Track points: follow a spot with titles and effects

Applies to 0.11Updated 7 Nov 20263 min read

Click a spot in the Program Monitor to make a track point, then attach titles, graphics and effect centres to it. The markers never appear in renders.

A track point follows one spot in a video. Titles, graphics, pictures and effect centres attached to it move with that spot.

Add a point

• Select a video clip. In Effect Controls, find Track Points under Motion.
• Put the playhead where the spot is and press Add Point. The pointer becomes a cross.
• Click the spot in the Program Monitor. Press Add Point again instead to cancel.

The point is followed from the playhead to the end of the clip at once. Its marker appears on the picture: a ring with a cross and its name, such as "Point 1". Add as many points as you like on the same video. Each gets its own row.

The markers

• They show only in the Program Monitor, and only while it is paused. They come back when you stop playing.
• Green: the tracker is sure. Amber: it is guessing. Blue: a selected clip follows this point.
• The eye button in the section header hides or shows them.
• Renders, exports, saved frames and thumbnails never contain them.

Attach clips and effects

Select the clips in the timeline, then open the point's Attach menu:

• Attach Selected Clips: they follow the point and keep the distance they have from it now.
• Attach Selected Clips, Centred on the Point: they jump onto the point first.
• Attach Selected Clips with Size and Rotation: they also grow and turn with the spot.
• Centre of <effect> Follows, and …Moved onto the Point, for every effect on the video with a Center X / Y, such as VLFilm Light Rays and shape and pen masks.

Follow from the title or graphic

Select the title, graphic or picture itself. Its Track Points section shows Follow, with None or every point of the videos under it. With a point chosen you also get:

• a button that centres the clip on the point;
• Size and Rotation;
• Smoothing: 0 % follows every tremble; 15 % is the default.

Each point's row

• ◀ and ▶ follow the point again, backward or forward from the playhead.
• The name field renames it. Type and press Return.
• The Attach menu also has Detach "<clip>", Bake to Keyframes (what follows keeps where it went as ordinary keyframes) and Delete Point N.

Fix a point that slips

Drag its marker in the Program Monitor to where the spot really is on that frame. That frame is fixed, and the point is followed on from there until it is back on its old path. Everything attached moves with it.

Good to know

• A point is saved with the project in the video file's own time. Trimming, slipping, changing the speed or copying the clip keeps everything attached in the right place.
• Exports to Premiere and Final Cut write the following as ordinary keyframes.
• A point on a rotated, reversed or stabilized clip is refused. Make it a nested sequence first.
• A flat area or a plain edge gives the tracker nothing to hold, and the point turns amber or is lost. Drag the marker on a later frame to pick it up again.

More: Track a spot or a plane, and blur faces and Select and track a subject with Object Mask.

Track points are part of Masks and tracking.

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