a distort/transform effect above Lockdown in the effects chain, then set the opacity to 0% on that effect. It'll just render the mesh.
apologies if this was answered previously. just purchased Lockdown. loving it. Is there a way to render the mesh? simulating a "facial recogniton" scenario and would love to use the generated mesh from lockdown as the actual graphic.
Yep! Put a distort/transform effect above Lockdown in the effects chain, then set the opacity to 0% on that effect. It'll just render the mesh.
Hi Chris, sorry, i guess i wasn't following correctly. Where and which iteration of Lockdown do I apply the distort transform (in which precomp) to get the mesh to render. cheers.
apologies if this was answered previously. just purchased Lockdown. loving it. Is there a way to render the mesh? simulating a "facial recogniton" scenario and would love to use the generated mesh from lockdown as the actual graphic.
Yep! Put a distort/transform effect above Lockdown in the effects chain, then set the opacity to 0% on that effect. It'll just render the mesh.
apologies if this was answered previously. just purchased Lockdown. loving it. Is there a way to render the mesh? simulating a "facial recogniton" scenario and would love to use the generated mesh from lockdown as the actual graphic.
Yep! Put a distort/transform effect above Lockdown in the effects chain, then set the opacity to 0% on that effect. It'll just render the mesh.
apologies if this was answered previously. just purchased Lockdown. loving it. Is there a way to render the mesh? simulating a "facial recogniton" scenario and would love to use the generated mesh from lockdown as the actual graphic.
Yep! Put a distort/transform effect above Lockdown in the effects chain, then set the opacity to 0% on that effect. It'll just render the mesh.
Cheers, Chris Lockdown Creator
Here are two ways to do it! I'll delete this tutorial eventually by the way, this is just an unofficial quick recording.
Cheers,
Chris
Lockdown Creator
Si. Puede descargar la versión de prueba para probarlo en Mac. En aescripts.com/lockdown hay un botón verde en la parte superior derecha de la página llamado "probar".
Cheers,
Chris
Lockdown Creator
So I'd say if you were going to make this work, I'd use the After Effects Face Tracker, almost exclusively as the source for point tracking. It only kicks out a few dozen points, and quickly, so it would stay lightweight. Of course that won't look quite as good because there aren't a lot of points to define the face. I'd consider the "Extremely Accurate" vector tracking as totally non-viable, and instead use "Fast" vector tracking. I don't advertise this in any tutorials, but you actually don't need to render the Vectors before tracking. They are TECHNICALLY generated on the fly, so with the Fast vectors, you can track with them without rendering to EXR first. I would not advise this for any project except yours, which requires so much footage.
You might need to mark some key points for detail on the talent's face, so it's easier for the fast mode to track. "Extremely Accurate" will track every little detail down to the pores of the skin, provided you have enough raw camera information, and no noise. "Fast" only notices high contrast movements, so you likely want markers.
The project is doable, but it would definitely be an absurd amount of manual effort, not just in tracking, but also in breaking up your projects into separate shots. Feel free to send in a help ticket if you want to talk more, send in a test shot, etc...
Cheers,
Chris
Lockdown Creator
Cheers,
Chris
Lockdown Creator
Cheers,
Chris
Lockdown Creator
Bit Depth and Composition Background color are the two most common issues. It sounds like your issue must be bit depth, because you should be seeing lots of detail in that EXR pass. Please try to re-render using just 5-10 frames to get it up and working quickly!
Chris
Lockdown Creator
Chris
Lockdown Creator
I am using 2160p50 footage (tried different codecs) and want to use the Extremely Accurate Connected Vectors method on it like explained in this tutorial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=108&v=IxBDEIwyuX8&feature=emb_logo
Everytime I get to the point "Press to track points" just NOTHING happens.
I have also been through that troubleshooting video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Uc-bErEwUg
I am using After Effects 2018 on Windows 10.
