Blackmagic Forum

Hello Everyone

I just tracked a 30 min clip of a dude doing a presentation with the Planar Tracker in Fusion and I'd like to stabilize it on only the X-Axis. How do I do that? Been looking through some forums and googling for the answer but I can't find anything. I'm a new guy to Davinci so I'm a bit frustrated...

Thank you very much

I have two questions first.

1) If you're new to Fusion then why start with a 30 (!) minute presentation?
2) What kind of footage was it that you decide to use the planar tracker?

Without seeing your footage it's hard to give a good explanation, but built in in the tracker is a stabilize option that lets you decide what you want to smooth, x, y, rotation and scale are all seperately available.

Just choose 'stabilize' under the 'Operation Mode' drop down menu and see if that's sufficient for your needs.

That's a pretty good idea! I shoot corporate speaking events from time to time and I'm always panning back and forth trying to keep them more or less centered. I deliver in 1080 but can shoot 6k so there is a ton of room to reframe this way. I *think* you can ease in and out of keyframes. I wonder if there's a way to not track on small movements but if the tracker moves say 5 or 10% of the width, then it'd catch up. Kind of a lazy tracking that would just look more natural. I'll have to give this one a try

You may be looking for 'smoothing' whereby the steadying effect doesn't affect the video fully on each frame but is averaged out over a chosen number of frames. I'm not sure if that is available in the Planar Tracker but it is available in the Point Tracker. If you search your manual for 'Smoothing Motion' that will explain it.

Whatever the method, you need to gain access to parameter curves. Once you get those, you can apply smoothing to that curve, delete keyframes on axis you want to keep untouched etc.

If it's a 30 minute clip I wouldn't want to go messing about with the expected number of parameter curves. I would use the point tracker to stabilise the clip and let the software take the strain of smoothing it.

Sander de Regt wrote:1) If you're new to Fusion then why start with a 30 (!) minute presentation?
2) What kind of footage was it that you decide to use the planar tracker?

Oi m8

Sorry for the undetailed explanaition, was in a bit of a rush.
Basically, I have a video of the dude presenting his PowerPoint, which i have also recorded. Both of these are in 16:9 Format. I created a 21:9 Timeline where the PPT is in 16:9, and the rest of the space is the dude doing his thing (in a 4:9 aspect ratio). The problem is that the dude is freely walking left and right, so he would be constantly out of frame. This is where the stabilization on one axis comes in. I was originally goimg to use Premiere Pro, but the tracker there is sooo bad. Like I said, I already tracked it with the Planar Tracker (using this tutorial ). After the tracking finished, i switched the mode to Stabilize and there were the to checkboxes for both of the axis, yet, after switching the unnecessary axis (Y) off, it still stabilized for both of the axis. So, here I am...

I'm trying to do the same thing. I have footage that I can apply stabilize to but I really only want to worry about the left/right movement so that the subject stays centered. It's drone footage that had some sort of issue (compass interference possibly due to large transformers) and I don't want the warping effect that is applying.

Any way to do that? Unchecking the other boxes on stabilize doesn't seem to solve it.

TIA

You should be able to stabilise any one or all of the translations. You need to uncheck the translations you do not require and then click on the Compute Stabilization tab.

houldsworth1 wrote:I'm trying to do the same thing. I have footage that I can apply stabilize to but I really only want to worry about the left/right movement so that the subject stays centered. It's drone footage that had some sort of issue (compass interference possibly due to large transformers) and I don't want the warping effect that is applying.

Any way to do that? Unchecking the other boxes on stabilize doesn't seem to solve it.

TIA

There's a good chance that if the stabilization is too large, you'll introduce other sorts of warping. Some drones have a pretty wide-angle lense, so if you move something from the outside of the frame towards the center, the lens distortion will come along with it. Without seeing the actual issue it's rather difficult to give a one size fits all explanation.

Sander de Regt wrote:

houldsworth1 wrote:I'm trying to do the same thing. I have footage that I can apply stabilize to but I really only want to worry about the left/right movement so that the subject stays centered. It's drone footage that had some sort of issue (compass interference possibly due to large transformers) and I don't want the warping effect that is applying.

Any way to do that? Unchecking the other boxes on stabilize doesn't seem to solve it.

TIA

There's a good chance that if the stabilization is too large, you'll introduce other sorts of warping. Some drones have a pretty wide-angle lense, so if you move something from the outside of the frame towards the center, the lens distortion will come along with it. Without seeing the actual issue it's rather difficult to give a one size fits all explanation.

Thanks. I actually made the focus point pretty small and it mostly worked. If I tried to go too small it would lose it, but I managed to get a size that still a little warping but is close enough.

Glad that it worked for you!