Rotoscoping for Dummies

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MoleManX

Member
I wish this was a post on HOW TO rotoscope, but alas instead I am asking this brilliant community the question. Anyone here know how to go about Rotoscoping your dv footage?

For those who aren't familiar with the term, think "A Scanner Darkly" or "Waking Life", the movie tends to have a 'cartoon animated over film look'.

The only way i can think of is probably the most insanely tedious and long of the processes. You'd take every frame and paint it but there HAS to be some simpler and easier method out there. Anyone know?

Thanks for the help.
 
There are a number of techniques that can be used to rotoscope. Before the digital age the frames would be projected onto frosted glass and used as a guide to actually paint over. Now people can rotoscope using a variety of tools. To get REALLY GOOD results is going to require a LOT of work. The guys who did Scanner Darkly spent an inordinate amount of time on each frame to get that look. HERE IS a tutorial that you may be interested in (although it is for a single photo and will be very time consuming, you can't deny the look is right). While you can use masking techniques in compositing programs like AfterEffects, you'll be better off using a true program designed to let you paint over video sequences. There are several but one of the best is ANIMATION STAND.

Just resist the temptation to use the standard PhotoShop "artistic" filters. While those will produce results QUICKLY, anyone with a critical eye will quickly see it for what it is - a filtered video.
 
I'm not sure, but watching bits of Scanner Darkly, I'd guess that they did use some sort of automatic filter. Propably some custom made stuff, not PS standard filters, but still. I really doubt that the look could be accomplished by manual roto.
 
gi-jones said:
I'm not sure, but watching bits of Scanner Darkly, I'd guess that they did use some sort of automatic filter. Propably some custom made stuff, not PS standard filters, but still. I really doubt that the look could be accomplished by manual roto.
Click to expand...

You are right about there being some automation. It still took 30 guys 15 months to do it. Here's some interesting info I pulled from Wikpedia:

After principal photography was finished, the film was transferred to Quicktime for a 15-month animation process: interpolated-rotoscoping. A Scanner Darkly was filmed digitally using the Panasonic​
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DVX100 and then animated with Rotoshop, a proprietary graphics editing program created by Bob Sabiston. Rotoshop uses an animation technique called interpolated rotoscope. Rotoscoping in traditional cel animation originally involved tracing over film frame-by-frame. This is similar in some respects to the rotoscope style of filmmaker Ralph Bakshi. Rotoshop animation, however, makes use of vector keyframes, and interpolates the in-between frames automatically.

This was a 15-month long computer animation process designed to paint reality, not mimic it. The "painterly" process of interpolated- rotoscoping allows animators to paint over live action DV footage in ways similar to putting brush strokes on paper or canvas. The process frees animators from having to hand-draw each line in every frame. Instead, the computer connects fluid lines and brush strokes across a wide range of frames to create lifelike human movement.

Despite the shortcuts that technology affords, the animation is still a painstaking process. It took up to 500 hours to make one minute of "A Scanner Darkly" with 30 people working full time on the project every day.
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That makes sense. So some sort of automatic vector tracing, and then manual tweaking. Painfull no doubt :)

So basically; It can be done, but you have to REALLY want it!
 
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