Your First Camera Track

The shortest path from a video file to a solved, aligned Blender camera. It uses the default settings that work for most clean handheld shots and points to the detailed pages for everything else.

How to use it

  1. 1 Open Select Footage, choose your video and convert it to an image sequence. Downscale 4K footage to around 1080p for faster tracking.
  2. 2 If people, cars or other moving objects cross the shot, add a SAM2 or polygon mask layer in the Mask panel.
  3. 3 Open Heavy Tracking, keep the recommended preset, and enable Variable Focal Length (Zoom) only if the shot zooms.
  4. 4 Start the automatic track and follow it in the Progress panel.
  5. 5 Import the result with Import Results and keep Smart Importer enabled.
  6. 6 Clean stray points with Point Cloud Cleanup, then select points on the ground and use Floor in the Aligner.
  7. 7 Scrub through the shot in Camera View and place a test object on the ground to confirm nothing slides.

Getting Started Panel

MotionMaster 3D also has a short version of this guide built in. The Getting Started panel walks through the same four steps (Select Footage, choose Quick or Heavy, run the track, review the result) and reminds you of the most important rule: a camera track needs parallax. Walking, dolly and handheld moves work; tripod pans, tilts and zooms need the Tripod Tracker or the Zoom option instead.

Once you no longer need it, untick Show Getting Started Guide to hide the steps.

Technical notes

Shots that only pan or tilt from one spot need the Tripod Tracker, and flat surfaces such as screens and signs are faster with the Planar Tracker. If you are unsure which one fits, read camera vs planar vs tripod tracking.

MotionMaster 3D has the same steps built in: the Getting Started panel in the sidebar shows a short version of this guide.

The best first result comes from footage with real camera movement, a fast shutter and locked exposure. What makes footage good for camera tracking shows what to look for with real test clips.

Docs Select Footage and Video Conversion

The Select Footage panel prepares video or image sequences before tracking. It can convert videos to numbered PNG sequences, downscale large image sequences, and keep source footage organized for Quick, Heavy, Dense, Mesh, and Batch workflows.

Docs Heavy Tracking

Heavy Tracking is the primary high-quality workflow for camera reconstruction and solved lens data. Use it when the shot needs strong solve quality, a specific distortion model, calibration/STMap export, masks, undistortion, dense point clouds, or mesh generation.

Docs Import Results

Import Results separates processing from scene import. Scan one folder to choose among indexed Quick, Heavy, Tripod, Planar, Dense, or Mesh results and to scope the solved-lens source used by calibration and STMap export.

Docs Floor Alignment

The Aligner panel turns arbitrary reconstruction orientation into a usable Blender scene. It can snap selected floor points to the XY plane and flip inverted tracks.