Video to Animation - The Art of Rotoscoping 

Disney animators used to rotoscope their realistic characters, in fact, almost every classical animated movies had previously been filmed on set with actors. They said this process was so helpful to escape from formulas and cartoon tricks they were familiar with. And as they used real actors to play the roles, they could pick up some subtle performance they couldn't have imagine. On the other side, Milt Kahl said it was difficult to find your own voice being stuck with such a material as it could makes you just tracing someone else's performance instead of thinking about your acting. According to me, rotoscoping is useful for younger animators and for experienced ones, it should just be used for very special scenes with complex motion. But you're right, rotoscoping, even kept hidden, is something almost all westerner animation studios intensively use. Is it an obligation ? certainly no and a movie like Jin Roh had some incredibly realistic and fluid animations without using it. Such a good animation in fact that even US pro claimed that it couldn't had been done without rotoscoping ! Hiroyuki Okiura is one of the best animator ever, no doubt about that and he made a terrific job, coaching his crew the right way to draw and correcting the animators key frames to get the result he was looking for. That level of skill is incredible and really time and health consuming. Westerner studios choose the easy way for some really good reasons : First remember that Snow White was something totally new at the time with some never seen before characters like Snow White, the Prince, the Hunter and the Queen which had to be as realistic as possible. Despite all the hard training for the animators, they needed help to achieve this intimidating task and live footage certainly was what saved them from producing realisticly drawn characters animated in a cartoony way. Same for Pinocchio for action sequences and certainly for Sleeping Beauty because of the fight against the dragon. But in wasn't a necessity for Cinderella nor Alice in Wonderland nor Peter pan nor 101 Dalmatians as the nine old men were so skilled at that time, they could certainly deal with those movies without any references, But, live footage and rotoscoping had made the proof of its efficiency as a cost killer without compromising the final quality, I think that's the reason why the western industry chose to use rotoscoping so much when japan industry didn't, mainly because the main economical model of production was tv oriented and even full lengh pictures had low budgets and couldn't afford this kind of preparation.

Shhhhh dont give away our secret! Now everyone knows it's ok to trace! Imagine the productivity increase.

It's really helpful , rotoscoping is not just useful for animating 2d stuff but also 3d for tracking the movements and then remodeling over them at times . Rotoscoping is not at all a cheat, never was. I love your videos !

THIS is how you do rotoscoped animation! You don't just trace the footage, you use it as frame-by-frame reference :D

i don't care if it's cheating or not i just want to tell my stories. thank you for your tutorials

Olof U are best animator by rotoscoping !! I love your content mashallah

I love the style your videos now. They really have improved 🎉

Epic video! Love seeing your animation style and the reference you shot!

Amazing video Olof, thanks for sharing! Really love watching your videos

Olof You are the best thanks

Loved the video.

i remember when i was a kid, a humorous argument broke out between my parents, as we watched Disney animated Cindarella at. the end where they dance and the dress keeps changing color. Dad was saying "thats real people" Mom was saying "its hand made animation" i loved the process and science of animation even back then, and i told them " your both right"

Thanks a lot for your work, is totally an inspiration for my future :) Have a nice day Boss ;)

i can’t wait to get my workflow down for this process

That’s really cool, keep it up 👍

that is soooo good! you're so awesome!

awesome

I thank *the Fleischer Brothers* for creating this process!

Thanks, GOD bless you.

yes finally someone else besides me that likes and under stands Ralph Bakshi films rotoscoping you get the real feel for movement of humans just sub to you

Thank you alot for your tutorials:) Your work is amazing! What drawing pad and Computer do you use to create your work?

Nice

Hi I do just like you do i make hand drawn frame by frame animation too and i want to say yes rotoscoping is great too i have used it and still do for certain scenes in my full shows.... i film my scenes and then draw over them or over 3d the same as you

No working animator would tell you this is cheating! This is no different than performance capture in the 3D space. Just depends on your workflow / art style

the fact that you even need a "cheating disclaimer" is insane. Do you care more about HOW you make animation or having the animation made? what's more important to you people? how you make something or what you make?

Nice.

Just watched Smiling Friends and wanted to know why Party Bro looked animated differently than every other character lol

wow,.. i want it

subscribed!

Can you please make a video of how you draw over your 3d models please. I’ve wanted to know how to blend 2d and 3d animation for a while now

I love love love your videos mate! I really want to get in to this but I cannot work out what hardware and software would be best without wasting money? 😢 I’m not very technical

Do people not realize that thats how Disney 100% makes their films?

I came here after watching Undone on Amazon Prime They calling that "rotoscope" is just ludicrous. It's obvious a software filter, when there are characters too far in the distance you can see that the filter did not render those characters and you can still see they are people. If that was done by a human, those characters would've been redesigned as well.

Rotoscoping is a tool to help to create animation. That's it. It's not cheating because before drawing over the frames, you prepare the shoot like any motion video/movie. It's the same process when you use your own body on a mirror to create the animation keyframes you need for 2d animation. As I said, it's only a tool. Nothing else.

as far as I know, even Disney used this method

Oh shit I do that too 🥳🥳

Great tutorial Olof! Your style really improved! P.S: Does rotoscoping also works with videos?

hello master, what is the model and size of the digital table that you use? I would like to buy one for myself

First Like!

hi there can i ask you a question?(If you have time to check). In the first episode of Jujutsu Kaisen 2,precisely at minutage 6:15 - 6:20 , i wanted to ask if rotoscope is being used in that scene(i find it really hard to tell)

I would love if you made a discord or something similar. I started animating but still have so many questions in terms of setting up animations and what the best way to approach them is

Please I need a step by step tutorial how to animate a 3d character in Ghibli shape on blender.

If you dont mind me asking what is that drawing pad your using

good to see , you 're using Blender

can you make animation in procreate tutorial

Quick question - why do you animate in Photoshop and not in Adobe Animate? I'm just starting with Animation and your videos are really helpful, I love your art, thanks for making these! :)

What program do you use?

I want that screen what is it?

Maybe I've been to harsh and dismissive on Rotoscope.

What software do you use to have the ghost image for the video

👀

What if we don't have an actress that is real? What if we just have an character that is based off an AI version of another character? How can I make them look like the character but also give them more depth and emotion in their face but not change it. I plan on having someone to act out some things but I can't find anyone who would look the part of the character that I wish to make.

can someone please tell me what app is being used in this?🥺

I still don't understand why... If you already have your assets and it's already animated in the 3D software, why to not just render it with toon shader ...why to re-create it why?

I seriously thought that I invented this. But it’s already a thing? 😢

What the... I do the same thing and I thought I made this technique into existence... well it is good that it is not considered cheating because if we try to calculate by hands when we have calculator in front of us... we are just fools who is wasting our half of our lifetime.

Why didn’t you show result at the end… either way, if I were tech minded this is the job I would do… but I’m not so stick to writing ✍️

2:19 2:50

I have only laptop.

only untalented jealous hater will say cheating and “not real artist” they don’t know an artist’s hardship

Why Cinema4D? It's easier to model and animate in Maya.

Rotoscoping is okay and should be used by anyone who wants it. Now that we have AIs for it, it's done.

nowadays it's just called AI

The art of wasting your time

This is bad my friend im sorry but everything you do will never make the animation looks pro its just a tracing on moving things just imaging you found a secret to animate like warner bros it will be amazing