Put Stuff Behind Things - Adobe After Effects tutorial
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 ม.ค. 2025
- Put thing in a scene, like IN the scene. As in behind things that you already filmed. It's quite simple and the computer does most of the work so we'll make it go. The process is just 3 little steps. Track. Place. Cover. Once you get this you can put anything into any shot really.
If you have any questions just let me know in the comments.
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FINALLY! As a Film Maker i've been religiously wanting to do this but have only run into overly complicated ways before Mocha and now I know how to utilize it! THANK YOU! People don't realize this effect used to be very complicated but using a Null object parented to a mocha track...GENIUS!
watching your tutorials at 1.25 or 1.5 speed is extra fun.. thank you for all of this ;)
I love all your tutorials! You amazing Abrams being! Thank you!
Just wanted to thank you for the many tutorials you made about After Effects. I'm learning it and I decided to stick with your videos for now. Not because they're well made, complete, interesting and funny, or even because you have a nice voice... Nope, it's only because we share the same crew cut and facial hair. But anyway, thank you very much for what you do.
As a person that does mograph in action sports I’ve done this process hundreds of times. Clients love it! It’s a quick way of getting your project approved. For those saying it’s too complex and complaining you’re being silly and just need more time in the software. Don’t get discouraged. Not everything can be learned and executed in 15 minutes!
hey i just want to say that i love your work and I really appreciate this resource, you have enrich no only my knowledge but also my church helping make better graphics, so i just want to let you know that is not only being use for personal development but to bless others around the world. THANK YOU
i'm learning so much from your channel. Thank you a million sir! wish you all the best!!
thank you for sharing with us your awesome creativity,
you are a hero, you dont keep your talents to yourself instead you share it with the world
keep up
looking fwd for more and more
YES! I've been looking for a video for this.
Great tutorial on Tracking and masking!
Love love love your channel! Thanks for these amazing tutorials!!
Great tutorial! I've learnt thing from you that no other person even does when working with AE. And these things really boost up productivity.
You make great tutorials. This helped and your narrating is very good!
Thank you!
i know you may not respond to this but you are really awesome and you helped me to create my first ad video for my non profit and i really appreciate it. thank you.
I love your tutorials. You are the boss.
Evan, This has been very helpful tutorial. I Never felt like bored nor sleepy. I think we'd ALL agree that 'You've defntly kept the content quality up from jumping between programs.'
Would love to see more Composting and CC/Color Grading tutorial incl. Workflow tips and tricks you'd undertake at Pre-Production to Final Production.
Thank you again sir I learn't a lot.
giggle every time he says out ^^
Hey Evan, my girlfriend over heard your voice and thought I was watching a Seth Rogan tutorial.
Now when you talk, I just think of Seth Rogan. Thanks!
Thanks so much for your time and your fun approach to learning.
dude I've been doing this in a way that was making me deal with alotta shit, but this null to a single point then parent thingy is awesome. also the way you explain things is great. instasubbed.
after 4 hours finally did it, i had a very difficult shot so much details, but finaaaaaaaaaallyyyyyyyyyyyyyy, thanks
Yeah like you said it's pretty basic stuff BUT it is greatly appreciated. For us that don't do this everyday or sometimes even every week ... your presentation of these basics refreshes it in our minds. It also sparks ideas on how to do other things based on some of the things you show. Not to mention your presentation is fun and not boring! Yeah a bit of "sloppy" ECA loving going on here but it's true. Thanks for making these things you do so well available for the rest of us to watch and learn!
No worries. Glad it helps.
Excellent tutorial! I look forward to applying it to some footage of my own. Thanks!
thanks for the detailed tutorial man, it worked well for me
I love your tutorials, thank you!!
Be honest. Did you have Seth Rogen do the voice over?
Best Tutorial Title Ever! Great!
the first 3 minutes were great. thank you.
double thumbds up!
Very interesting! Also, I kept looking at your clock in the top corner while in full screen mode - kept thinking yay, almost time to go home -.- when the video was finished it was still only 3 pm.
