User Manual

The ellipse needs to follow the motion of the ray gun, so a Tracker node is used to analyze the
movement of the gun tip so that tracking data can be used to animate the ellipse. The ellipse is
not connected to the tracker directly via the foreground input but indirectly through the
Connect To contextual menu.
Applying the light of a ray gun by connecting tracking data to the center position of an Ellipse node.
This is made easier by renaming the Tracker you created to something descriptive of what’s
being tracked.
You can rename trackers in the Tracker List by double-
clicking them and typing descriptive text.
Once the tip of the ray gun has been tracked, this tracking data is then connected to the Center
parameter of an Ellipse node that’s limiting a Glow effect by right-clicking the label of the Center
parameter in the Inspector, and choosing Tracker1 > Ray Gun Glow: Offset position from the
Connect to submenu of the contextual menu. All the data from every Tracker node in your node
tree and every tracking pattern appears within this submenu, and since we named the Tracker,
it’s easy to find. Choosing Offset position because it will place the center of the ellipse directly
over the path. However, it also gives us the flexibly to offset the ellipse if need be, using the
offset controls in the Inspector.
Right-clicking a parameter’s label lets you connect tracking data to it to animate it.
You can connect the data from a Tracker node to any other node’s parameter; however, you’ll
most typically connect track data to center, pivot, or corner X/Y style parameters. When you
use tracking data this way, it’s not necessary to connect the output of the Tracker node itself to
anything else in your node tree; the data is passed from the Tracker to the Center parameter by
linking it with the Connect To submenu.
Chapter – 73 Using the Tracker Node 1491