[Editor’s Note: Mocha-AE had some mixed results on different platforms, so we wanted to make sure we reviewed it on both Mac and PC. I do a decent number of special effects in my films and have co-authored the upcoming MWP book, GreenScreening Made Easy, with ToolFarm’s Michele Yamazaki; but I would consider myself more of a generalist, who has tended to use more locked-down shots for special effects in the past. As such, to bring a greater amount special effects experience to the table, I asked Craig Herron, an award winning, low-budget special effects artist from Baltimore, to review it with me. I tested it on a PC with Windows XP x64 while Craig tested it on a Mac with Tiger 10.4.11]
If you have ever needed to replace one sign with another sign in a moving shot, or place a video on a moving cell phone, then you have run into the need for motion tracking. Before the advent of motion tracking software, highly specialized (and highly OCD) artists, called “rotoscope artists”, would track the sizing and movement of an overlaid piece of video or image, as it related to an underlying video source, frame by frame. With motion tracking software, much of this tedium is outdated, at least if you can afford a powerful enough motion tracker.
After Effects has included a basic point tracker (a system that looks for high contrast points in video and then tracks their movement) for a number of years, but other than that, most of the motion tracking software on the market has been extremely expensive. How expensive? With the exceptions of digiLabs Voodoo (which is As-Is Freeware for PC/Linux) and Andersson Technologies SynthEyes (which runs about $350), one is normally expected to pay between $5,000 for packages like PixelFarm’s PFTrack to $10,000 for 2d3’s Boujou. (Of course, when you pay that much for it, they call it “match-moving” software and it can track in both 2D and “projected” 3D space, but it is still just tracking software.)
Imagineer Systems is a British company that has been creating different motion tracking, motion positioning, and rotoscoping systems for a number of years. Known for their motion prowess with software packages like Monet (a Motion Placement software) and Motor (a Motion Rotoscoping software), Imagineer created a planar tracking system which was designed to track 2.5D planes (as opposed to planes in 3D space, as it isn’t a true 3D tracker like Boujou or Voodoo), rather than points, producing a much more robust tracking experience. This package was initially released as Mocha at the semi-affordable rate of $1500. While $1500 is quite affordable to Hollywood types, it was harder for low-budget filmmakers to be able to buy.
As such, Imagineer removed some of the more powerful rotoscoping features of Mocha and released Mocha-AE, a software package designed to work with the corner pin tool found in After Effects (and other compositing/effects programs that use corner pin technology).
Mocha and Mocha-AE have received rave endorsements from some of the top Hollywood special effects people in the industry, and a book I recently co-wrote will include screen captures and information about a low budget greenscreen movie called Dirty Trousers, which has done some amazing work with Mocha. As such, when it came time to review Mocha-AE, I really wanted to see how it broke down, not for effects professionals, but for low-budget filmmakers who want to add complex effects to their films, using motion tracking.
Ease of Use
One of the big selling points of Mocha-AE is that it is designed to be extremely powerful, yet extremely easy to use. In comparison to Realviz’s Matchmover, I am sure it is easy to use. However, most low-budget filmmakers have not cut their teeth on Matchmover, Boujou, or other higher-end trackers. Instead, they are forced to either avoid tracking shots or push the Point Tracker in After Effects to its limits to get the tracking needed. Since this represents our readership, we will restrict most of our comparisons to that. When you look at the layout of Mocha-AE versus the layout of the AE Point Tracker, it looks much easier to use. However, as Craig and I tried using it, we had mixed results.
