Place text effectively in the drone shot using 3D camera tracker

In today's tutorial, I will show you how you can effectively use the 3D Camera Tracker tool in After Effects to insert text into an impressive drone shot. You will learn how to work with tracking points, create a camera, and finally place text that seamlessly integrates into the landscape. Let's dive right in!

Key Takeaways

• With the 3D Camera Tracker, you can extract 3D information from your video.
• You can define tracking points from which you derive camera movement.
• Text can be appropriately scaled and positioned to realistically fit into the scene.
• Proper anchor point placement is crucial for text rotation settings.

Step-by-Step Guide

First, we open After Effects and start a new project. You select "File" then "New" and "New Project." Once you have opened the project, import your drone shot.

Drag your drone shot into the bottom row to create a new composition. Now, let's move on to the 3D Camera Tracker, a useful tool for extracting 3D information from your image.

You will find the 3D Camera Tracker on the right side under "Tracker." If it's not visible, go to "Window" and check "Tracker." Click on "Track Camera" now. After Effects will add this effect to your layer and begin analyzing your footage frame by frame.

This process may take some time as After Effects tries to extract information across a large number of frames. While the analysis is running, we can briefly discuss how the tracking points appear in the scene.

The analysis is complete, and you will notice tracking points. Using the selection tool, hover over these points to mark them. Once at least three of these points are selected, you can define a plane. These points are not in a straight line, so they help you define a plane.

When you zoom in, you can see the points on the grass. It's time to select a point. Right-click on the highlighted target and choose "Create Text and Camera." Now, a text layer and a camera will be added to your composition.

As the text size may not be optimal, go to the text layer and set the scale value to 100%. You may also need to adjust the font size; set it to around 600 depending on how it should look. There may also be a baseline shift set. Make sure this is set to 0 pixels so that the text appears at the desired position.

Now, let's position our text sensibly. Under the properties of your text layer, you will see options for position and rotation. To securely position the text, move it along the X-axis upwards until it appears to lie on the grass. Correct placement and the anchor point are crucial. The anchor point should be below your text to ensure it positions correctly.

If the anchor point is not correctly set, it will negatively affect the rotation. Set the anchor point to be directly below your text. When using text like "my home," be careful not to use lowercase characters that are difficult to align.

For text rotation, you can work with the X value. Make sure the text is rotated about 90 degrees to position it correctly. You can simply enter +90 to make the rotation exact and confirm with Enter.

If you want to further integrate the text into the scene, take it a step further and also rotate it around the Y-axis. Drag it slightly to the right with the left mouse button to ensure that it fits well into the scenery.

Now let's move on to the next point: Placing a shadow that matches the tree's shadow to create even more realism.

Summary

We've learned how to adjust the 3D camera tracker settings after analyzing the drone footage to create realistic text placement. Placing text in a 3D environment requires attention to detail, especially in terms of scaling and anchor point placement.