Motion tracking is an important part of video production, and After Effects has been able to track regions of video for more than 30 years. Tracking can be used for cool looking motion graphics, as well as stabilisation & reverse stabilisation for VFX.
But although the After Effects tracker was overhauled sometime in the early 2000s, it still wasn’t very good. And so Adobe did something really clever. Instead of trying to improve the tracker that was already built into After Effects, they licensed a dedicated tracking application called Mocha.
The version of Mocha that comes with After Effects is a cut-down version, called Mocha AE, and you can upgrade to the full version of Mocha Pro for even more professional features.
But Mocha AE is there, on your drive. If you’ve installed After Effects, you’ve got Mocha sitting there waiting for you.
Mocha AE is perfect for basic tracking, and it’s a huge improvement on the old Adobe tracker. So it really frustrates me when I see new users, beginners, and sometimes not-so-new users complaining about the built in After Effects tracker, while completely ignoring Mocha. There’s no excuse!
To help get you started, here’s a quick video tutorial that runs through all the basics – everything you need to know to start tracking with Mocha in After Effects.
As I mention in the video, one of the best things about Mocha is the huge amount of free tutorials that have been professionally made by Boris FX. You can head over to YouTube and work your way through the “Mocha Essentials” playlist, which will take you through all of the advanced features that Mocha has. It’s such a huge step up from the After Effects tracker!
Although the Mocha Essentials series is a wonderful resource, it’s got 45 separate parts. The video I’ve made above is more of a general introduction – a basic overview to get you started.
So watch it, enjoy, and please don’t complain about the built-in After Effects tracker ever again…