3D Camera Tracking

Want an easy way to insert graphics and text into your footage? Learn how in this 3D Camera Tracking tutorial from Noble Desktop.

Inserting Text with the Tracker

1. Make sure the footage is at 100% Scale.
2. Right-click the footage and go to Track & Stabilize > Camera Tracking.
3. Wait for the footage to be analyzed.
4. In the Effects & Presets, change Track Point Size to 200.
5. Right-click on any of the points, preferably on an upward-facing plane.
6. Click on Create Solid and Camera.
7. Right-click on the new Solid layer.
8. Create a Precomp.
9. Name it Text 1.
10. Double-click on Text 1 to go inside it.
11. Delete the Solid layer.
12. Use the Text tool to write out some text.
13. Navigate to the main Comp by clicking on the footage name in the Project window.
14. If needed, resize Text 1 using the Scale tool.
15. Repeat Steps 5-15 to create two more text graphics.

Creating Shadows

1. On the footage layer, right-click on a track point near Text 1.
2. Click Create Shadow Catcher and Light.
3. Toggle open Light settings.
4. Change Intensity to 900.
5. Increase the Radius until it lights up the other graphics.

Video Transcription

Hi guys, this is Tziporah Zions for Noble Desktop. In this tutorial I'm going to show you how to use 3D camera tracking in Adobe After Effects. First, I'll show you how to set up the tracking in your project. Then I'll take you through putting your own graphics and text inside the scene. Once that's done, we're going to use a Shadow Catcher effect along with some positioning to create some shadows.

Here's what the project looks like when it's done. You've probably seen this technique done before — it's very popular in ads and infographics. It's useful for dropping information about whatever is being displayed in the video. With some shadows and general lighting, it's also useful for inserting footage to cover up anything within the scene or to outright replace other graphics.

For this project, we're going to be using this footage of some desert park b-roll, and you can find these files in the video description below. Let's get started. As you can see, I have my composition right here, and my footage fits to my composition at 100% scale.

If the scale is off, this effect won't work. So on your footage, right-click and go to Track & Stabilize > Track Camera. Give it a moment — it's going to analyze everything. Now that's done, let's go to the Effect Controls and down to Track Point Size. You'll see all these little points here.

These are track points, and they serve as anchors where we can attach graphics to place them within the scene. I'm going to make them as big as possible — maybe not that big, but 200 ought to do it. As you can see, you can move your mouse over any of these points, and that will create a plane we want to attach stuff to.

I want a forward-facing plane right here. All right, click on those. Right-click and I want to create a solid. I'm going to repeat that with two other points in the scene. With these three solids, we're going to right-click on any of them and pre-comp them.

I'll repeat that with the other two. This lets us replace the graphics within each pre-comp. Double-click to go into Text 1 and delete that solid. We're going to make a new text layer — right-click here, New > Text — and I'm going to type in something about this place. I'll call it Garden of the Southwest.

I'll break it into two lines so it looks right. I'm going to do a little typesetting — we'll go to Effects and Presets and add a Typewriter effect. Drag that onto our text. You can see it typewriters on, but I'm going to select this layer and bring the keyframes closer together so it types on quickly.

Let's go back to our composition. You can see we replaced the graphic with a graphic of our own. I'm going to repeat these steps with Text 2 and Text 3. I'll skip ahead to that. The graphics are pretty small, so I'm going to select them.

I'll hit S for Scale and scale them up, and repeat that for Text 3. Now I'll show you how to make a shadow for this. Go back to the footage layer and over to the track points — if you don't see them, adjust their size and they'll become visible.

I'll go to where I have my first graphic and click on a plane closest to it. Right-click and Create Shadow Catcher and Light. That creates a strong light and shadow for the graphic, but I'm going to adjust the light a little. I'll open Light Options and bring the intensity up to around 900 so it also reaches the other graphics.

It's OK as a point light — check this out. Scrub the timeline backward. With this light — and I renamed my shadow catcher SC 1 — you can see it creates a realistic shadow underneath the text.

I've gone ahead and repeated it with the other two graphics. As you can see, they're writing themselves on. This one is a little harder to see because it's kind of buried in the preexisting shadow, but you can see it under the word. The shadow catcher creates a shadow and a light that falls along your own graphic.

You can use this technique to insert signage into scenes or even other pieces of footage — think of a video within a video, like a TV screen or a video game console. Try it for infographics, writing your own custom graphics on plain footage. That's all for this tutorial — I hope you enjoyed learning how to use this tracking effect in Adobe After Effects.

If you have any questions or suggestions for future tutorials, let us know in the comments. This has been Tziporah Zions for Noble Desktop.