Would totally buy ECAbrams a beer.
thank you so much for the video it really helps me as a beginner in this thing!
Finally! Someone makes a tutorial on this!
I'm sure I'm not the first. But I'm likely the first to just call it "stuff behind things".
you are the God of AE!!!!
The name of this video is absolutely fantastic hahaha
Yes I love you! I was searching for this hoping that you would have a tutorial and hey presto! Thanks!
Such good explanation!
Gracias.
Love your tutorials :)
Aspirational, love this tutorial, good pace and logical :-)
When parenting 3D texts and solids with 3D nulls - hold SHIFT while dragging the pigwhip. This will reset the values to the parented layer - so you don't need to reset position values to 0 after parenting.
Great tutorial !
Nice, more text stuff! That is really useful
Love this tutorial.
Thankyou! Really helpful
Has anyone ever told you that you sound like Seth Rogan?
+dwerbo often. And it's confusing every time.
+dwerbo Search on "voo csgo" on TH-cam. His voice is exactly like Seth Rogen
Is seth rogan canadian?
Yes. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seth_Rogen
Hahaha nice :)
Great tutorial ECAbrams! Very comprehensive and patiently explained to newbies like myself ;-). I did have a go and followed your steps, got mocha and did exactly the same but thought my clip was perhaps little too ambitious, since I had a few hands too many in the shot. Few designer hands holding pens above white paper, shooting on a slider proved too tricky since not only one hand was moving but fingers changing position too, and my tracking points from mocha got very confused as similar skin tone to other hand. I could not create a perfect mask for the moving hand. Do you think is there any advantage in getting Mocha Pro to help tracking more difficult moving objects (or hands in my case)? Many thanks.
Great tutorial. Thank you :)
Thanks youu i was looking for this
Great. So I have to download another program for this. Isn't there another way??
there are many ways. but mocha comes with ae. it's bundles with most installs. you are welcome to use whatever tracking method works for you.
+ECAbrams oops sorry I didn't watch far enough... My bad.
nice tutorial!
sick!
hey there...
Love the tutorial...but for some reason, I am unable to do the last part (have the mug come down again). Just wondering if it would be possible to get a small tutorial showing that too? (its been two days since I've been using the software, and I have no idea what I'm doing wrong lol...it would be AWESOME if you could show me how...)
cheers,
Do u have a tutorial on how you kept the letters of your logo in their spot rather than staying in the same spot in the frame? Hopefully you understand what I'm saying!
You mean like they're part of the scene? Like the logo and text in this very tutorial?
Yes!
Look up Motion tracking tutorials, that's how it was achieved
Awesome video. I've learned a lot from all your videos so thanks for making them! But what would you say from doing the steps you just gave vs duplicating the footage and using a Roto Brush on the top layer of video?
I would say follow your bliss? If you really feel the roto brush is your best bet use that. However it has been my experience that it is not applicable in all situations. Also it's still the same 3 steps. You're just using a different method of covering for the 3rd step. So if people have the rotobrush available to them, and they are confident that it can get a good pull from the scene, and they don't mind colour contamination from the spill zone, and they have the time to refine the matte, then they should follow their heart and do whatever they think is best.
Thanks for the tut! How do you make the video look so cinematic feel? Is it a filter for video?
What looks cinematic seems to be different for different people.
However, these are som things to try: Filming with a camera that allows shallow depth of field, for example a DSLR with a 50mm 1.8 lens (movies are not always shot with shallow DOF, but many associate this with "film look"). Film is 23.976 frames per second and then to simulate the kind of motion blur you get with a film camera, set the shutter speed as close to 1/48 as possible (on most cameras 1/50). If you film in bright light, get an ND filter to be able to keep the shutter speed at 1/50 without over exposure, IMHO the most important aspect of a cinematic look.
After that, go nuts with color grading and aspect ratios. Or not. :)
Awesome tuts. Could we put some shadow below the text? that will make the text a bit 'real'.
