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Spot Clone Tracker

FAST, SIMPLE SPOT CLEANUP AND OBJECT REMOVAL

Getting Started

• Drag the Spot Clone Tracker effect onto your clip.
• If another source will be used for covering Spot Clone's area, bring it into the timeline, as well.
• Want a video overview before you get going? Maxon's Cineversity has several tutorial clips on Spot Clone Tracker, but if you only have nine minutes to spare, give them to this excellent "Getting Started" piece by Maxon's Stu Maschwitz.
  

Core Concepts

Spot Clone Tracker lets you map a texture from a source (Clone From) area onto a target (Spot) area. The plugin then color matches the clone to the target space and keeps tracking that spot as it moves throughout your clip. It's like the cloning function in Photoshop, only now you can automate how that cloning follows your target point across each consecutive frame.

For many years, VFX Spot Clone Tracker has been one of the easiest ways available to perform DCC-based tracking. The cloning functionality just makes it that much better.

The plugin uses two main overlay controls, the Clone From wireframe (light blue by default) and the Spot wireframe (orange by default). In both cases, the area inside the solid inner circle indicates the zone being mapped; the dashed outer circle marks the feathering boundary. By default, these reticles move in tandem, but you can opt to have them move independently.

Spot Clone Tracker provides tracking controls that perform the cloning operations through your clip, moving either forward or backward in your timeline. As it does so, Spot Clone Tracker automatically generates the necessary keyframes.

Let's briefly touch on the controls you'll frequently use when manipulating Spot Clone Tracker reticles.

1. Move these four warping points in your spot (target) reticle to reshape the wireframe as you like. Note how Stu used these to form crescents to clone out the dark area under his eye in the screenshot above.

2. Click and drag on empty areas to move the spot reticle. By default, the Clone From reticle will move with it. Dragging an empty area in your Clone From reticle simply drags the entire comp.

3. Click and drag the target's dashed ring to change the diameter of the Feather area.

4. The Clone From Rotate control point is described below. Just know you may find it more convenient to manipulate rotation via this point.

Modify the Effect

• Tracker Only. As mentioned above, Spot Clone Tracker offers an incredibly convenient way to perform tracking even without its cloning functions.
  
  When checked, the Tracker Only box hides all non-tracking-related parameters and exposes some key Export parameters. This elevates the tracking functions of the tool to the surface, providing users with quick and easy access to this powerful, simple-to-use tracker.
  
• Enable Overlay toggles the sampling reticles and area controls on and off over the frame.
• Overlay has an option for showing Wireframes & Tracking Preview when working with the plugin. You can also select Wireframes Only (Faster Tracking), which decreases preview render times and is useful for setting up and configuring tracker positions.
• My Footage Is contains options that help Spot Clone Tracker determine how best to sample, track, and blend areas. Select Video, Log, or Linear depending on the footage type.
• Spot contains parameters that adjust the spot position, shape, and scale. Note that each of these parameters (with the exceptions of Spot Wireframe and Spot Rotate) also link to the sampling area.
  • Spot Wireframe defines the color of the spot's target reticle. Being able to differentiate reticle colors can come in handy when using multiple tracker instances in the same comp.
  • Track Spot configures how the spot's area is tracked.
    • Position tracks a spot's position based off the horizontal and vertical axes.
    • Position & Scale tracks a spot's position based off the horizontal, vertical, and z axes. This is useful for tracking positions that move toward and away from the camera, as in the boat racing animation above.
    • Position, Scale & Rotation tracks a spot's position based on all axes, including any rotations.
  • Playback Controls
    
    
    • These are standard tracker controls, including First Frame ( ), Previous Frame ( ), Next Frame ( ), and Last Frame ( ). Use these to execute tracking analysis and monitor the tracker position.
  • Spot Center (see image below), Spot Size, and Spot Rotate are all basic controls for adjusting the position, scale, and rotation of the spot.
    
    
  • Spot Shape is a keyframeable parameter for animating adjustments to the spot shape. Shape adjustments are animated between keyframes, affecting both the Spot and Cloned From areas. The following animation illustrates a user dragging on the Spot's bottom warping point.
    
