Rotoscoping
(Process and Production - After Effects - Rotoscoping)
For the second session of the year in After Effects with Sara, we were taught about rotoscoping; we had already done rotoscoping last year but that was done in photoshop so technically it was still a new skill to be learnt.
Recap on rotoscoping:
It is a tracing effect process that is used to create an animation, it's when a foreground figure is taken out of its original background and imposed onto another one. The process involves tracing around the figure frame by frame until you have enough frames to create a smooth looking animation.
Some reasons to use this technique:
So this workshop led on from the previous one as Sara asked us to think about the vimeo clip she showed us where it was an old 20th century animation; there were many characters on loop doing different actions and coming and going into the same location.
How to check loops:
So going back to the marker point, this is where we would start tracing; using the pen tool we started tracing on the mask layer. Before tracing you open up the mask layer and activate the mask path using the stopwatch which will activate the first key frame. This technique was quite simple as it was just like using the pen tool in illustrator which I feel I'm getting better at using after using it many times. Although the pen tool in after effects I found wasn't as responsive as in illustrator and it was hard to edit and shape your points at times. We were advised to change the colour of our path to a bright colour so that we could see it more clearly and easily also it would stand out from the background. We opened these options using the small arrow on the layer. Once the path has been completed it will remove the background and will leave you with the object that you have traced, theres is an option to subtract which will reverse this. When you move onto the next frame and change the shape of the outline it will automatically create another keyframe.
It is quite a similar process to photoshop but with this technique, you can do a lot more with your footage. I was ill during the week for this and so I was mostly at home and I forgot what I needed to bring. However, before the workshop I was told to bring 1-3 pieces of footage with me but in the end we only needed one piece of footage; I found an video of a wolf moving through a forest and I decided to use this as I didn't have any useful video on my laptop.
Recap on rotoscoping:
It is a tracing effect process that is used to create an animation, it's when a foreground figure is taken out of its original background and imposed onto another one. The process involves tracing around the figure frame by frame until you have enough frames to create a smooth looking animation.
Some reasons to use this technique:
- It is more of a technical process which may appeal to some people as it's another way to animate and experiment with footage.
- On the other hand some may hate the time taken to create the end result, but they may like the aesthetic that is produced which may influence them in deciding to use this process.
So this workshop led on from the previous one as Sara asked us to think about the vimeo clip she showed us where it was an old 20th century animation; there were many characters on loop doing different actions and coming and going into the same location.
Then this week she showed us the music video for Franz Ferdinand song 'Take me out'.
Moving on to creating my own I took the clip I had found and was no longer than two seconds. Before completing the rotoscoping process I didn't realise how tedious the process would be and I later wished that I had some video footage of someone walking.
Firstly I opened up After effects, created a new composition with the name Rotoscope which would be for tracing the animation. It was set up in the usual way with 25fps and I made the duration 2 seconds. I imported in the footage and then dragged it into the composition. Once there I shortened it to 1 second long; during this time the subject had to stay within the frame. Then to remove the background to the animation it is a frame by frame process so you aren't interested in stop animation then this an alternative method. Although to get a good outcome it is very time consuming in my opinion; I wouldn't say it's hard so when I have more time I may go back and improve on my skills and techniques.
Moving on to creating my own I took the clip I had found and was no longer than two seconds. Before completing the rotoscoping process I didn't realise how tedious the process would be and I later wished that I had some video footage of someone walking.
Firstly I opened up After effects, created a new composition with the name Rotoscope which would be for tracing the animation. It was set up in the usual way with 25fps and I made the duration 2 seconds. I imported in the footage and then dragged it into the composition. Once there I shortened it to 1 second long; during this time the subject had to stay within the frame. Then to remove the background to the animation it is a frame by frame process so you aren't interested in stop animation then this an alternative method. Although to get a good outcome it is very time consuming in my opinion; I wouldn't say it's hard so when I have more time I may go back and improve on my skills and techniques.
Stretching out the animation:
Next we were shown how to slow down our footage by half the speed. Basically we stretched out the one second of footage that we had to two second; however this can make the animation not run smoothly but you can't tell that much with the final outcome. To stretch the footage I went through these steps:
paragraph>columns>stretch, click on stretch at 100% and change it to 200%. This stretches out the seconds and makes the clip fit the 2 seconds, but able to only trace every 2 frames.
How to check loops:
If the work is shorter than the timeline use playback area- grey area at the top and then you click and drag handles and it shows what area will be played back when the animation is played. This is just to make sure that the footage fills the entire timeline, the reason for this is that the material has to last the length of composition.
To start with I chose a frame where the subject was the most exposed and clear; once I found a suitable frame I added a marker to remind me of my starting point for later if needed. To do this I clicked on the footage at that point and pressed the * key, here this added the marker.
To start with I chose a frame where the subject was the most exposed and clear; once I found a suitable frame I added a marker to remind me of my starting point for later if needed. To do this I clicked on the footage at that point and pressed the * key, here this added the marker.
The next step was important, here we went into the preferences and un-ticked the preserve box, because if ticked and you trace on one frame and move on to the next it will delete what you traced on the first frame. By un-ticking the box it will mean that all frames are kept separate which is what we need for rotoscoping.
So going back to the marker point, this is where we would start tracing; using the pen tool we started tracing on the mask layer. Before tracing you open up the mask layer and activate the mask path using the stopwatch which will activate the first key frame. This technique was quite simple as it was just like using the pen tool in illustrator which I feel I'm getting better at using after using it many times. Although the pen tool in after effects I found wasn't as responsive as in illustrator and it was hard to edit and shape your points at times. We were advised to change the colour of our path to a bright colour so that we could see it more clearly and easily also it would stand out from the background. We opened these options using the small arrow on the layer. Once the path has been completed it will remove the background and will leave you with the object that you have traced, theres is an option to subtract which will reverse this. When you move onto the next frame and change the shape of the outline it will automatically create another keyframe.
You will notice that when you move between the frames the trace won't match up with your subject so you'll need to alter the points of the outline; to jump from one frame to the next you press ctrl and click on the keyframe, click toggle hold keyframe- this creates a jump, from one key frame to the next animation.
After finishing tracing around the subject we needed to create a new composition to place our footage into; even though my footage was two seconds long we made the composition last for ten seconds as I would be able to loop my footage later. The next stage was adding an expression which done by adding a code like we did in the last session; this process was:
After finishing tracing around the subject we needed to create a new composition to place our footage into; even though my footage was two seconds long we made the composition last for ten seconds as I would be able to loop my footage later. The next stage was adding an expression which done by adding a code like we did in the last session; this process was:
layer>time>enable time remapping - the tick appears.
Time remap option appears under layer, giving 2 keyframes one at end and one at beginning. After effects automatically put a blank keyframe at the end, I don't fully understand why this happens but I know that it will create a blank frame in my loop animation which I needed to get rid of. To do this I went to the end of the animation and pressed ctrl and used the arrow key to take it back one frame so that the time remap didn't involve the blank frame.
Outcome
This week was a big struggle for me as I was ill during the entire week and I felt that I missed quite a lot, also as a result I think I did a poor job for this.
Outcome
This week was a big struggle for me as I was ill during the entire week and I felt that I missed quite a lot, also as a result I think I did a poor job for this.