Like real floating text? Shadows maybe, reflections, reactive lighting, shadows and lighting on the text, matching the grain of the shot, no flat colours, lots of things.
glad to know your channel! good!
Excellent!
It's really frustrating that you don't specify lots of things, just saying "this guy here", and "turn this back on" but I got no idea what you actually mean. I try to do the masking the way you do and I don't have the same result, and I can't identify the source of the error.
Really useful tutorial ;)
Great Video, Thanks for sharing! - Do you have a much better HIGH QUALITY version of this video? if so, could you please upload it so I can see the VISUAL much clear. - Thanks in advance!
I don't know. You can see it on here at 1080p. How much more high quality for you want?
lol , thanks! I didn't see that my settings quality were set on 480p. lol, now I have changed it to 1080p. - Thanks again!!
You are the best!
I just loved what you said at 20:36 ... hahaha you f$%^& made my day
Thank you, Awesome as always, but would you please make a tutorial on using Element 3D or a cinema 4D object instead of text with simulating shadows and lights? as the shadow hit the table?
I might. But like i said in the tutorial the process is the same. If folks can grasp this concept they can replicate it with any layer.
ECAbrams thank you for your reply, i know and i understand the concept behind it, but my problem with 3d objects is simulating shadows to be right over the surface and it look like a real shadow
Ahmad Ataya well that's an issue of correct lighting and shadow catchers. Perhaps that will be covered in later tutorials.
ECAbrams thank you so much, i really appreciate it.
Hi to everyone and to the author. Quite helpful video so thanks. May i ask about what font used for the ECA text please? Thanks again :)
For some reasons, as soon as I open mocha, my clip is white. i canot see it :/ Any ideas why?
thank you very very much!!!!!!
Thanks!
Thanks for another great video!
Is there any similiar tutorial for putting stuff behind things that are moving (not just being moved)? I've got a person walking by a wall and want to put a sentence behind her on the wall - which is then covered by her.
This may be a little philosophical but how is something moving different than something being moved? In this context it's not. 3d Solve the shot. Mask out of the object. Put the thing in the scene. The more movement, the more complex the movement, the more detail you'll in in your mask or masks and the more manual work you'll likely have to do.
ECAbrams I feared this answer. The movement of my shot is very complex. Will be a lot of frame per frame work then. Thanks for your quick reply, I appreciate it very much!
Thank u !!
Couldn't you've done the same thing with the built-in AE motion tracker?
+TheOmnipRotenT sure, do what you feel
Hey i want to know your are using which camera for shoot the videos its really great i am also finding great camera for add videos
+Aman Kaur I used the Canon 60d
+ECAbrams thanks alot
+ECAbrams for your all videos you are using canon 60d?
+Aman Kaur Almost all. Some don't use a camera at all.
+ECAbrams Thanks for the information :)
An easier solution to this video is to just use the roto tool which is built into After Effects and you can find tutorials on TH-cam for, and you can roto the mug and then put the text behind it. Their is different tools with-in the roto tool which will also help you. Otherwise nice tutorial! I do think this is a bit advanced for some people though.
Hey EC!
I have a general problem I'd like some guidance with. Sometimes, like with drone footage I'd like to put some cracks in the ground using the 3D tracker and a .jpg, but as the camera moves I see my cracks in the ground moving slightly off their intended path. It's incredibly annoying. My footage is stabilized with a gimbal and the camera is flying in a straight line. What I'm filming is a suburban area with plenty of roads, buildings and cars. I've tried changing tracking points with better and worse results. Can I control this to any extent? Does this have to do with "average error"? Any help is appreciated and thanks for making great tutorials!
/Adam
Oh my God! This is super complicated!!!
+Tech Aspiron I take it you're new here. :P
+Tech Aspiron I take it you're new here. :P
Yeah there's actually much easier ways to do this, Tech Aspiron.
+destinfarr ...How? This is by far the easiest way. Simply track and and parent to a null object is the simplest way I have found so far.
+Hop The Border Productions Yeah, now it is. At the time I watched this video I was just a beginner at editing.
