Years ago, I went to a college that had a nice animation set-up and rotoscoping live action by hand was easy thanks to a drafting table with a bulilt-in tv underneath it, etc. to easily trace live action.
I don't have access to this kind of set-up or an instructor to remind me the basics of rotoscoping and want to do some of this work again.
I know I can do very low-fi rotoscoping with a tv, a vcr that does single frame scrolling, etc...but what are some things I should remember?
1. How many frames should I skip ahead to when I'm tracing. Every 4th frame? I can't remember.
2. What is the best paper to use for this?
3. Anything else would be appreciated.
Thanks.
Do you really want to do "old-school" rotoscoping?
It would be so much easier with a computer.
If you use a computer, there are a number of ways to do it.
If you insist on using a paper and pencil, maybe you could print out the video frames and use a light box to trace them.
The "old-school" method of rotoscoping was to rear-project on a semi-transparent surface on which the animator would draw.
A easier, more modern "old-school" approach might be to build a rig on top of a computer monitor.
Hi Wiggbat
I just did thios the other day. I filmed the action on video...then made a quicktime. I went through the quicktime and chose key positions some every 10 frames some every 2 etc. I then pegged and refilmed my print outs under the line tester. Then I timed it out until the movement looked good. Then I could see if I neeeded to print out any other frames or whether I could just animate the missing frames as imbetweens. I used print outs because it's so hard to trace off a TV screen or monitor. Hope this helps.
Sorry. I don't know how one would do this with a vcr.
BUT....I would be a little more action analytical than merely tracing every nth drawing; that is: I'd spend some time and find out where the keys and extreme points of the actions are occuring in the live action, exaggerate those, keeping note of the frame numbers and then inbetween those. For noraml actions I'd be thinking on 2s...so not as many inbetweens as on full speed film.
The way i would rotoscope now would be somehow to have my live action as movie file imported into flash and do the work on a top level in there.
Good luck. Have fun. Love to see it when it's done.
If grabbing the frames is a problem, I have something called a Snappy Deluxe that cost about $30 on Amazon, and does a pretty good job from DVD.
If it were me, I'd just put the key frames through photoshop, and simplify them/ramp up the contrast. Then I'd print them out and slap'em on a light box, or just use the Wacom and trace them onto a seperate layer. That might work.