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You advance the tracker through the shot using Play, frame forward, the period key accelerator, or middle scroll wheel (for backwards trackers, frame backward or
comma key). You supervise it, making sure it stays accurately locked on the desired image feature.
Important! SynthEyes can find the pattern only if you have configured the tracker appropriately: the search area must be large enough, and the prediction mode suitable, so that the pattern is still inside the search area. You can animate the tracker size and search size as you progress through the shot.
If a tracker goes off course, you can fix it several ways: by dragging it in the camera view, by holding down the Z key and clicking and dragging in the camera view, by dragging in the small tracker mini-view, or by using the arrow keys on the number pad. (Memo to lefties: use the apostrophe/double-quote key ‘/” instead of Z.)
You can lock SynthEyes in this "Z-Drop" mode using the Track/Lock Z-Drop on menu item. In the zdrop-lock mode, a single selected tracker will be moved to the mouse location immediately when the button is depressed. In zdrop-lock mode, if you click over a mesh, it will be ignored. You can click a different tracker to select it, or use other usual left-mouse functionality, without issue. The status line will show ZDROP- LOCK when the mouse is in the camera view.
If a tracker gets occluded or goes off the edge you should turn it off (its stoplight- like enable
) for a few frames. (See also the
Hand Animation
and
Offset Tracking techniques). When you turn it back on, SynthEyes will try to seamlessly reacquire the tracker pattern. If so, no intervention is required. If it has been too long since the tracker was last seen, SynthEyes will not look for it. You must reposition it manually by dragging in the tracker mini-view or with Z-Drop. You can adjust the number of frames until SynthEyes stops looking with the "Stay Alive" preference.
You can keep an eye on a tracker or a few trackers by turning on the Pan to Follow item on the Track menu (keyboard: 5 key), and zooming in a bit on the tracker, so you can see the surrounding context. When Pan To Follow is turned on, dragging the tracker drags the image instead, so that the tracker remains centered. See the SimulTrack view for monitoring multiple trackers simultaneously.
Also, the number-pad-5 key centers the selected tracker whenever you click it.
©2024 Boris FX, Inc. — UNOFFICIAL — Converted from original PDF.