Tracking and obscuring layers

[Sophie Wardle]

Hi guys, I have a footage that I need to overlay a vinyl layer onto the Vinyl Record.

The hands will come in and place the vinyl thus blocking a little bit of the label, the label moves as well.

I don't have much experience in tracking and obscuring. I have a rough idea on what to do but what I have in mind is a long and windy process of masking and 3d positioning frame by frame.

Just wondering if anyone has a better or faster suggestion to place the vinyl label onto the vinyl with the interfering hand.

Vinyl Label Sample

Shot starts with a hand placing vinyl down

Goes into the full shot of the vinyl

Thanks for your help in advanced!

Shmay x

[Rick Gerard · Accepted solution]

I would probably use Mocha to track the record and maybe even roto the hands. You'll need to end up with at least 3 layers, hands on top, your new label, and the original footage. This is not going to be that easy but adapting this technique for advanced corner pin tracking would allow you to create a frozen version of the disk that could have the label attached (as I did the video) and then animated as the record starts to spin. Without actually seeing the shot I think this would be the most efficient of about 40 different solutions to the compositing problem.

[Sophie Wardle]

Thank you for the reply Rick!

I just managed to try out what you suggested it worked perfectly well for the hand. I was just wondering do you have a way to track planar surface more effectively, because the vinyl is lifted at, the surface for the label changes a bit. I've been searching around for an effective way to track the surface so the perspective changes as the vinyl shifted but I haven't come up with much.

Here is what stumped me:

The label isn't tracking to the white sticker in the middle as effectively.

Hope you might be able to help! Thanks again Rick!

[Rick Gerard]

You cannot always rely on tracking tools to do everything for you. Sometimes you have to do some of it by hand. I would try and track as much of the record as I could and not just the label. You can create a track for the hand and put that above the splines you draw around the record to keep the hand from fouling up the track, but you will probably still have to do some of it by hand.

When you come up with an idea like this it's a good idea to carefully plan the shot with the label replacement in mind. That way you can get a shot that is easier to track. This is why you hire a visual effects supervisor and have planning meetings.

If you can provide a link to the video so I can see exactly what you are dealing with I may be able to give you better instructions.

[Sophie Wardle]

Hello Rick,

Thank you for the reply again.

I tracked the entire record for a bit and I did adjust it manually for about 20 frames by hand but I was just wondering if there is a way around it in case I'm doing it wrong (I could also learn a thing or two from pros like you ) 

Here is a link to the video: Private video on Vimeo

Password: vinyl1

When I tracked the entire record then paste the keyframe to AE, my label/planar surface seemed to have gotten scaled and occasionally rotate the wrong direction, which makes me think am I doing it wrong?

I'll keep your advice on planning the shot in mind for the future!

Thanks again!