Instructions for using Mocha AE for motion tracking

Mocha AE helps users track movement when editing videos easily. Here's how to use Mocha AE .

Mocha AE is a plug-in software within Adobe After Effects that allows users advanced motion tracking. Mocha AE allows you to track a moving target within a video frame.

This function has many uses, from removing objects in videos to adding motion, graphics, and text. This article will show you how to track motion with Mocha AE for beginners .

Instructions for using Mocha AE

Mocha AE is an Adobe product and is built into After Effects. Once you've uploaded the footage to After Effects, select the clip you want to track and click Animation , then Track in Boris FX Mocha .

This will place the Mocha interface in the Effect Controls window , which is located on the left side of the screen by default. Click the Mocha button to open the tracking application.

A new window will appear. This is the main workspace for the Mocha AE plugin. This interface is quite simple. You have a timeline and a viewer, a series of layers to track each object in the image, and a set of tracking tools on top.

Blur a moving object

One of the most common problems with a video editor is the ability to detect: faces, name tags, content that needs to be hidden for legal or ethical reasons. Motion tracking and blurring are effective ways to remove them from videos.

This example will blur an individual's face in the photo. You can blur photos in Photoshop, but in video, blurring faces is a bit more difficult.

First, upload your video footage to the software, use the Mocha AE plugin, and upload your work to your main workspace.

Focus on the face of the man in the blue jacket in the front of the frame. Click the X-Spline Pen tool . Click to create points, draw a shape on the man's face, making sure to connect the first and last points.

Now it's time to track the face. At the bottom of the right window, you'll see a set of motion tracking options. Click the T - Track button and Mocha will go through each frame, automatically tracking the image in the image you draw.

You don't necessarily need to incorporate head rotation to blur the face. The Track Motion buttons on the lower left side allow you to select the parameters that the software needs to track, including: Transform , Scale , Rotation , Skew , Perspective . Enabling and disabling them will allow you to adjust the tracking as desired.

If you're still not satisfied, you can adjust the track yourself using Keyframes .

If you want to adjust the tracking shape somewhere, the Keyframe icon located between the left and right keyframe buttons in the viewer supports adding or reducing keyframes so you have more control.

Once satisfied with the result, simply close the Mocha AE window. In After Effects , return to the Mocha AE plugin in the Effect Controls panel of the selected clip.

Navigate to the Matte drop-down box. You have a variety of options depending on your workflow. You can click the Apply Matte box to isolate the tracked image or click Create AE Masks to convert the motion tracking into an After Effects overlay to enhance the work.

In this case, the clip with the tracking overlay is placed over the original by checking the Apply Matte box . The blur effect will be applied to the face.

Copy tracking data into text

This allows you to achieve cool effects with text and graphics that make them part of the action.

In the example below, the camera movement will be tracked, then applied to a new text layer.

After uploading your scene, open the Mocha AE interface. Now it's time to choose a spot to watch. The article focuses on a large gray building at the bottom right of the photo's center.

Again, use the Pen X-Spline tool to draw around the building and track movement, closing the Mocha AE plugin once finished.

This time, in the Mocha AE plugin in the Effect Controls panel, you will reach the drop-down box - Tracking Data .

Click Create Track Data to convert motion tracking into data that can be applied to other objects. A popup box will appear, make sure the wheel icon is enabled for the clip layer and click OK .

With the tracking data created, you will now see the tracking keyframes turn blue in the tracking data list. Everything else is used to apply to other objects.

Create a text layer in the work. Back in the plugin, you will see two fields Export Option and Layer Export To . That's how tracking data and their location apply.

You have the choice of using the data as Corner Pin or Transform . The article uses Corner Pin to pin the text layer to the corners of the motion tracking image.

Select the text layer from the drop-down box next to Layer Export To and click Apply Export . Text will now flow inline with the camera as if it were part of the scene.

Above are basic instructions for using the Mocha AE plugin in After Effects . Hope the article is useful to you.