Rotoscoping???

[chicco012]

Hi,
i'm trying to learn character animation, this is the most difficult i met so far in the CG stuff,
your products of course makes it a lot easier, and i hope you concentrate more on the character animation, {2 products only in maya!!}, [WALKCYCLE >> LIFTING HEAVY OBJECTS]
Anyway, a friend advised me to do a lot of rotoscoping to get better,
but i can't find reosurces on the internet to help me out.
so if any1 knows a site where i can download videos to help me, animating please tell me,
thank you.

[oldhippie_tom]

I may be mistaken, but to do Rototscoping I believe you need to do that in Photoshop or After Effects. At least that is where I learned it and have never seen Maya could do it.

[chicco012]

According to jeff lews for learning 3d charctter animation dvds, the rotoscoping is using a life video refrence footage, import it to maya to copy moves, it's like cheating, pros doesn't like to do that but i'm a begginer and i need a push..

[oldhippie_tom]

OK, but I found it much easier in After Effects. Good luck finding an answer. And I did understand what Rotoscoping is, and that is why I didn't think Maya did it, sorry!!

[laxman]

I've never done it before, but this should be a good place to start:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotoscoping

Note that rotoscoping is also used to separate elements of actual footage. For example, you you had a building, and wanted a bird to fly behind it, you would have to create a mask for the building at every frame of the footage. Then the bird will dissapear when it is behind the mask, and appear on the other side. (the building is shot with a camera, the bird was made in maya).

[oldhippie_tom]

laxman, would you agree that it would be much easier in After Effects than Maya? I really am just curious.

[laxman]

ok that depends on what you are doing. In the traditional sense rotoscoping is what chicco012 was thinking. That is film someone walking and then import that video as an image plane, and animate the character based on that.

So the question is how could that possibly be done in After Effect in the first place? You must do that withing the animation software you are using.

For what I mentioned above, where tou composite 3D elements made in maya into a video. For that you have to use After Effects (or any other compositing software) In theory it is possible to do this in maya, you would key the transparency of the bird so that when it goes behind the building it vanishes. But this would be infinitly more complex and a very dirty workaround. So on this case, for all practical purposes, you must use After effects.

Basically its a question of what you are doing.

[oldhippie_tom]

Ok, you are right. All of the Rotoscoping I have studied and learned had nothing to do with tracing movement, other than making your mask fit the selection in every frame. I found After Effect would complete the task if you did it ever time the subject left the frame, and not every frame, you move the mask to conform and the program would do the in between frames for you.

I just never worked with tracing of movement, and spoke out of turn.

[Jak_Carver]

Here, this will solve all your problems:

http://www.pom.tv/index.html

Have fun!

[laxman]

oh wow, thats a pretty extensive reference!

[TwinsenDude]

I love rotoscoping to help me learn more about human movement. One way to do it is this: Take your video that you want to rotoscope, and export it from a video program like after effects using the Intel Indeo Codec as an AVI file. Then go into maya, and import the avi as an image plane, and set one of the settings (I think it's something like animated, or multi frame) to make sure as you go forward in frames the image plane moves forward in the avi file as well.

[Shogunato]

Here, this will solve all your problems:

http://www.pom.tv/index.html

Have fun!

Very useful
thanks !!!

[danlefeb]

I've done some rotoscoping for a character's walk cycle before in Maya -- its not very difficult, but it can get extremely time consuming. But then, anything in Maya can be time consuming if you're wanting it to look just right!