Is it possible to keep a moving object centered on screen using tracking?

As far as I know, keeping a moving object centered on screen requires the user to crop to the object, and then keyframe the crop parameters so the crop tracks the moving object, keeping the object centered in the cropped area. Doing that can, of course, be enormously time-consuming.

This seems like an obvious area for FCPX's tracking feature to shine; surely the tracking feature should be able to do it... but I don't know if it's possible, and if it is, I don't know how to make it happen.

Is this something to submit as feedback in FCPX, or can it already be done? (If the latter, please tell me how!)

It's not as hard as you think.

I was going to post this on ASC, but... it would start an argument.

Take a look at this and see if it fits your workflow:

(this was a *real time* screen capture of the process.)
This plugin is designed to assist conforming "wide moving" subjects into a Square or Vertical video format.

The subject only needs to stay within the new bounds. Automatic tracking tends to try to nail the subject to the center, or *a center*. Manually tracking the subject allows for, in my opinion, a more natural "look".

PS - the time it took to track the clip took less time than watching a 3min tutorial for TrackX.

HTH

Sorry, I guess my question wasn't clear. My question is about Final Cut Pro X's built-in tracking functionality, not about plugins.

I have TrackX, After Effects, Resolve Studio, PFTrack, and Mocha Pro; I can do what I am asking about. I am just trying to figure out if there is a way to do it using Final Cut Pro X's built-in tools.

I appreciate your answer, though.

What is all that nonsense about flipping a copy of the clip? And why would you put up having to do that?

I watched this video about 3 or so times (repeated portions several times) and I watched the Cody Wanner video... I still don't get the point of duplicating and inverting the clip. Neither video explained the why of that.

(I only have FCPX 10.4.10 and don't have any version with the object tracker, so I'd really like to know what all that is about.)

I'll give you a grossly inadequate guess.
The tracker will move to stay locked to the object it's tracking.
If you invert the object the tracker is following, the tracker is inverted as well.
Hence the result is the tracker and object are locked to an unmoving point.

Example:
The object and tracker move to the lower left.
Inverted they move to the upper right.
The result is that they appear stationary (the video is moving around and must be scaled accordingly.

Yeah... okay — that is a hack. I suppose my stabilizer does essentially the same thing... (except it just "does the math" instead.)

Then I'm guessing the original clip doesn't need to stay visible or placed in the same location in the storyline -- it just needs to be physically present somewhere (like out beyond the end of the "play range"). Once the second tracker is applied to the Transform > Position parameters, can the original clip be deleted without deleting the (copied) tracker?