Rotoscoping Animation

Cart Wheeling Rotoscoping Animation

I began by animation by using a video where I could base my animation off. To do this, I had to go outside and film an extract of something so I could use it later. I decided on doing a simple cartwheel which I could then use to trace over for my animation. I did this with the help of one of my fellow classmates. Unfortunately, Adobe Flash CC doesn't allow '.mov' files so I had to convert the video to a '.flv' which stands for 'Flash Video'. To do this, I used an online application called Zamzar which allowed me to upload my video and send the converted file to my email. This could then be used on Adobe Flash CC to create my animation.

Then I imported the file into Adobe Flash CC and resized the video so it fit the page. After I added a new layer and renamed it so I wouldn't get confused between the video and the drawing. Then I dragged the new layer to the top so it overlapped the video, and then I locked the video at the bottom so I could avoid deleting the video by mistake. The frame rate for this animation was 24 frames per second - this meant that the animation would remain at a constant speed and follow the same speed as the original video, 24 frames per second is usually the custom frame rate used, and by increasing the frame rate meant that it would become slower, and likewise decreasing the frame rate would make it faster.

The main point of this exercise was the experiment what rotoscoping is. Rotoscoping is the process of taking a video and tracing certain aspects of it frame by frame. This can give it a realistic effect, and give a certain person for example more character and human-like features. It also allows you to experiment with the idea, as you can have a basic outline of the person but develop the drawing itself to create effects such as multiple eyes, or the use of colour to the make the human-like figure into an alien for example. Rotoscoping has been used for films such as the Lord of the Rings which bring a fictional character to life.

From frame to frame, I traced the basic outline of the shape, and wanted to create quite a fluid animation so I did every frame to avoid any jumpy effect by skipping out certain frames. I also added certain details such as slight shading on my hoodie, to missing out certain parts of my hair to differentiate the different shades you could see in my hair. Although it preferably would have been better with colour, I decided to stick only to black as it was much more basic, and by added details it was quite time-consuming so it was easier to stick to one colour. However adding colour would have probably given my animation much more life especially as realistically we live in a world full of colour. Also, I had to consider the different brush sizes for certain details. I used the '[' key to decrease the brush size, and the ']' key increase the brush size, it was simple shortcut which it it much quicker for me to modulate between brush sizes without wasting extra time trying to find the actual brush size tool to increase and decrease it. I found that, in certain frames I used a much bigger brush for the outline than other frames but it was hard to keep track with what size brush you used in the previous frame even with the onion skin effect to show you what you had done in the previous frame.

Personally, I think I achieved Persistence of Vision due to the fact the animation I created myself flowed very well and the outline of each frame was done to a good standard, apart from the slight rush at the end due to the lack of time which I found was a big aspect to how well the quality of the animation was. As I watched the animation replay itself, I didn't notice anything which was too noticeable other than the slight decrease of brush size from the beginning.

As for the affordances of animation, I didn't really use any of the affordances, as I decided to keep my animation quite realistic, if I was to develop my animation, I could have possibly used affordances to create it more sci-fi if I wanted to, but as it was a basic cart wheeling animation, it would have been quite strange to do so. But it does show how animation can be developed from a basic outline of the frame, I could also make my animation appear that towards the end by doing a cartwheel I could have caused something to explode, or possibly created a fight scene involving my cartwheel using rotoscoping and the affordances of animation to make the scene much more dynamic.