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Tracking Windows Across Transitions
When you track a window that crosses a transition boundary (for example, a dissolve from one clip to another), DaVinci Resolve will automatically continue the track for the full extent of the video under the transition.
Tracking Windows When You’ll Be Exporting Media With Handles
When you track windows to match moving features in a clip, the windows are only transformed on frames with tracking data. In Round Trip workflows where you add handles to the graded clips you render for editorial flexibility in the footage you deliver, you need to make sure that you track all windows from the beginning to the end of these handles to make sure that, if an editor actually trims any of the clips you give them to use the handles, all windows are doing what they should.
An easy way to do this is to choose View > Show Current Clips With Handles to display each clip
you select in the Timeline with handles defined by the “Default handles length” setting in the Editing panel of the User Preferences. Make sure that the “Default handles length” is equal to the handles you export using the “Add X Frame handles” option in the Render Settings list of the Deliver page.
With each clip’s handles made visible in this way, you can easily track windows along every frame you’ll be rendering.
Simple Ways of Working With Existing Tracking Data
If there’s a portion of a shot that you haven’t tracked (for example, you started tracking at a later frame, or you ended tracking before the end of the shot), then the window you’re tracking remains wherever it was at the first or last frame that was tracked. If you want to fill in these gaps, you can always move the playhead to the first or last frame that was tracked, and then use the Track Backward or Track Forward command to track the rest of the frames in that shot.
Tips for Better Tracking
In situations where a feature changes shape in such a way as to confuse the tracker, you can try tracking a smaller part of the feature by using a smaller window. Once you’ve achieved a successful track, you can resize the window as necessary, and it will have no effect on the track that’s already been made.
Also, if you’re tracking a feature that moves behind something onscreen and disappears for the rest of the shot, there’s an easy way to avoid having an awkward window sitting in the middle of the scene.
You can use dynamic keyframes to animate the Key Output Gain parameter (in the Key tab of the Color page) to fade from the correction’s full strength of 1.0 down to 0, the value at which the correction disappears, along with the window itself.
Tracking One Frame at a Time
You can click the “track one frame forward” or “track one frame backward” buttons in the Tracker palette to track a moving feature one frame at a time, making it easier to make adjustments to follow a difficult track when you’ve set tracking to Frame mode (by clicking the Frame button).