Tracking Windows

If you draw a Power Window over an actor's face to brighten it, that adjustment works perfectly on frame 1. But if the actor walks across the room, the brightened circle will remain floating in the original spot, making the shot look terrible.

You must track the window so it follows the actor. Fortunately, Oraphim possesses the fastest and most accurate Planar Tracker in the industry.

How to Track a Window

1. Draw your Power Window over the object (e.g., the actor's face).
2. Open the Tracker panel (located next to the Window panel; the icon looks like a crosshair).
3. Ensure your playhead is on the frame where you drew the window.
4. Click the Track Forward button (the Play icon).

Oraphim's engine analyzes the pixels inside the window and tracks their movement, generating keyframes automatically. In seconds, your window will perfectly stick to the actor's face as they move through the scene.

Tracking Modes

By default, the Tracker analyzes all forms of movement: Pan, Tilt, Zoom, Rotation, and 3D Perspective. However, sometimes you need to restrict the tracker.

• Example: You drew a window over a car driving horizontally. The car drives behind a tree, obscuring its front bumper, causing the tracker to get confused and rotate the window wildly.
• Solution: Before tracking, uncheck Zoom, Rotation, and Perspective 3D in the Tracker panel. Now the tracker will only look for horizontal/vertical (Pan/Tilt) movement, ignoring the complex perspective changes that caused the glitch.

Frame Mode vs. Clip Mode

The Tracker panel has two tabs: Clip and Frame.

• Clip Mode (Default): When you draw a window and move it, it moves the window for the entire duration of the clip. This is what you want 99% of the time before hitting track.
• Frame Mode (Manual Keyframing): If the automatic tracker fails because the actor turns around completely, you switch to Frame mode. In Frame mode, any manual movement you make to the window only applies to that specific frame, generating a new keyframe. This allows you to manually rotoscope the window frame-by-frame when the AI cannot.

Point Tracking vs. Cloud Tracking

The Color workspace tracker uses a "point cloud." It looks at hundreds of high-contrast points inside your window. If the object you are tracking is featureless (like a smooth white ball), the tracker will fail. In this case, switch to the Point Tracker mode via the dropdown menu, drop a single crosshair on the sharp edge of the ball against the background, and track that single point instead.