The player auto tracking is a valuable resource that will save you time while keyframing players, as it will do it automatically for you.
Although the tool is very valuable, it is not perfect and therefore you may find some errors while tracking players. In this article we are teaching you how to solve them:
Shape Paths
The "Shape Paths" option was created to be able to manually edit the course the player will take. With the "Shape Paths" tool you can edit the path to make it more accurate or to correct errors in the automatic tracking. Here is a video:
Here is the step-by-step:
Select a tool and track a player with it.
Recognize the moment when the player's path needs to be fixed.
Select the Shape Path tool and click on the circle below the player that you need to modify its path. Holding Command (or Control) + the scroll of the mouse, you can select the section of the path that you want to edit.
Drag and drop the little circle below the player to modify its path.
Swap Paths
The "Swap Paths" option was created to solve the problem where due to two players' intersection the tool that we were using to follow our player, goes with the other one. Here is a demonstration of a typical case:
The steps to fix this problem are:
Select a tool and track a player with it.
Recognize the moment when both players' paths intersect and generate the problem.
As soon as the confusion happens, use the Swap Paths tool to change the paths of both players by clicking on its circles.
You can manually adjust the details with the Shape Paths tool.
Join Paths
The Join Paths option has been created to solve a particular problem where one player crosses another (or the referee) and because of this, the cursor stays still on the court. With the Join Paths button, you can connect the player's path from the moment it crosses with another player, to the moment when both of them separate. Coach Paint will create an interpolated path from the moment you lose track until you reconnect with the same player a few seconds later. Here is a video that explains how you can use this tool:
The step-by-step would be:
Select a tool and track a player with it.
Recognize the moment when the player's path came across some other player or the referee.
Go to the last exact moment in which both paths are distinguishable separately.
Select the Join Path tool and click on the circle below the player that you were originally tracking.
Go to the exact frame in which you can distinguish both paths separately again and click on the circle below the player that you were originally tracking.
That's it. Remember that you can manually correct the path with the Path Shaping tool.
Split Paths
The option "Split Paths" was created to be able to eliminate the future path of a player, and to continue its tracking manually, since it will approach an area too populated to be followed automatically (like an area with lots of players piled up, for example). Here is a video demonstration:
The step-by-step is:
Select a tool and track a player with it.
Recognize the moment when the player's path is no longer trackable.
Select the Split Path tool and click on the player's circle.
Use the Shape Path tool to manually edit the resting path.