Hey there guys, I have no experience in animation at all, though I am decently talented at drawing. I am mainly interested in filmmaking, however in my pursuits of more experimental ideas, I have run into an intense desire to animate something very short around 30 secs. What I want to do is initally film what I want to animate and then trace over the frames to make the footage stylized and give me the ability to add in things that were not really there in the footage (I guess this is what they did in that one Ah-Ha video). My problem is that I have no idea how to go about this, and I'd really like to attempt this idea. Any tips on how to do this would be very helpful, I have not been able to find a tutorial on this anywhere.
Do searches for "rotoscoping."
Thank you, I'll get on it.
You realize that for 30 seconds you have to do 900 drawings right?
What kind of software and hardware are you going to be using or already have? This will help us give you a little more information on what you want to do.
Aloha,
the Ape
...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."
I'm going to shoot the video on a GL1 at 30 fps then I plan on dropping the frame rate in premiere by half and doing 15 fps. So it will be more like 450 frames, though I think the clip won't even be 30 seconds to begin with. I realize it will be choppier by a lot and that is part of what I am going for. I do want this to have a very rough feel about it. I am going to use premiere and photoshop to get this all finished. I'm sure it will take awhile, but its something I dont plan on doing all at once.
Some software will do much of the tweening for you, like whatever they used for Waking Life. This is called "interpolation."
There are also products like this:
http://www.curious-software.com/products/gFx/
Im a fan of Rotoscoping...but in some circles it is considered more of a special effect than animation. I read an article that considered dropping films made in the medium from animation awards catagories and moving them into special effects catagories.
Another form of rotoscoping is used in special effects, in which elements are removed from frames (wires, rigs) or added to frames (think glowing swords). In my opinion, special effects animation is more technical, while animation based rotoscoping is more artistic.
Your project is more on the animation side, and I would do the following steps:
1. While in Premier, export your movie out as a series of frames
2. Import the frames into Photoshop and trace over them using layers
3. Save your traced frames in numerical order (001, 002, 003, etc.)
4. Import the sequence of frames back into Premier
5. Export the composited sequence out as a movie
I'm currently working on a rotoscope project, and I'm using Illustrator and After Effects. You can see some stills here http://showcase.awn.com/showgallery.php?cat=637
Hope this helps!
Sharvonique Studios
www.sharvonique.com
Animated By Sharvonique Blog
http://sharvonique.animationblogspot.com
AWN Showcase Gallery
you can do some really cool things with rotoscoping. check out some stuff by Richard Linklater, he has been using some specific software which isnt out in general release yet (as far as i can recall)
also do a search on the board. i had seen a very impressive bit from someone based out of the UK who made a very cool bit as well. he also showed in a short clip how he went about his frames.
as for whether it is animation or special fx is irrelevant.
just do it.
That's really a lot of work. :eek:
Years ago I used a program that let you paint on a video frame, advance to the next frame, paint some more, etc.
I don't remember what it was called, but there must be a bunch of different programs that let you do that by now.
Here are the first few I found by searching for "video," "paint," and "interpolation."
http://www.newtek.com/products/vt/aura/info/feature_highlights.html
http://www.synthetik.com/Brochure/brochure2.htm
http://www.bauhaussoftware.com/j/mirage_features.php
I have something called Snappy Deluxe. It does decent video capture and costs under $50. You have to freeze a frame to capture it, so it depends on how clear your freeze-frames are. It'll help a lot if you can source from dvd-r. You might also do some test loops to see how many frames per second you actually need.
Flash can do it. You can import the video and you can paint over it on layers above. I'm sure there are others as well.
Aloha,
the Ape
...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."
I just tried that, but couldn't figure out how to step through the video. :confused:
It would also be nice if it could display the video frame number so you don't get lost.
Thats weird. You should be able click on the blank keyframe in the timeline, then go to: File > Import > to stage.
Then click yes or next for everything, and it should bring in the video into your time line for the exact number of frames. You should also be able to both scrub, and step through it with the "<" and ">" keys.
Aloha,
the Ape
...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."
Works great!
Thanks, I'll probably use this technique some day. :D
im new to animation as well, what do you do when you finish all of the drawings, do you scan them or what
I promise myself i will become an animator :D
My suggestion was for the software that MEAD listed. Yes, there are some extra steps involved when it comes to opening and saving the individual files, but the real work comes from tracing the frames. And that doesn't matter what program you use. I also believe Painter does something similar to what you describe.
I believe this is what you are talking about:
http://www.achaynes.com/Images/twistedMed.htm
http://www.achaynes.com/Images/CompReel.htm
He used the same method I described. And even though the process wasn't as simple as using a single program as Harvey suggested, the results are beautiful. :cool:
But in the end, I guess it really doesn't matter how you did it, just how it looks.
Sharvonique Studios
www.sharvonique.com
Animated By Sharvonique Blog
http://sharvonique.animationblogspot.com
AWN Showcase Gallery
That's probably what I used: paint on video frames, onion skinning, variety of brush styles.
It might be the simplest method yet.
...no interpolation though.