How to Do Planar Tracking in Blender

This guide provides a step-by-step walkthrough of performing planar motion tracking in Blender for visual effects (VFX). You will learn how to set up your workspace, track a flat surface, solve the motion, and composite a new image or video onto the tracked plane, allowing you to seamlessly replace screens, signs, or walls in your footage.

Step 1: Set Up the Motion Tracking Workspace

To begin, open Blender and select the VFX template from the startup splash screen, or manually switch your current editor to the Movie Clip Editor. Click the Open button to load your video footage. Once loaded, click Set Scene Frames to match your project length to the video, and click Prefetch to load the video frames into your system memory for smoother playback.

Step 2: Track Reference Markers

Planar tracking in Blender requires tracking at least four individual points on the same flat surface to calculate perspective changes. 1. Hold Ctrl and Right-Click (or Left-Click depending on your keymap) to place a tracking marker on a high-contrast corner of the surface you want to track. 2. Repeat this process until you have placed at least four markers mapping out the boundaries of the plane. 3. Select all markers and press Ctrl + T to track forward through the footage, or use the tracking buttons in the Track panel on the left sidebar. Ensure the markers stay locked to their features throughout the duration of the clip.

Step 3: Create the Plane Track

Once you have four successful point tracks, you can generate the planar surface. 1. Select all four tracking markers in the Movie Clip Editor. 2. In the tool shelf on the left, navigate to the Solve tab. 3. Scroll down to the Plane Track panel and click the Create Plane Track button. 4. A gray grid will appear over your markers. Click and drag the corners of this grid to align them precisely with the edges of the surface you want to replace (such as the outer borders of a phone screen or billboard).

Step 4: Composite the Replacement Image

To place a new image or video onto your tracked plane, you must use Blender’s Compositor. 1. Switch to the Compositing workspace and check the Use Nodes box at the top. 2. Add a Movie Clip node and select your tracked footage. 3. Add an Image node and open the graphic or video clip you want to project onto the surface. 4. Add a Plane Track Deform node (Shift + A > Distort > Plane Track Deform). 5. In the Plane Track Deform node properties, select your active movie clip, the camera object, and the specific plane track you created. 6. Connect the output of your Image node to the Image input of the Plane Track Deform node. 7. Add an Alpha Over node. Connect the original Movie Clip output to the top Image input of the Alpha Over node, and the output of the Plane Track Deform node to the bottom Image input. 8. Connect the output of the Alpha Over node to your Composite and Viewer nodes to see the final, tracked result overlaid on your footage.