Add text to drone footage with the 3D camera tracker

Learn how to track text using the 3D camera tracker for cinematic titles.

Published January 12, 2026

00:01

Introduction

[Dave Ko]: You've probably seen those title sequences where a drone is flying through the woods and there are titles that sort of track with the trees.

Well, today, we're going to make that title sequence in After Effects using the 3D Camera Tracker.

My name is Dave Ko, and I've been using After Effects for more than 25 years as a motion designer.

During that time, I've worked on a lot of title sequences for film and television, and this sort of visual effect used to be a pain to do.

But now with the 3D Camera Tracker built right into After Effects, it's actually pretty fun.

I've set up an After Effects file called 3D Tracking Titles.

Let's open that up and track along.

Let's open up the comp The Forest and bring our Drone Footage into our Timeline.

00:45

Applying the 3D Camera Tracker to drone footage

And for our secret sauce, we'll be using the 3D Camera Tracker. [silent clip playing] Make sure your video layer is selected and then we can go to Effect, Perspective, 3D Camera Tracker. [silent clip playing] After Effects will start analyzing the footage to create tracking points.

Depending on your computer speed, this can take a little while, so we'll take a look at the progress here in the Effects Controls panel. [silent clip playing] We'll also see a blue banner across the Composition panel that says "Analyzing in background".

Once this is done, we'll see another banner pop up that says "Solving Camera".

Once the banners disappear, we're ready to apply the 3D camera tracking data.

When we scrub through our Timeline,

01:30

Reviewing and selecting 3D tracking points

you'll notice colorful little X's all over the video.

These are the tracking points that After Effects has generated to plot the drone's camera data.

Let's find a good spot in our footage for our titles.

It looks like maybe the 6-second mark works.

Before making our selection of tracking points, I want to point out this red bullseye that dances around in different perspectives as you hover over these tracking points.

The orientation of this bullseye isn't as important for the shot that we're working on, but it's super helpful when tracking points on walls or other flat surfaces.

02:07

Creating text from tracked camera data

Let's click and drag some tracking points.

We can right-click on one of the selected yellow tracking points.

We want to select Create Text and Camera.

Most likely, your text will be skewed and not the right size or orientation.

But not to worry, we'll fix that in a second.

In the Timeline, you'll see two new layers that have been created: a Text layer and a 3D Tracker Camera.

First, let's fix our text

02:32

Formatting and positioning 3D title text

so it looks closer to what we want our titles to look like.

For that, we'll double-click on the Text layer and type in our title "The Forest".

Next, we'll open up the Transform properties in our Text layer and adjust the Orientation to 180° on all of the axis values by clicking on the value and typing in 180.

Let's change the Scale to 500 so we can see the full titles.

We'll also use the Character and Paragraph panels on the right of your screen to make further adjustments.

If you don't see those panels, go to Window, Character and Window, Paragraph to bring them up.

We'll reduce the font size of "The" by selecting "The" and changing the Font Size here.

Then we'll select both words and tighten up the Leading a bit.

That's looking better.

You can click and drag on the Scale value to make our title a little bigger.

Let's switch to our Selection Tool up in the top-left corner.

We'll just fine-tune the placement here.

That's looking good.

03:43

Animating titles with blur and opacity

We'll make the titles look like they're coming out of that mist.

We'll go to our trusty friend, Mr.

Gaussian Blur, by right-clicking on the Text layer, select Effects, Blur & Sharpen, Gaussian Blur.

Our Effects panel should now show the Gaussian Blur has been added to that layer.

Let's scrub forward in the Timeline to about the 2-second mark and place our first keyframe and set it to Blur 100.0.

I think the 5-second mark works well for the full reveal, so we'll set the second keyframe here and set the Blur to 0.0.

And maybe we'll have the text mist fade in as well by animating the Opacity.

Starting at the 2-second mark again, we'll set the Opacity to 0%, and then at the 5-second mark, we'll have the Opacity at 100%.

That's it.

You've successfully 3D tracked your first, and most likely not your last, drone shot with tracking titles. [silent clip playing]

Note: Stock assets provided are for practice purposes only. See terms.

What you’ll learn

Apply the 3D camera tracker

The 3D camera tracker will analyze your footage and find track points for your text to anchor to. This will move your text as if it’s attached to that point in the footage.

Apply and adjust your text

Use the type tool to add your text to your selected track points. Adjust the orientation of your text so that it’s legible. Then, adjust the font, color, and size to fit your project.

Add animated effects

Add Gaussian Blur and use keyframes so your text comes into focus over time. Then, animate the opacity for a smoother entrance.

Instruction and design by: Dave Ko
Adobe Stock Contributors: Berry

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