Rotoscope

[Dualnames]

I'm planning on rotoscoping a bit. I know its a hassle, but it's an experiment I'd like to do just for fun purposes. I recall seeing/finding a CD or whatever that was a collection of videos of people walking on different moods and occasions. Like pregnant women and stuff. If anyone knows that that would be neat to trace. Also if anyone's done it, I'd like some tips and pointers.

I'm probably going to use either after effects and photoshop. Any links supplied to cool walkcycles would be neat!

EDIT: The thread may be a little in the silly/pointless fashion, but well, I have to increase my post count or my brain will freeze. Or yours. 

[Chicky]

To create a nice rotoscope ideally you want a video that is running at 25fps, then trace every frame.

It's a very time consuming method but can yield some beautiful results.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIT87On4ktU

Good luck drawing 25 images for every second, bit more work than low-res animation! I suggest using onion skinning to ensure your lines are consistent.

[Scavenger]

I have a book called Eadweard Muybridge's Life in Motion (I think, I haven't looked at it in a while) which has a lot of good references for motion. There might be a CD version, I'm not sure where, though. Look up Muybridge sometime, you'll get lots of sequences.

I don't really like rotoscoping, though. I find it gives results that are less lively than the original footage in most cases, or footage that's really mushy and indistinct. You need some great theatre actors to pull off rotoing them.

It's less pressing in low-res when you rotoscope (as shown by King's Quest, I believe, which used rotoscoping for the motion of it's actors), since there's no room for subtlety in there.

But, it's good practice.

Take your pick.

[Igor Hardy]

I don't really like rotoscoping, though. I find it gives results that are less lively than the original footage in most cases, or footage that's really mushy and indistinct. You need some great theatre actors to pull off rotoing them.

I think rotoscoping can give some great effects when you put otherworldly looks onto the rotoscoped real-life motions. Or even mix rotoscope animations with traditional ones. You can have the real morph into the unreal which is very cool. I also like very much the sketchy rotoscoping used in modern animes.

[mode7]

Rotoscoping was quite cool in Another world and Flashback.
Here are some ressources that might be useful:
http://www.youtube.com/user/moogyxo

The also had them on the homepage as mpgs but the site has been down for a while.

BTW: Here's a short 15 frames/sec rotoscope animation I did - a loooooot of work took 2 days or so.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv4xkmhx8CE

You can open any video in virtual dub and export (make sure you don't have to many frames in there - 1000 or so shuld be the limit unless you have 16gb of ram)  and export it as adboe filmstrip - to open it in ps

[Dualnames]

Okay the thing I wanted was Principles of Motion. YAY!

[Anian]

Last express did it ok I guess, though there are not that much 24 fps animations, more a slide show. You probably saw this but:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiVXjUWSNGw and http://lastexpress.markmoran.net/production.html
You don't have the production they had, but you do have more than 10 years of software development to back you up.  
Personally I didn't like it that much, though it didn't bother me either. Scanner darkly was rather annoying though, maybe interesting from design perspective but it got boring fast.

[veryweirdguy]

I rotoscoped a thing once:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIilceZDeEc

ADMITTEDLY I was tracing over 3D renders, which kind of defeats the purpose for anything other than a visual choice, but it was fun nonetheless.

[Dualnames]

Scavenger: Thanks for the Muybridge thingy
Anian:
mode7: Thanks for a small headstart. I'm currently in the process of rotoscoping.

[Monsieur OUXX]

In 2010 there should be some piece of software detecting the white spots in the video (the ones you glued on your body and/or face), transforming them into skelettal animation, and exporting them into mainstream 3D formats.
Don't tell me that doesn't exist, I won't believe you. and don't tell me it doesn't do it in less tham 5 minutes, I won't believe you either.

Come on, I want names.


PS : that kind of tutorial gives me faith in Humanity.

[tzachs]

Edit: never mind, I was violating some license terms.. 

[Dualnames]

I've managed to rotoscope tzachs but still thanks. The results were of course awesome. 

[Layabout]

Ben Jordan is rotoscoped.

THE CAT IS OUT OF THE BAG!