All language subtitles for 03. Applying the Tracking Data with a Transform Node

In this lesson,

we're going to learn how you can apply your tracking data with a transform node.

OK so we're right here where we left off in our last lesson.

And now I'm ready to go ahead and show you how to use this tracking data.

Now there's a few things that we need to do first.

So, the thing that I want to move around,

we need to go ahead and bring in to our Nuke project.

So let's go ahead and grab that reference file folder again.

And I'm going to use the attack_of_the_zombies_small.

So go ahead and just grab that folder and drag it on to your node graph.

And you can see that our viewer automatically hooked onto that.

But we can't really see it right now.

If I scrub forward a little bit, though,

you can see kind of how this fades on over time.

So we just have this little banner.

So let's go ahead now and take a look at what these

two pieces look like together.

Now before we start adding a lot more nodes,

one of things we didn't do in our last lesson was to set our project size.

So we haven't really done anything yet that's going to be detrimental to that.

But we need to do it before we add in any merge nodes or any transform nodes.

So we're going to come over here and just hover over

your Properties bin and hit the S key.

And you can see that right now the full sized format is what it's defaulting to.

So that's way too big.

And that's going to start to throw things off once we

add some more size specific nodes.

So go ahead and drop that down and we'll just choose that 1280 by

720 because that's the size of that zombie plate.

744 by 388 is kind of a strange size of that animated banner I just showed you.

So that would be too small.

We don't want to select that.

So go ahead, choose that.

And that's going to help just when other nodes are being

created that they're made at the right size.

So let's go and just clear the Properties bin.

And now what I want to do is look at my banner on top of my zombie footage.

So what we're going to do to show those together is to use a merge node.

So you can just come down here, just hover in the empty area in your node graph,

and hit the Tab key.

And we'll type in 'merge.

' And then to hook these in together, we want our zombie to be our background.

So we'll hook that into the B pipe.

And you can just hook that right into the tracker, that'll work just fine.

You don't have to hook it into the tracker.

But you could just hook it straight into the read node.

It's going to work either way.

And then we'll hook our A pipe into our foreground, which will be that banner.

And just to get a little more organized,

let's go ahead and have our B pipe pointing straight down.

And let's go ahead and move the read node down so

that the A pipe is straight across.

Then in a minute we'll have a few other things in between these,

and we'll probably move this around some more.

OK so let's connect that view note onto our merge

node so we can see them together.

Now right away we don't see anything because,

you remember, this is blank at the beginning.

So let's scrub forward and you can see this comes on over time.

So what I want to happen is I want that banner to move with that

tracking data that we got from our zombie.

I just want it to be in front of him here and just follow

along with the movement of his head and,

therefore, his body.

Just across the frame.

So what we need to do is add in a transform node.

So you go ahead and come over here to your Transform button.

Click and hold and hit transform.

And it because I had the attack of the zombies selected,

it went ahead and just added in a transform node for me

in the place I wanted on my pipe.

But if it didn't put it for you, if you didn't have that selected,

you can just drop it in here in between.

Now you will not have your center in the center of

the banner if you do it that way.

So you'll have to go back in and figure out exactly

what the center of that should be.

Which just to show you how to do that,

this area right here in the lower left hand corner is going to be zero zero.

So if you just look at the read node for your attack of the zombies,

that's 744 by 388.

You can just divide each of those by two and that's going to be what

your center point of the transform node should be.

Which is what you can see that is right there.

372 is half of 744, 169 is half of 338.

So that puts that cross hair for the transform node right in the center.

So a little bit easier just to have the node you want

selected first before you drop that in.

But that's going to just help you later on as you do

more tracking to know how to fix that.

Just if you forget to have the right one selected.

OK enough talk let's go ahead and get this tracking.

So I want to go ahead and let's open back up that

transform node so we have that data available.

And really all we have to do is simply link from the tracker to the transform.

And we can do that just by coming up here to Translate,

which is what's going to move the x and y position,

the up and down, the left to right.

Which is the only thing that we tracked,

we didn't track any rotation or scale in our last lesson.

So just come up here to where you see the Animation menu,

that's this little squiggly line button.

We're going to right click that and go to Link To.

Now after that you can't really see this in my recording,

so I'm going to pull this over just so you're able

to see all the buttons I click.

Right click that, go to Link To, choose Tracker 1, and then choose to Track 1.

Now that's going to link it directly to the tracking data that we had.

But we have a little bit of a problem.

And that is that the middle is kind of offset from our zombies head.

Now, the reason for this is because our sign here,

our little banner,

is a different size and has a different center from the

large size of our background here.

So it's in the proper place down here on the corner of his head.

You can see the corners with that.

But if you want the middle to be in here,

there's lots of different kinds of math you can do and

some expressions you can link up.

But personally,

because we track this area doesn't necessarily mean that's

exactly the area I want this to stick to.

I can't even really read this.

So I found the easiest way to move this once you have that data linked,

like we just did, is to simply add another transform node.

So what I'm gonna do is, let's just move this up here.

And we'll pull this transform node up.

And then we'll just add in another transformer on this A pipe.

So you just hit the Tab key, type in transform.

And then let's move this one down just so that A pipe stays straight.

And now you can see we have a transform node down here.

Now it's not necessarily going to be in the right to position,

but it's going to allow you to move this around.

So it's not up here where it's a little easier to see.

But let's just go ahead and clear the Properties bin for a second just

so we get rid of anything that might be confusing.

Then we'll double click that Transform To.

And then you can just see I can click and drag this and just

place that right on top of the zombie.

Now,

one of things you might notice right away is that

this has a big black background.

So to fix that we can go into our Merge node and change the

operation from over to screen or plus.

Either one of those would work.

So you can see, not really much of a difference there.

And then we could just play this through.

And it follows along with our zombie, uses that tracking data,

and just overall looks really nice.

He has so much motion in his head that it really

makes this look very interesting, kind of a stylized look,

how that follows along with him.

So there's a lot of different ways to do things in Nuke.

And this is not the only way to hook up a tracker.

There's different ways, really a lot of different ways to do this.

But this is one of my favorite ways because it's the most straightforward.

So you we're basically using one transform node to translate that

data from the tracker to move our sign around here.

Just kind of in the up and down and side to side.

But then to get the whole thing to track in a position that makes sense,

where we can read the whole sign, we'd simply use another transform node.

And that's a really powerful benefit that Nuke has.

In other programs, you're not going to have that much control.

And in Nuke you can simply add another node and

that just cleans that up for you.

Now if you're concerned about having too many nodes,

again, there's other ways of doing this.

I'm not saying this is the only way to do it.

But this is pretty easy.

So I would definitely recommend this as a workflow for you.

So, now we know how to track and we know how to apply our data,

just with a one point track like this.

We probably should learn how to smooth some data out.

So sometimes you're going to run into a problem where your

tracker's going to get a little bit jittery.

So there's a couple ways to fix that.

And I'm going to show you how to do those in the next lesson.