After Effects 3D Camera Tracker Points Not Sticking

[davidw41433976]

Hi all, I've only had this problem since last night and with this particular piece of footage. I have the tracker analyze the scene and it will give me fantastic track points to track things in the scene, however when I right-click and select "Create null and Camera" it creates the null and camera just fine but the null isn't sticking to the spot of the 3 points I track it floats in the same spot as if nothing is tracked. I've tried doing it to the footage in a pre-comp because I've heard that trick works sometimes, I've opened a new project file, trimmed the file differently and created a new comp, updated/reinstalled graphics driver, nothing has fixed this issue. Any help would be greatly appreciated! I uploaded a video of the issue in action for your convenience.

I have Windows 10
After Effects CC 2017 Version 14.1.0.57

System SKU	Alienware Area-51 R2
Processor	Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5820K CPU @ 3.30GHz, 3301 Mhz, 6 Core(s), 12 Logical Processor(s)
Graphics	NVIDIA GTX 980
Memory	Total installed physical memory 32gb

[Rick Gerard]

First, not all footage will track. Second, your target is awfully big I can't see if you have changes any of the settings in the Camera Tracker. This makes me think you did not get a good track. Third, you should always set an origin and ground plane. Last point, it looks like your footage comes from a very wide angle lens. Lens distortion on the edges can throw a track way off. Personally I would nave never chosen a couple of points from the white line and then one way down the road. If this was my clip I would probably apply some lens correction first, then some color grading to bring up the mid tones, then pre-compose and Camera Track the pre-comp. A better image will give you better results. If you are successful you can then accept the camera and replace the pre-comp with the original footage. Once you get a good Camera Track you can delete the effect, which will greatly reduce the size of your comp and make it more stable.

I hope this helps.

[davidw41433976]

I tried some of your suggestions with no success, though I could just totally not be grading anything right. On the not all footage will track matter, no not all will of course. In my experience the footage that wont track would not even display tracking points for me, which to me means this is tracking it but for whatever reason the nulls aren't sticking. That clip is a snip-it of a much longer clip that a few seconds earlier on tracked just fine, but for whatever reason that stoplight area isn't having the nulls stick, which is very odd to me. An earlier version of After Effects has the same problem which I tested tonight. I haven't messed with any settings at all in the camera tracker as I have been worried about messing it up until I become even more proficient in it.

[Rick Gerard]

I think your biggest problem is the technique. First, the shot is from a very wide angle lens and that's going to give you a lot of edge distortion. Second, you let Camera Tracker pick the target automatically instead of carefully selecting points that may be on the same plane. Third, you did not set an origin and ground plane. Fourth, the first thing you did was create a null and camera then you did not use the null for anything. You also did not do a detailed analysis of the camera move.

Check the zoom value on the camera that was created. I'm guessing that it was a very wide lens. Check the comp using 4 views so you can see how the camera is placed and moving with the null and the solid. Add several more solids to the scene by selecting just 3 points manually and see if they can form some kind of surface that matches the road.

What happens if you hold down the shift key and parent the solid to the null so that it moves to the same position as the null? If I had access to the footage I would like to give it a try. I think the combination of a wide angle lens with edge distortion and the lack of detailed analysis is giving you a poor camera solution.

[davidw41433976]

I'll certainly give your suggestions a go and give it a try. If you would like access to it to try yourself, please by all means! Let me know how I may send it. Gonna try your suggestions right now.

[davidw41433976]

I was playing around with different footage that previously tracked correctly, but now it suddenly has the same problem. I'm wondering if something in the program itself has gone wrong?