Student Showcase

We will take a look at any of your new work which is ready to share.

For the walk cycle project, we will discuss the following aspects of each:

• Overall strength of the animation
• Degree to which:
  • the file is built correctly
  • the content meets project requirements

Rotoscoping

• Rotoscoping is a traditional animator's technique that involves tracing live-motion film to create animation.
• This process is named after an actual machine, the Rotoscope, which projected live-action film onto an animation board.
• There, an animator could trace the outline of an actor frame by frame to get natural motion that would be too difficult to animate by hand.
• Disney animator often used rotoscope to do studies in the early days.
• Feature movies and commercials rely on rotoscoping even today.
• You can use Flash to import and display digitized videos of live action, and then do the rotoscoping yourself.

Polysics - Electric Surfin' Go-Go

MP4

FLV

To Copy the Motion of a Video

1. Encode and embed an FLV video as described in Multimedia I - Week 8. When importing the video into Flash, select Embed FLV in SWF and play in timeline instead of Load external video with playback component.
2. Lock the layer that contains the video.
3. Add a new layer above this layer.
4. Begin tracing the actors or the action in the new layer in keyframe 1 with any of the drawing tools.
5. Add a blank keyframe (Insert > Timeline > Blank Keyframe or right-click and choose Insert Blank Keyframe).
6. Trace the actors or action in the new keyframe.
7. Continue the process of adding blank keyframes and tracing until your sequence is complete.
8. Delete the layer that contains the video.
9. View the completed animation.

Tips

• Select the Show Layer As Outlines option in your active layer in order to better view the video frame below.
• Use the Onion Skin buttons to help you see your drawings in the previous keyframes all at once.
• "Flip" between frames rapidly using the comma (,) and period (.) keys.
• You may find it easier to draw with a stylus on a tablet or touch-screen.
• Use the Eraser tool to fix lines that go out of whack.

Exercise: My Rotoscope

1. Select a short, public domain video from the Internet Archive. Choose one with live action.
2. Download an MPEG version (the smallest file you can get—quality is not important here so long as you can see contours well.)
3. Convert the video into FLV using Adobe Media Encoder, with these Export Settings:
   • ADJUST THE VIDEO LENGTH to only 5 or 6 seconds of action by one or more people/objects.
   • FRAME RATE: set to 24fps.
4. Embed the video into a new Flash file and save the file at rotoscope.fla.
5. Edit the stage size to match the contents (Edit buton in the Properties panel.)
6. Set the frame rate for the Flash file to 24fps.
7. Lock the video layer and create a new layer above it. Name the layer drawings.
8. Click the Show Layer as Outline button for the drawings layer.
9. Use the pen, pencil, or brush tool to trace over the key figure(s) on the stage. Don't get too detailed—take less than a minute to do this for each frame. Stick with basic contours of humans, animals, and objects.
10. Click on frame 2 and insert a blank keyframe.
11. Trace the new position of the key figure(s).
12. Repeat the tracing from frame to frame until you have 60 drawings. You may need to skip some frames because the image in identical to the prior frame. I'll be looking for total drawings, not total frames.
13. Hide the video layer and play the movie (Enter/Return key.)
14. When you are happy with your results, delete the video layer and test the movie.

Instructor Example