Thanks for the great tut! I get everything except for one, probable obious issue: why do we need to add a 3D track Camera? I know it's necessairy, but just can't seem to figure out what it's used for...
Well, the camera is what we look though. So all 3d layers in the scene are seen through that camera. IF the camera happens to match the movement of the camera that captured our footage then we can put 3d things into that scenes in a place that will appear to belong in the scene.
aah, I get it now! thanks a lot! Keep up the good tutorials, because I've just subscribed! :)
P.s. if you have any tuts about good fonts to use in videos or how to make them look not amateuristic, that would be fantastic! Can't seem to find any good tutorial about that...
You're looking for a tutorial about font choice?
Yes, I find it so hard to make use of proper fonts (and animating them) when creating a new video without making it look amateuristic....
Nice Tut. Quick question hoping for a quick answer. On the first null object u selected the point on the Figure. Why not a different one? And can't you just choose one null object after another? Your vids R Bueno!
CSE you can choose whatever your heart desires. And certainly when you do this using a video of your own you will have totally different null objects to choose from. I made the best choice I could with the information I had.
Great voice
Is it possible to do this in Premiere Pro?
+China Icons Premiere has masks and keyframes, so yes, sort of.
Great tutorial man Thanks so much! I succeed the effect with my own footage however in my composition, I have two solids covering the word. When I adjust my layer stacking, only one of them will cover the words. Is there some sort of layers grouping I can do to solve the problem. Thank you very much !!!!
+Cho David you could precompose things if you like. The layer order is vitally important to how this technique works.
+ECAbrams Thanks the quick reply. I have tried to precompose them but the solids do not move like they did before precomposed. Is there a solution with it?
+Cho David were they every moving? Isn't their "movement" dependant on a camera doing the real moving?
+ECAbrams Solved the problem. I did not precompose the null objects so that the solids could not track. Thank you!! awesome tutorial!
Thanks very much for this tutorial love your style as always. But is there a way to do it all in After Effects? I know it may not be as effective but I'm just getting my head around it and throwing something else in would make my tiny brain melt.
Well we use mocha because it is a planar tracker, so it tracks shapes. Ae has a point tracker that tracks points. So if you have points you can use then use the tracker inside Ae. That is, however, rarely the case. It would be worth the time to expand your capabilities and experiment with a cross program workflow.
Thanks for your help. Keep the tutorials coming.
I have been doing title tracking since 2000 with just premiere, it is almost easier for me to do so but there are several limitations.
your videos are amazing. please make a tutorial fot this kind of stuff tooo.....
its typography... its between 40 - 50 seconds in the begining
Miles Above - MtXRW: Going Down Slow - Ep 4
Great help Thanks the only issue I'm having is I can't sun to alpha 3d layers
you can't "sun" to alpha 3d layers? I'm not totally sure what that means.
I'm not sure what my sentence means either, now I'm reading it back... What I meant is when I try and alpha the 3d layers I have no option to do so. (Sorry for my lack of proof reading)
ECAbrams I sorted it out. The Track Matte buttons disappeared because I was in Raytraced 3D mode. (cause I was trying one of your other tuts haha) so I just switched back to classic.
Also thank you so much for all these tutorials without you and a few others on TH-cam I never would have my job at the moment.
David Burns no worries. Glad it got sorted out :) and congrats on the job. In this economy I'm happy to help in any way I can.
Amaziing...
How did you get such a smooth camera move?
+Wiggins Films i put a tripod on a skateboard.
+ECAbrams good idea
+ECAbrams Old School! Love it.
Thank you, your videos always helps and they are not boring. I mean somehow the way you talk through is entertaining :) I got request, could you do a stop-motion effect? pretty please please, with cream and maraschino cherry on top! :D I really want to learn how to do that, I'm a newbie in Ae and sometimes I get easily confuse.
So you would like to take perfectly good video footage and make it look like stop motion? Or you would like to just make stop-motion animation?
stop-motion animation sounds good :D
but if you could show us both in Evan ways, that will be awesome! I hope that's not too much to ask.