    The shape animates its boundaries based on the keyframes set for Spot Shape.
  • Shape Roundness controls the rounding of your reticles' corners. A 0 value essentially yields a square (shown below). A 100 value, the default, yields a circle. Imagine trying to clone blank space onto a rectangular door marred by graffiti. A rectangular spot will fill that door area much more naturally than a circle or oval. Also note how we only used a moderate Spot Opacity in our before/after example below. This preserved some of the door's original wear to make it look natural without letting scuffing distract the viewer's eye.
    
    
  • Feather adjusts dithering around the area's sample. Higher values define a larger dithering area.
• Spot Options
  • Method contains presets on how sampled frame information transfers between the source and target areas. Each preset modifies other parameters in this subsection, which can then be adjusted based on preference (resulting in the Custom option). Shown below, from left to right, are Repair, Clone, Texture Repair, Texture Clone, and Fill.
    
    • Repair respects the masked area's original colors while overlaying the sampled area's texture and darker information.
    • Clone is a 1:1 duplication of the area sampled onto the area masked.
    • Texture Repair attempts to clone only the texture information from the sampled area (darker areas), and merge its colors with the masked area.
    • Texture Clone replicates the sampled area, but whereas Clone defaults to a Unify Clone Colors value of 0, Texture Clone uses a value of 100.
    • Fill ignores the sampled area and fills the masked area with whatever color is at the spot's center.
  • Match Spot Color controls how much of the masked area's color is retained. Below, you'll see how the building in our scene has a potentially distracting neon sign (left). We placed our spot over the sign and the Clone From reticle over a similar position to its right. The center image shows a Match Spot Color value of 0, so it preserves all the coloring from the source sample. The right image shows a setting of 100 with Enable Overlay disabled.
    
  • Unify Clone Colors adjusts blending of colors shared between the sampled and masked areas based on their luminosity.
  • Texture defines how much of the darker, textured areas of the sampled section carry over to the masked area.
  • Add Noise brings in an optional noise overlay to help blend the sharpness of the masked area.
  • Spot Opacity adjusts the transparency of the masked area.
  • Respect Alpha toggles whether areas containing alpha information are masked over (enabled) or not (disabled).
• Clone From
  • Clone From Layer allows you to select which layer to sample from. This is how you might get a hot air balloon to orbit Jupiter, for example. When None is selected, the tool samples from whatever layer to which it's applied.
    
  • Clone From Wireframe defines the color of the sample area's target reticle.
  • Set Clone From Point defines where the sampled area's position is relative to the target spot (via X/Y Offset) or if it is positioned independently (Explicitly) from the source. Selecting Explicitly will create a new positional control point for the source sample. Both options work in conjunction with the below parameters.
    • Clone From Center provides coordinates and controls for where the sampled area is in the frame when Explicitly is selected.
    • X Offset and Y Offset dictate where the sampling area is positioned in relation to the masked area when With X/Y Offset is selected.
  • Track Clone From configures how the sampled area is tracked:
    • Position tracks the sample area's position based off the horizontal and vertical axes.
    • Position & Scale tracks the sample area's position based off the horizontal, vertical, and z axes. This is useful for tracking positions moving toward and away from the camera.
    • Position, Scale & Rotation tracks the sample area's position based on all axes, including any rotations.
  • Playback Controls
    
    • These are standard tracker playback controls, including First Frame ( ), Previous Frame ( ), Next Frame ( ) and Last Frame ( ). Use these to monitor the tracker position.
  • Match Spot Size toggles whether the sampling area always matches the masked area.
    • Clone From Size controls the size of the sampling area when Match Spot Size is disabled.
    • Clone From Rotate adjusts the sample rotation. Notice how shifting the Clone From control about 45 degrees changes the angle of the cloned sample in the spot wireframe below.
      
    • Flip Horizontally and Flip Vertically toggle whether the sample is flipped on its horizontal or vertical axis.
• Rendering Options
  • Render on Transparent toggles whether the layer to which the effect is applied only shows its output (enabled) or the entire layer.
  • Render Method switches between utilizing the GPU or CPU resources for rendering output. GPU tends to be faster but less stable on less robust systems. CPU is more stable but with longer rendering times.