09: Tracking

Player Auto Tracking

The Player Auto Tracking plugin is an additional licensed feature. The feature allows for automatic keyframing of players within a clip. This creates paths for tracked targets, which can then have graphics linked to them. It does not require a chromakey or calibration to be set in order to be initialized.

Workflow

When a clip is imported to the Paint the player tracking will automatically start running in the background once the import is finished. Paths of players will start to be tracked from the beginning of the clip.

Progress of the background tracking is visualized by a progress bar over the clip. Both the clip and generated paths can also be used during the tracking process.

Re-track players

The tracking process can also be triggered manually by an action in the clip context menu. If you want to re-track players simply select the Track Players option.
‎Note: All existing player paths will be overwritten!

Cancel

The tracking process can also be canceled by selecting the Cancel Tracking option in the clip context menu.

Limitations

macOS machines need to have version Big Sur or newer. The speed of the calibration process is dependent on system hardware. M1 Macs and PCs with strong GPUs will perform best. Intel GPU is not recommended for this feature because the calculations may be very slow. Preferred GPU is NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 or higher.
‎Currently not available for recorded clips with multiple inputs, only single input recordings or imported clips.
‎After calibration is defined on a clip, the player paths need to be re-tracked to be converted as 3D.

Formation tool

The formation tool is designed to convey tactical insight of the game to viewers or players.

The video preview is replaced with pitch background and the formation graphics, which usually consists of counters for 1 or 2 teams. The counters are able to be moved and combined with other Paint Tools to further explain tactical points. The tool allows you to prepare several game setups and present them later.

Configuration

The formation plugin is disabled by default. You can enable the plugin in the Config editor, Plugins tab.

Setup panel

The Formation tool setup panel is accessible via the Formations widget by clicking the "Formation Tool Setup" button. Clicking it again will then hide it.

The setup panel consists of following sections:

• Formation Tool widget
• Preset setup
• Top preview
• Counters setup‎ 

Formation Tool widget

The widget allows you to control the Formation tool and navigate over the presets. You can invoke a popup with a list of available presets on the widget and select one of them.

	Shows/Hides the Formation tool
	Shows/Hides the Formation tool setup panel
	Selects previous/next preset.
	Reloads the currently selected preset. Clearing all unsaved user modifications to the current preset.
	Saves current state of current preset. Save - overrides current preset. Save As - creates a new preset with a chosen name. Send to clip - saves preset as a clip in bank at chosen position.
	Name of the currently selected preset. Clicking will bring a selection popup. Presets can be reordered by dragging the handle on the left or removed by clicking the bin button.

Preset setup

In this section you can find configuration of HOME and AWAY teams in preset.

• Home Team / Away Team - Team switch, indicates which team is displayed and edited below. Checkboxes right next to them control whether or not the team is active and its players should be displayed in the preview.
• Squad import - Allows you to access data naming feeds by Binding to Opta feed or Binding to GSIS data.
• Pitch view - Allows you to select one of the predefined pitch view angles.
• Texture file, Scale - Default values for player texture and its scale factor. Separate for each team.
• Glow effect - Glow texture shown below players in the preview when they are selected. Can be turned off by the checkbox.
• Formation - Formation defines the positions of players in a team. Last used formation is displayed, selecting a different one will apply it, moving all players in the team. Existing formations can be removed, new ones can be created by manually moving the players to desired positions, then clicking on the save button and choosing name. Separate for each team.
• Pitch grid - Show/hide pitch wireframe overlay over the background in the pitch window.

Top preview

A simplified preview of the pitch with current position of players (counters). Currently unused players are placed in the bottom "Unused counters" section. Players can be:

• Selected by left clicking on them
• Moved by dragging
• Removed by right clicking and choosing the "Remove" option
• Added by right clicking anywhere on the pitch and choosing the "Add" option

Counter setup

Here lies the configuration of the currently selected player. You can edit texts, precise position and override counter texture and/or its scale.

The top header controls style of currently selected text (highlighted by green). Text style is shared across all players from the team.

• Show/Hide text
• Position of text relative to the player
  • By precise X and Y coordinates
  • By the virtual joystick
    1. Left click to activate (joystick will turn to green)
    2. Move the text
       • Hold and drag the joystick by mouse
       • Use arrow keys
       • Scroll over the joystick (scroll = Y coord, scroll + SHIFT = X coord)
    3. Click anywhere else to deactivate
• Text font - family, horizontal align, size, bold/italic modifiers and color

In the bottom left you can change text values of the currently selected player, remove existing text (from the whole team) by clicking the "-" button next to it or add new text (to the whole team) by clicking the "+" button below.

On the bottom right there is an advanced configuration of the selected player. You can:

• Edit its position precisely by X and Y coordinates
• Override default team texture
  1. Click on the link button (white = linked to team, red = unlinked/overridden)
  2. Define custom player texture
• Override texture scale factor
  1. Click on the link button (white = linked to team, red = unlinked/overridden)
  2. Define custom texture scale factor

Formation preset as clip

After a preset is sent to a clip via the option in the Formation Tool widget, a basic 25 second clip with the preset background and Counters is created. The preset in the clip is a current state copy of the preset in the Formation model.

Counters now behave as standard drawings and therefore can be viewed and managed in the timeline (only exception being they cannot be deleted). They inherit all properties from the origin preset counters and their production is defined across the whole clip.

The clip can then be managed (rename/move/delete…) and used (add/remove/edit tool drawings) same as any other clip.

Keyframing Counter positions

Position and production timing of Counters can be adjusted in the same way as for tool drawings by first switching to the Edit mode and then changing position at required times. This will create position keyframes for affected Counters and defined paths will be showcased with lines.

Changes then need to be saved by clicking the Save (modified) button.

Adjusting in/out points

The size of the preset clip can be adjusted in the In/Out point widget by jogging to required time and marking a new in/out point (click and hold for 1s).

‎Using your own Counter textures

The tools come ready to use with default resources. To add your own counter textures, just copy them into:

Documents\Paint10\Formation\Soccer\Counters

Replacing default textures is not recommended as they might be overwritten during the next installation process.

Send UDP Data

Paints formation tool can be set up to send live updating data for positions, names over UDP to a third-party software to display a lineup/formation in 2D/VR/AR with settings for port, delay, team among other.

The plugin for Next Gen Stats is disabled by default and to activate it user needs to set it up inside Paints config editor under the advanced tab and it looks as the following:

<Plugin enabled="true" name="FormationTool">
<SendData value="true"/>
<Port value="9008"/>
<ChangePresetDelay value="50"/>
<ImmediateChangesDelay value="0"/>
<Team value="HOME"/> <!-- HOME, AWAY, BOTH -->
</Plugin>