Ravie247 well the one way is to alter the frame rate with a posterize time effect. The other way is to take a lot of pictures. I may do a tutorial on one or more of those things.
ECAbrams
yay! thank you. I'll wait for your tutorials on that then :) more power to you and please keep doing more bad ass video for us. .
hi Mr Abrams, what camera are you using?
That's shot on an old canon 60d
ECAbrams - thanks. can we expect any tutorials on achieving a film look with these kinds of cameras instead of the red's? if you already have sorry I'm just now looking through all your vids.
Sorry - shouldn't be more specific about my question. So basically I have a shape - say a box, and I want to put a half round cut into the top, and want that part to seem like it was scooped out. So should I use 2 shape objects or is there a way to split a single shape into 2 shapes? So basically I have a starting block that I'm trying animate it to look like the edge got chipped away and some areas got carved out. The pieces fall off.
Hi, after you trim your comp to the work area, how do you "return" to the entire video you want to export? Thank you.
+ATX Lifestyle I'm going to guess you want to make the comp duration longer? Is that is? you can do that in the composition settings.
+ECAbrams Hi. No I mean, I have a 1 minute footage where only 10 seconds need to be "motion tracked or 3d tracked" for a text behind objects effect. I trim the comp to only those 10 seconds so I don't track the entire minute of footage but after I am done edition those 10 seconds, how I go back to the entire 1 minute footage? Like to edit another section of it or just to finally export it and upload it.
+ATX Lifestyle are you trimming the composition or a layer in the composition? If you trimmed the composition then the reverse is making changing the duration of the composition. Which you do in the composition settings. If you have trimmed a layer inside a composition then you can just set new in or out points by dragging the ends of the layer, or just trimming them to a time longer than they were before with the same keyboard shortcut. But you keep saying you have trimmed the comp, meaning you have made the composition's duration shorter than before. So how is it that changing the duration of that comp does not do what you want? I am not following.
But , how if you want to add an object behind foliage or a tree ?
you need to create a more complex matte or mask. So you will need to use a tool like rotobrush, or maybe you can use keying tools. You still need to create a matte, solve the camera movement, and apply the matte to the obscured objects. The method is the same if the specific steps need to be refined for your case.
Great tutorial! I've watched it through beginning to end 3 times now...but I cannot get it to work for me. I'm at the very end. After I tracked my moving object in Mocha and pasted its data onto the null object I created in AE, resetting its anchor point and unchecking the time vary property, my object does not move with my object. I know for a fact I selected the right data option when copying to clipboard, and I know I pasted the data onto the layer starting on the right frame, so I am baffled there.
Not only that...but at the complete end, after drawing the mask on the white solid that is paired to the null object (which, since it isn't moving, isn't causing the masked white solid to move), my text is not appearing behind it. I have the white solid layer positioned above the text layer, and my text layer is set to alpha-inverted. I do not understand what I did wrong because I followed this tutorial literally step for step!
Anyone willing to help, please do. I've been working on this project for a long time now and I don't want it to come to an end all because I cannot figure this one part out.
Thank you very much!
Which is the time vary property? I don't recall what that had to do with the process. What happens when you just paste the data onto a null? What does that null do?
The little stopwatch icon next to the Anchor Point property of the layer. I clicked on that to turn it off and then reset the Anchor Point to 0, 0.
I just tried pasting the data onto a different null, without unchecking the stopwatch, and now it moves....but it DEFINITELY is not moving how I want it to. It is flying all over the screen and out of shot, even though I set it's Anchor Point to 0, 0.
Any ideas?...
The whole clip I am trying to edit is only 2.5 seconds and all in all, including the AE file and Mocha file, the whole project is only about 6 MB. If possible would I be able to send it to you and you could take a look in your free time? I'd really appreciate it if you'd help me get to the bottom of this.
well, first let's remember what an anchor point is. It's the reference point for a layer. The point on that layer around which it rotates, and where the position "is". So when we move the position we move the anchor point of that layer relative to the frame. And if we change the anchor point we move the layer contents relative to that point.
