ROTOSCOPING
Rotoscoping is, in essence, a technique that goes back to the early days of cinema, when animators would trace live action footage projected frame-by-frame onto paper, either to use as motion reference or directly copy into their work.
The term Rotoscoping is derived from projection equipment called the Rotoscope. Rotoscoping itself is an animation technique done by tracing over a live action sequence frame by frame to give the cartoon realistic and fluid movement. The technique was originally produced by using photographs of live-action films projected onto glass. It’s a technique that spans over a hundred years and laid the groundwork for computer animation and the modern VFX we use today. Rotoscoping began in 1915 thanks to an animator named Max Fleischer. At that time, animation wasn’t nearly as stunning and had crude and jerky movements. Determined to change the world of animation for the better, Fleischer created a character named Koko the Clown, using his brother Dave (who was a clown at Coney Island) as reference. After producing three shorts that became massive hits, Fleischer would go on to create a whole series of shorts called Out of the Inkwell. He would even go on to make his own animation company called Fleischer Studios, which would in turn give the world characters like Betty Boop and Popeye the Sailor. |
Your Studio Project:
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L'eau Life from jeff scher on Vimeo. |
Award Winning Rotoscope Animation "Disco" by animator Boris seewald
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Ralf Hildenbeutel - Disco from Boris Seewald on Vimeo. |
Practice: Rotoscoping with Photoshop
We are going to learn how to Rotoscope using Adobe Photoshop in a step by step process, only because learning the technical side of working with a timeline in photoshop takes some practice.
Let's do a tutorial so we can learn how to place a video clip into Photoshop timeline and begin tracing on a different layer on top of the video layer.
Let's do a tutorial so we can learn how to place a video clip into Photoshop timeline and begin tracing on a different layer on top of the video layer.
Caterpillar Video Clip for you to download and use as your practice video (this clip was a shortened snippet from this National Geographic video
caterpillar_clip.mp4 |
Introductory Rotoscope Tutorial-How to trace over a video file using layers and onion skin and the brush tool
(OPTIONAL) ADvanced Rotoscope Tutorial-Using the Pen tool when tracing over video
Starting your Rotoscope Studio PRoject
LINK TO SHAREd ROTOSCOPE PROJECT PLAN SHEET
1. Decide what video clip you will use for this rotoscope animation. Remember it should be a clip that shows at least 1 complete movement. Find this video on youtube or any other site to watch clips and get ready to record the screen with Quicktime if you have a mac or another screen recording program if you have a PC.
I'm using a dance sequence clip from the movie Black Swan.
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2. Screen Record your selected video. I advise recording at least 20 seconds of video and then cropping your video later when you decide what clip you want to animate over.
LINK-guide to help you using Quicktime to do a screen recording
LINK-guide to help you using Quicktime to do a screen recording