Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 [Electronic resources]

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Using effects and Motion Tracker: Lesson 16-4

After Effects 7.0 has about 200 effects that enable you to correct and enhance your videos. And that's only for starters. The After Effects third-party plug-in business is huge. Scores of effects are available from many developers. Here are a few that come with After Effects:

Lens Blur Simulates a narrower depth of field by blurring some objects in an image while leaving others in focus.
Fractal Renders one of two types of fractal images that add a colorful texture to your clips.
Turbulent Displace Uses fractal noise to create distortions.
Warp Transforms layers into geometric shapes, arcs, waves, and fish-eye lens views.
Liquify Distorts clips using 10 brush-based tools.
Vegas Generates running lights and other path-based pulse animations around an object.

Try out some exciting effects

Working with effects in After Effects is a lot like working with effects in Premiere Pro. Each effect typically has a set of parameters unique to that effect. As you apply effects to a layer, they show up in the Effect Controls panel, and you can adjust parameters globally or with keyframes there. You can also make the same adjustments in the Timeline.

Open a new project and a new composition.

Double-click in the Project panel, select a video clip, still or graphic (I selected Video 8a), and click Open.

Drag that clip to the Timeline and select it to display it in the Composition panel.

In the Effects & Presets panel, twirl down the Distort bin disclosure triangle, and drag Warp to the Composition panel.

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Try out the various presets in the Effect Controls panel such as Wave, Flag, and Arc. Move the sliders and grab the bounding box corners in the Composition panel to change the size and orientation of your original clip.

Press Ctrl+Z to Undo Warp and drag Liquify (Distort folder) to the Composition panel.

This may be a first for you: icons in the Effect Controls panel. Liquify lets you manually distort portions of an image. To see how that distortion works, you can turn on the effect's Mesh view which shifts and distorts as you drag one of Liquify's 10 tools around the screen.

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Replace Liquify with Colorize-Gold Clip (Animation Presets > Image-Creative folder). Note that it's actually the Solid Composite effect with a preset built-in. Open its two drop-down lists and select a different preset or blending mode.

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Replace Colorize with Bad TV2-Old (Blur & Sharpen > Box Blur).

This is a preset within an effect that combines five (!) effects: Wave Warp, Box Blur, Color Balance (HLS), Noise, and Venetian Blinds.

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Using the Motion Tracker

The After Effects Lesson 14 you used a manual tracking method in Premiere Pro to obscure someone's identity. Now, with a few simple mouse clicks, the After Effects Motion Tracker does that for you in record time.

Import Motion Tracker 16.avi from the Lesson 16 folder.

Drag it to the Timeline.

When you track motion, you can apply an effect, text or some other object in the composition to it. In this case you'll add a Lens Flare.

Drag the Lens Flare effect (Generate folder) to the Composition panel screen.

Click on the Motion Tracker video in the Timeline to select it, then select Animation > Track Motion from the Main Menu.

That opens the Tracker Controls dialog box shown in the next figure.

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Check the Tracker Control settings to make sure the Motion Source is Motion Tracker 16.avi, that the Current Track is Tracker 1, Track Type is Transform, and Position is checked.

Click Edit Target, note that Lens Flare/Flare Center is selected and Click OK. There will be additional possibilities if you have more than one object or effect to choose from.

Drag the Track Point 1 double-square/crosshair and center it on the bright highlight on the DJ's forearm (the highlight is easier for Motion Tracker to follow than a dark, non-descript area).

Note

To drag the double-square/crosshair, click somewhere inside the outer box. If you click on its edge, that will expand the box, increasing the area on the screen the program has to examine to track the moving target. As you drag it the box automatically switches to a 400% zoom to help you find the exact pixel to track .

Check that the CTI is at the beginning of the video, then click the Analyze Forward button (highlighted in a previous figure) in the Tracker Controls panel.

The video will play and the Track Point 1 box will follow the forearm. Since the highlight changes as the disc jockey rotates his arm, the track might not be exact. If so, click Reset, move the Track Point location and try again.

Click Apply, note the default Apply Dimensions setting of X and Y, and click OK. That adds dozens of keyframes to the Lens Flare Center's line in the Timeline.

10.

Play the Timeline and watch the Lens Flare follow the DJ's hand movements.