And what we are taking from mocha is positional data that should match, relative to the frame, the position of something. In this case the position of the shape of the coffee mug. So really there isn't much to do. We should just be able to paste the data and have a thing that follows the thing we tracked.
The reason we remove the anchor point data after pasting and reset it to 0,0 is more for clarity in the project. We don't need the anchor point data, and we don't want a confusing marker out floating around when the data we want to reference is at a totally other place. So the anchor point change we do is mostly organizational, not functional.
Does all that make sense? And if so, does what you're seeing make more sense with the foundation? Perhaps the tracking data is starting on the wrong frame? Perhaps you are not capturing the data you wanted? Perhaps it is a combination of things?
I guess I am not understanding why the anchor point is organizational and not functional. Also, maybe I missed something in Mocha?
I imported the footage, and then drew x-splines on my "coffee mug", rendering the frames I needed and adjusting x-splines where need be. Then I exported the data to my clipboard and pasted it on the null layer in AE starting at the corresponding frame.
Does that sound correct?
How about doing this with a person walking by? Does Mocha can do this as well?
yes, but it is more complex because people are complex objects with many moving parts. but it certainly is possible.
ECAbrams I had trouble doing mocha with a footage of a guy walking towards the camera. Too complex.
Saw the intro, made some coffee to follow you up on the mug, then you said it was tea... tiny bit disappointed, must say. hahahah
Hey new subscriber here. Question, are you Canadian?
+Kaizen2013v Answer, yes.
hahaha I figured. Must be when you say "about" lol
Greetings from Calgary AB
How do you move the video area without clicking the move tool? Do you use some key bindings (if so, how?)
Also do the colors of the tracking points indicate if some are more accurate than others?
Sometimes 3d camera tracker can't even track a big object that is clearly "easy" to track, I don't know why :/
Anyway great tutorial
1. I use the page up and page down keys in combination with holding shift some times. But most times you are likely experiencing the results of me editing the footage of the tutorial when we move through time. I skip over large pauses and sections that are of little value.
2. The 3d camera tracker is not for tracking objects. It is for solving the scene. You want it to populate points by looking at well defined surfaces and areas of extreme contrast. A large object is not necessarily going to help with the process. Just look at the surface of the kitchen island in the intro of this video. That's a large surface but it has no points worth tracking because it has no ares of strong contrast.
ECAbrams Ohhh now I understand more things! Glad you replied, it helped me a lot. Looking forward to your next tutorial ;)
***** searching for tutorials then saw this tutorial and ur comment great pavlox
Pretty much motion tracking and masking ?
ECAbrams,
Adobe or NAB should really look into hiring you for a master class.
Well, I was on a live stream from Adobe in SF a couple months ago. Did you check that out?
Is there a reason why you didn't export shape date from mocha?
+Anime Summit didn't "feel" like it. There are many ways to skin a cat in Ae.
Ok, so I ran to some errors. I can do almost everything in this, but after I use Mocha and paste the data to the null, (remember when you reset the anchor point) well, the anchor point is already set to 0,0,0. And the null is not in the right 3d perspective. I need help on this part. Yes, I'm using the same footage you used in this video.
+Kennardi Sebastian Something I was having issues with until I looked at his screen was to make sure that when the layer was selected in Mocha - to make sure the shape tracking or whatever started at 427 and ended at 622
Once I finished, how do I get the whole clip back in to export it? This is actually my first time using After Effects, I guessed on majority of the common things. But now I'm done and want the whole clip instead of just the little part we worked on. Any advice? Thank you!
+Feel Good Now sorry, what do you want to do? You want to export your work so your can upload it somewhere else or use it in another program? What's the goal here?
+ECAbrams so at the beginning I had a clip that was 10 seconds but I shrunk the clip to 5 seconds to work on. At the beginning we shrunk it so the 3d tracker wasn't doing the whole clip. now that I've edited the 5 second portion with the title, how do I get the whole clip back to export vs just the 5 second part I worked on? Thanks!
+Feel Good Now change the comp length in the composition settings?