Chromatic Vibration Packet

NOTE: This post is from my long-dead previous blog, reposted in celebration of the newly completed GCC website and forum, which will host this and other VFX schwag.

Handy bit of code used to convert Shake tracking information into After Effects keyframes. Firstly, you must save Shake tracking data to a text file, open it up, select and copy the section pertaining to the tracker data you want.

Consider this:

TrackName track1
Frame X Y Correlation
32.00 697.863 722.238 0.983
33.00 704.707 719.722 0.980
34.00 712.269 715.066 0.979
35.00 718.800 713.301 0.979
36.00 723.441 714.816 0.978
37.00 727.316 717.676 0.978
...
56.00 798.628 711.894 0.999
57.00 802.003 715.504 1.000

The above is a sample output from shake. The comp size and framerate in After Effects should correspond to the original Shake comp, and if not, this form won’t support scaling other than pixel aspect correction. Once the text is copied, paste it into the form at the bottom, fill out the rest of the information according to the Shake composition, and submit to generate the After Effects keyframes.

Copy the form’s output and paste it into the property you want to keyframe in After Effects. I like to use a null layer just as reference for whatever other layers I’m using.

Sample output:

Adobe After Effects 6.5 Keyframe Data

Units Per Second 24
Source Width 1920
Source Height 1080
Source Pixel Aspect Ratio 1.5
Comp Pixel Aspect Ratio 1

Position
Frame X pixels Y pixels Z pixels
1 1362.546 605.348 0
2 1361.9595 605.645 0
...
71 1769.88 -196.84999 0
72 1769.88 -196.84999 0

End of Keyframe Data

To download this form head over to the GCC Utilities page located at the GCC website.