Thanks and cheers,
David
Cheers,
Chris
Lockdown Creator
That being said, make sure you update to the latest version, we fixed a few issues where that error message would pop up more often than it should. The Plug-in shouldn't go non-responsive when you try to track using Vectors. It's a very light and fast process. Are you sure you rendered the vectors as an EXR pass, and they successfully replaced the composition they were rendered from? If you try to track using the live Generate Vectors Composition (Without rendering the EXR pass), that would explain the long delays, because each frame might take 10-20 seconds to render before the points can be pushed along. It might also explain the error message, because that error message is partially linked to a timeout which may indicate the UI processes aren't functioning. A screen capture or project file would help, submitted through a help ticket. Also, I'm not sure what you mean with your last comment about accurate being selected. The tracking mode needs to be "Connected Vectors" when tracking with an EXR pass.
Cheers,
Chris
Lockdown Creator
Cheers,
Chris
Lockdown Creator
I have a strange issue. I purchased the plugin, and was quickly able to use it to create the desired effect.. HOWEVER. Although all the precomps and comps look good when I preview the video, when I render the file, it is as if the plugin was never used. In this instance I am covering up an item on a rooftop. Both Media Encoder and the internal render queue will disregard the effect a if it is a Guide layer (It is not).
"Extremely Accurate" is extremely slow, but I've found it's typically a huge time saver despite that. It's usually a good idea to try "Fast", but if the points just aren't tracking well, you'll usually save time just waiting for "Extremely Accurate", rather than trying to manually track the issues in "fast". Sorry there isn't really a solution, we are working on it though. 6hrs seems a little slow for a shot at 1080, I'm usually hitting around 2hrs for a 15 second shot. Maybe cropping to the necessary area could save some time?
Chris
Lockdown Creator
Chris
Lockdown Creator
If you just need to render in the background, launch a second instance of After Effects. On Windows, you just create an Ae shortcut, and reset the target to :"C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects 2020\Support Files\AfterFX.exe" -m
I believe it also works on Mac!
Cheers,
Chris
Lockdown Creator
Cheers,
Chris
Lockdown Creator
Moving that keyframe is likely to cause absolute chaos. When you track, I think it's either just before, or just after the tracking process is finished, that keyframe is placed at your layer's in point. All of the internalized tracking points are given an additional hidden value that says how far, or how close their in point is to that "Internal Keyframe time reference" in time. So by moving that point, then purging the memory, or re-opening After Effects, all the internal keyframes are going to look to it's new position in time, and move accordingly. So if you move it 10 frames forward, it's going to move all tracking points 10 frames forward. This point is automatically placed and managed by the Plugin every time you track. So I with that preface, why are you trying to move it? Do you just need to slide the layer and animation forward? If you let me know what you're trying to do, I'll likely be able to figure something out.
Cheers,
Chris
Lockdown Creator
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6tox1v6cn938ogi/MultipleTransferModes.mp4?dl=0
(This tutorial will likely be deleted in a few months, I will hopefully make an official one for Youtube before then)
Cheers,
Chris
Lockdown Creator
like some of the re-vision plugins or motion blur effects which utilise motion vectors
Cheers,
Chris
For example, I have a closeup of a guy's foot in a very liquid-y mud (which is actually covered by a kind of soil or mulch and actually gives it a very trackable texture).
He's yanking his foot around which creates these waves in the water/mud. I'd love to map something onto the whole ground plane, but his foot moving (fairly erratically) kinda makes it hard. I've masked it out, but Lockdown is trying to track the edges of the masked and non masked areas.
I can DM a loom screen recording if that'd help!
edit: sorry I should probably be clearer. But is there a way for lockdown to treat a mask sort of like Mocha does for top layer masks? As an exclusion layer?
Cheers,
Chris
Lockdown Creator
Cheers,
Chris
Lockdown Creator
https://www.dropbox.com/s/g0d05lpltgexmza/2020-09-18 19-44-55.mp4?dl=0