Cineversity

Hello!

I’ve got a very simple single manual 2D track point that I’ve linked a null to. The object being tracked is a little jittery – wondering if there’s a way to smooth the resulting track. Any help is appreciated. Thank you!

Hi nick.alexander,

I’m not sure what you mean by linking a track point to a null. I would understand linking a Null to a tracking point.

When things are jittery, then there is a reason. This reason would be the starting point for any change.
The idea is to get a tracking that is glued to the image content. If there is such movement in the footage, it should be that way for the tracker.
If the track is not accurate, any smoothing will do no good as long as the footage used to track will stay in the project as a reference.
I assume a lens distortion profile is used, and the footage is not noisy or compressed (artifacts)

I needed to mention this as I have not seen anything from that project, and typically, I should ask for a project file. Since tracking often involves larger files, tI knows that it is not always possible.

The simplest way would be to use the Keyframes that you might have on the Null and Function> Delete Every nth frame. Or use the Function> Key Reducer. Create a copy first.

With Xpresso, you could use a memory node and take in a few values from a range of frames and average those.

All the best

Hi Dr. Sassi! I think I described my problem incorrectly – I’m linking a null to a 2D track point via xpresso. Cinema is tracking things perfectly but too perfect for my needs in this instance.

I’m tracking a hand that I’m going to add ‘floating’ geometry above. The hand motion is pretty smooth but has a little jitter in it that becomes very noticeable when applied to the tracked null / object. If I were in After Effects, I’d apply the track to a null, select the keyframes and run the ‘smoother’ on those keyframes. Is there anything similar in C4D? If not, is there a way to bake a 2d manual track to x/y keyframes?

Thank you!!!

Hi nick.alexander,

The Ae options are not available as Cinema 4D function. You can use Timeline Menu> Function> Key Reducer. Or all the options I have mentioned above. The fewer keyframes are defining the curve, the smaller the detail jitter.

More options, please have a look here:
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/ECWHceiQ0lCV1L4dYxm3aMtlO1nlMFij9f4xjoGvJeu

One file showcases the Key Reducer results, and the other one introduces an XPresso-based smoothing. It takes the information of the tracks.
To get your tracks connected, select all the marked red Track and drag the P.X Track into the field in the Attribute Manager, the same with the green/P.Y tracks.

The current value is higher valued than the neighbors, and the ones three frames away are even lower. This smoothes the values.

A fast workflow would be to convert the position tracks into a spline, then use the Spline> Smooth tool to get reasonable control of where you like to have it smoothed. Then turn the Spline back to tracks. Delete the previous tracks.

All the best

Key Reducer looks like a good solution for me! My issue now is how to convert to or extract keyframes from the 2D tracker (User 00). Is this possible?

Thank you!

Hi nick.alexander,

I have no idea about your setup, so my answers are based on missing data. My question would be, is the camera jittery or the tracking feature. You might need to share a file for further questions.

You can bake the PSR values if connected via XPresso or Constrains.
https://help.maxon.net/c4d/r25/en-us/Default.htm#html/32180.html#PLUGIN_CMD_465001219

If you have a track with keyframes on one object, it is possible to copy and paste the data to another object.
https://help.maxon.net/c4d/r25/en-us/Default.htm#html/10612.html#PLUGIN_CMD_465001010

Besides that, there is a XPresso node to read the tracker.

Cheers