How to Add Wings to a Moving Object in Adobe After Effects on Mac

If you are a video editor, then you might already know how powerful Adobe After Effects is. While the application might take a while to master, it can help you with things like motion or object tracking pretty easily.

One of the more advanced features in After Effects motion tracking can help you add wings effect to any object. This would make the moving object look stunning (and angelic) for sure. In this post, I’m going to let you know how to track a moving object and add wings to it using After Effects and its best alternative.

Part 1: How to Add Wings to a Moving Object in After Effects on Mac?

Adobe After Effects has to be one of the most resourceful post-production tools out there that can help you edit your videos in different ways. While features like object tracking and motion tracking are mostly used in After Effects, you can also utilize them to add wings to an object.

For this, you need to first pin the object and then add another object (wings) to it pretty tactfully. Since this is a more advanced tutorial, you need to know the basic functions of After Effects tools beforehand. To learn how to add wings effects via After Effects object tracking, just follow these steps:

Step 1: Load the Source Footage

At first, you can just open After Effects on your Mac and go to its Menu > File > Import. From here, you can choose to load a file and browse the video that you wish to edit.

You can later go to the Composition Settings on After Effects to make sure the overall resolution is matched.

Step 2: Track the Object you want to edit

Great! Once the video is added to After Effects, you can select it in the Composition Layer and check the object that you wish to track. At first, you can go to its Menu > Layer > New and add a Null Object to it.

Afterward, select the name of the video (its title), go to the Menu > Animation, and choose the “Track Motion” feature.

This will let you place the motion tracking tool to the object in the video that you want to track. You can further scale it as per your requirements.

You can now preview the position and the placement of the object in the preview section. Furthermore, you can go to the Tracking properties to adjust it and edit the tracker from here.

You can now select the Null Object that was previously added to track and link it with your video’s tracking properties.

In the end, you can go to the bottom panel of After Effects and drag the spiral tool to the Null object to link your video and implement object tracking.

Step 3: Add Wings to your Video

You are almost there! Once you have tracked the object in After Effects, you can add another layer and import the moving wings video/picture. You can find the video for the moving wings from any readily available source. You would have to clip the object and resize it to add wings effect seamlessly.

Part 2: An Easier Method to Add Wings Effect to Moving Objects on Mac

As you can see, using the After Effects motion tracking feature to add wings to an object can be pretty tough. Therefore, you can consider using any other application like Wondershare Filmora for Mac. The application is pretty easy to use and comes with an inbuilt motion tracking feature that you can implement with a single click.

There are tons of inbuilt tools that you can use to add neon wings or any other object to your videos. Apart from that, the application can also be used to add voiceovers, texts, captions, stickers, and several other effects to your videos. To learn the Filmora motion tracking feature to add wings effect to your video, just follow these steps on your Mac:

Step 1: Load the video footage on Wondershare Filmora

To start with, simply launch Wondershare Filmora on your Mac and load the video you want to edit. You can drag and drop the video on Filmora’s interface or click on the “Import” button to browse the video.

Step 2: Implement Motion Tracking in Filmora

Afterward, just drop the video to the timeline at the bottom and visit the editing option. Now, go to the Video section and enable the Motion Tracking option to start tracking.

Once the motion tracking feature is selected, you can go to the preview pane on the interface and just select the object that you have to track.

After selecting what you want to track, go back to the Video tab > Motion Tracking, and click on the “Start Tracking” option.

You can adjust the Filmora object tracking features here to customize things. Besides that, the application would also let you import any other media to track from your Mac.

Step 3: Add Objects and Export Your Video

Great! Now you can just add wings to the object in your video. All you need to do is add any other picture (of wings) on Filmora and drag it to the timeline. You can position it in such a way that the wings would be added perfectly to the tracked object.

Apart from that, you can also use the inbuilt stickers, captions, and other effects that are already available in Wondershare Filmora. For instance, you can go to its Elements section and find the neon wings effect. Now, drag and drop the effect to the timeline at any position and further customize it to add neon wings to an object in Filmora.

In the end, you can click on the “Export” button and save your video in the format and resolution of your choice.

There you go! After following this user-friendly guide, you can easily add wings effect to your videos using the After Effects motion tracking feature. Since doing object tracking in After Effects can be pretty tough, you can consider using any other alternative like Wondershare Filmora. As you can see, the Filmora object tracking feature is automatic and the application can even help you add wings to an object in your videos without any technical hassle.