Rotoscoping Tutorial

[Grundislav]

I've been asked several times how I go about rotoscoping in my games.  I've put together the first part of a tutorial showing the process!  Hopefully it will help someone out.

Part 1: Designing a Character

Part 2: Animating a Side Walk Cycle

Part 3: Animating a Back (and front) Walk Cycle

[Peder 🚀]

Cool stuff

[Eric]

Whoa. This is great. Thanks! Looking forward to subsequent installments!

[Stupot]

Nice one. I'm gonna have a go at this

[selmiak]

nice!
The last small picture could need a 3x-4x resized image under it.

[Sslaxx]

Thanks! Looks like this might be useful.

[Anian]

I think you might have omitted some steps between the start and finish of actual pixeling. I'm actually concerned about how, after reducing the size of image, do you decide which pixels are part of the body to be in sprite, while which pixels are just anti-alias smudges. That is actually what I mostly have trouble with when trying to rotoscope for a walkcylce, because a lot of details get lost in downsizing and image it's hard to keep track how some parts move.
Also rotation of the character actually makes the character look different in almost each view (for example back and front view have different shoulder strength/bulk, which is kind of the problem that comes from that part of deciding which pixels are anti-aliasing imperfection and which should be kept).

I mostly try to start drawing over a walkcycle by making a skeleton/stick figure, where each limb is differently colored and still it gets rather complicated.

[Grundislav]

Thanks for the feedback.  I considered showing a few more steps, but since this was just making a character, I figured it wasn't as necessary.  I'll definitely go into more detail when I do the actual animation tutorial.

[frenzykitty]

Amazing! I've been SO looking forward to this! Cant wait for the next part!!!

[Eric]

Quick question -- at what height do you put the camera for your pictures? Looks about like somewhere between the chin and belt buckle to me. Is that something you try to be consistent with across all of your characters?

[Privateer Puddin']

Can we see the original footage for your avatar?

[Ponch]

Shouldn't this thread have a warning label? Didn't you once almost kill yourself in a porch-related rotoscoping gone tragically awry? 

[Monsieur OUXX]

I've put together the first part of a tutorial showing the process!

That's really really really great.
It's much harder to find on the Internet than you might think. Apparently it's used mostly by professionals, who don't need to make tutorials.

Hurray!

[selmiak]

Can we see the original footage for your avatar?

+1

[frenzykitty]

Can we see the original footage for your avatar?

+2 

[Grundislav]

Eric: Yes, I try and put the camera just below chest height, but the most important thing is to have a generous portion of floor and ceiling above and below the center of your frame, that way there's no danger of stepping outside of it.  I'll talk about that in part 2.

And, because you all asked so nicely...
[imgzoom]http://www.grundislavgames.com/charleston_original.gif[/imgzoom]

[Tabata]

Cooool! Bravo!

You should use the real one for your avatar (and the pixel version in game) 

[Grundislav]

Updated!

[Armageddon]

That dude has a tiny head. Nice tutorial though. The main problem for most people is just getting a camera, and then extracting frames from the video.

[Ponch]

[imgzoom]http://www.grundislavgames.com/charleston_original.gif[/imgzoom]

You're the original hep cat, daddy-o.