Controlling text movement in a video with the mouse pointer

[shak]

I'm not sure of this forum is the right place to ask these qustions, but I'll try it anyways.

I have a video clip that contains moving objects. I want to put text on top of the moving objects and move them along with the objects. Since the frame of the video is not standing still, it's difficult to program the movement of the text so that it always stays on top of the moving objects. Therefore, I imagine that the easiest solution would be to control the text's movement with my mouse pointer as the movie is running and the objects are moving. More specifically, I'm looking for a tool in a video editor that let's you attach the position of a text line to the mouse pointer position and then lets you record the movement of your mouse pointer as you manually move it around. The result I want is a pirece of text that moves in the same trajectory as the recorded movement of my mouse pointer.

I have no idea if this is easily achievable, but I thought I'd give it try here since I didn't find the answer on google. Also, this is just for a one-time use so I'm limited to free video editors and video editors with trial periods.

Thanks in advance for your answers!

[poisondeathray]

Normally something like this is done with a motion tracker. Simple shots can be done with a 2d tracker

Essentially you track the objects, and link the text to the motion data, so that the text "sticks" to the object(s)

Doing it by "hand" will typically be jittery and wobbly, even if you do it frame by frame and take a long time manually

The type of tracker you would use, depends on the object motion(s) and the camera motion(s) and the scene specifics . If there are more complex motions, camera movements, parallax, perspective, then you need to use more complex trackers


Common software would be Adobe After Effects (I think there still is a free trial), Hitfilm (there is a free version but not sure if it has motion tracker) , Blender (completely free, but learning curve is steep and GUI is not very intuitive)

[awgie]

You could use AegiSub. You can't follow the motion of an object with the mouse as you are asking, but as poisondeathray pointed out, that would be jittery anyway. But you can program using simple XY coordinates where you want the text to appear. You can even make the text follow the rotation of an object.

I've never tried a motion tracker, but it sounds like fun if I ever needed such a thing.