Faking Motion Capture in After Effects

Here is a tutorial that will show you how to fake motion capture using the Puppet Tool and trackers. To see an example of what the final result should be click on the images below. You can also download the assets to make this tutorial in the Tutorial Assets section. If you create any examples of you own let me know and I'll put a link to the movie in the Tutorial Show Case section.

Here's how we'll record our actor's movement and apply those actions to our png image:


Step 1: Tracking

Import the footage and create a tracker (if you don't see the tracker menu just go to Window -> Tracker Controls. Click on the Track Motion button and a new tracker will appear. Use the settings below as a guideline:

Resize it and put it on the wrist dot.

It's important to know that the inner square is the pattern reign and the outer square is the search reign. And basically what's going to happen is after effects is going to search for that pattern within the outer square each frame and place a keyframe where ever that pattern moves to. Of course it's also good to point out that you should have areas of high contrast as well to get a perfect track.

Now tell it to track forward

Keep watch of your trackers, make sure they don't slide off the target.

When the first tracker is complete repeat the same steps for the next two tracking dots.

Hint: It maybe wise to start naming your trackers like head, shoulder, etc... when you start adding a lot of trackers it can get confusing finding which one you need.


Step 2: Puppet Tool

Alright now we are going to setup our character rig, import the illustration file and place it above the footage you tracked. Then take the opacity down to 50% so that you can see where to add puppet points to.

Alright now select the Puppet Tool...

...and start adding points where there's a tracking dot, like the example below.

Step 3: Linking the Points Together

Alright now here comes the fun part...expressions....

click on Puppet Pin 1 and click on the triangle to drop down the Position value. Highlight that value and go to Animate -> Add Expression. Now grab the little spiny icon and drag it to the Feature Center of the appropriate tracker.

There now they are linked! Now the puppet pin has the same keyframes that the tracker has. Exciting huh? Now repeat the same steps for the other dots.

Extra: For my example I added a few more dots to the edge of the shirt to keep it from bending off screen.

Here is another example doing a full body capture of jumping jacks, still needs some work but it's getting there.