1) Pre-composing and setting up your footage/composition for tracking
The layer that Lockdown is applied to, and the Composition that layer is in, must have the same resolution and framerate for Lockdown to work. If you aren’t 100% sure how to set that up on your own, just press the Pre-compose button at the top of the plugin. The script will pre-compose your layer and set everything inside the pre-comp to all the correct settings, and you can work with Lockdown in there.

2) Optional Tracking Filter
This optional button applies effects that sometimes allow our tracker better identify textures. It’s basically an edge-detect with a lot of contrast. You should be in 16 or 32-bit mode when using this filter. Running a denoiser on the original footage, and again on the final result also improves trackability. This is great for a shot where lighting is changing, because it brings out details in cracks and surfaces, and tends to ignore larger gradients. It’s great for faces, where there is tons of detail to be tracked in the pores of the skin. Without the filter, the tracking points may follow shadows and highlights sliding across the face, rather than the skin. With this filter, they will lock onto pores and skin details. Keep in mind this filter becomes far less effective with compressed video, like mp4.

3) Tracking
Click “Popout” to enter the Popout tracker. Layers are DISABLED in the first release of Lockdown 2.0.0, and will be enabled after the first round of testing. Control click to create points, control-click and drag to create a grid of points. Press “Track All” to track the points. Press “Auto Triangulate” to generate a mesh.

4) Improving on automatic tracking
– Track Adjustment: When a point drifts away from it’s target, click and drag it to put it back in place. Adjustment keyframes are an additional layer of animation that adds on top of your base track. It’s a very fast way to fix drifts.

What’s New
2.7.3 (Current version) – Feb 23, 2022
### Added
– Added Alembic Import/Export dialog and settings in Popout interface. (This now allows Resolve users to use Alembic tools.)
– Added button which can remove all ‘base keyframes’ for selected point(s). This leaves a point with nothing but adjustment tracks, allowing you to regenerate all tracking data if needed.
– Now all mesh points show up in the stabilized mesh tab. This makes tracking much easier.
– Each time you open Ae or Resolve, the Lockdown Window position and zoom level will be saved for the duration of the session. (A convenience feature)
– Allowed points to track within the stabilized mesh, even if they at times exit it’s boundaries.
– Added the “Reapply interpolation” button for all tabs.
– Added the ability to remove custom UVs.

### Changed
– Removed Alembic controls from After Effects parameters panel.
– When ‘non-trackable’ keyframes are created, autogenerate interpolated keyframes for them.

### Fixed
– A bug where pressing the H key would clear the selection.
– A possible crash when clearing the UVs.
– An issue where expansion points might translate incorrectly between tabs.

Home Page – https://aescripts.com/lockdown/