Rotoscope project

The first project in my FDA animation course was based around rotoscope work. Basically being introduced to and a little bit of history of the subject. Research was around first forms of animation with likes of the zoetrope. I took to the project straight away and to tried my best to make a first impression, to show of my knowledge and skill of animation. In the first week or so i concentrated on my research, this led me to allot of loops and walk cycles which i decided to give a go. I done this by taking photo stills of poses i believed would make up a walk cycle or loop using the rotoscope method. For those who are unfamiliar with it, it involves taking live action footage, say, of two people dancing, and basically tracing the figures frame by frame, so as to create a more true-to-life illusion of movement. It's a technique that Disney has used for decades, but the purpose has usually been to enhance the quality of the animated sequence, not to replace more traditional methods. Sometimes, the frames are reduced from 24 frames per second of live action footage to to 20 frames of animated footage, to alleviate the labor intensity while maintaining the smooth lifelike qualities.

Frames

I would then use the rotoscope technique to get a rough idea of the walkcycle

Inbeetween

After that i would fit in extra keyframes calculating the movement and physics to smooth out a walk cycle.

Finished Walk

I believe this is an accurate process for beginners to animation, or it can be used to produce some extremely accurate. Using this same process but with a video camera can produce some accurate outcomes. Like this animation by. Max Fleischer



Overall i believe my progress up to this point has been consistently good. Though i believe i am familiar with these process which have done in the past. This gives me a positive attitude to start my final piece.