3D tracked knowledge video

It’s that time of the year again. The grass is turning green and so, it’s time for a new grassroots project. This time I’m going to dive into the world of 3D tracking in Adobe After Effects to create next level knowledge videos.

I was inspired by the awesome Peter McKinnon and his short tutorial on how to merge 3D graphics and video footage. I thought, how cool would it be to explain some statistical concepts and have it play out right in front of me on the table. Looking at what AE Tutorials created, I could totally see this happening.

So, the grassroots project got approved and we’re going to do this. The goal is of course to create a few clips, but also to see how viable it is within the confounds of my own desktop computer and the Adobe CC suite. To answer this question, I will document my findings in this blog series. And if all goes well, I’ll create a video on how to do this on your own.

The process is looking fairly easy, but I reckon we’ll bump into problems along the way. What we need to do is: Create some vector graphics and formula’s to use in the video. In my case, I will be making them in R, exporting to PDF and layering them in illustrator. Next up is to create a storyboard. Shoot a video, and finally edit it all together in after effects.

That’s the plan at least. I will be doing a remake of my earlier analysis of variance videos. And if all goes well, I’ll tackle the fundamentals of null hypotheses testing.