Rotoscope Research

Since I decided to rotoscope my 20sec animation in Toon Boom, I thought it'd be best if I did a small amount of research into rotoscope as many of my friends have asked me before what rotoscoping is.

So, rotoscoping is basically what animators call when they trace live-action footage frame-by-frame, so that they can use it in animated films.

A good example of a rotoscoped film would be, Scanner Darkly, starring Keanu Reeves. The reason why the creators decided to rotoscope the film was because they wanted to give the film a distinctive look.

I have already covered rotoscope in a previous tutorial session and really enjoyed it therefore I decided to create my 20sec animation using rotoscope in Toon Boom, since its a new piece of software to me I decided against using Flash to make an animation since I've used it previously and I know the software quite a bit.

Rotoscoping

These are the initial drawings I did in Toon Boom of rotoscoping, it wasn't easy to draw over the image with a mouse. I think it'd be better and easier to do with a graphics tablet.



After looking at my initial drawings I didn't like the outcome therefore I restarted the whole process again. Again using the mouse to draw over the image, but this time making it look more like its a sketch drawing rather than just drawing over it with a single line.

Overall, I quite liked the idea of rotoscoping and again I might consider using it for my final 20sec animation. Although I have ideas for my 20sec animation I am currently thinking which animation software would be the best to use to bring out my animation the way I want it to be.
The disadvantage of rotoscoping is that it can be time consuming if there are a lot of images which needs to be traced over. Not only that but drawing/tracing with the mouse isn't that easy and doesn't give as good effect as using a graphics tablet.
An advantage could be that if you're not very good at drawing it's not really that difficult to trace over an image.

Animation: Why Is It Relevant To Multimedia Technology?

Animation is relevant to my course, Multimedia Technology, because it is one of the areas in which Multimedia covers, not only that but also due to the fact that it'd be relevant and helpful in the near future when we're applying applying for Multimedia jobs.

Animation is one of the subject area's which plays a vital part in Multimedia Technology, its just like the other subject area's such as Video, Graphics Design, etc.

As shown in the previous blog posts of the tutorials which were taught, it shows a range of different types of animation softwares, by teaching us these softwares and going through tutorials with us it gives us an insight to those softwares. This helps us if in the near future we get a job in the media area and we have some sort of knowledge of the software required, even if they do provide training, it'd look better for us in the future if we mentioned that we already have an insight in the programme itself.

I chose Animation Applications as 1 of my final year electives as I plan on going into this area once I graduate, not only that but its relevant towards my final group project which is going to be heavily used, therefore by taking this module I have learnt quite a few new softwares that could be discussed upon with my group as to which animation software would be the best one to use for animating our idea.

Motion Builder

Motion Builder is a motion capture software for animating 3D characters as well as motion editing for different types of media such as gaming, film and video.

I've never been a great fan of 3D, therefore when going through this tutorial I didn't really have much interest and although the tutor went through the tutorial with us, I got a bit confused when we needed to make the character walk.

I don't think for my final 20sec animation I will be using Motion Builder, as I think I'll find more trouble and won't enjoy animating as much as I would if I used either Toon Boom or Flash CS3 to animate.

Maybe I just need to spend more time to familiarise myself with this software, wasn't great working on a computer whereby the graphics on the screen were a bit messed up (you can't see it on the screen shots as it was the computer screen itself that had problems).

Animation Planning

The above is a scan of a storyboard which I randomly made up during one of my tutorial sessions and then created into a .gif file so that its an animatic.

Storyboards are good for pre-planning media projects as it can be used as a guide for what you plan on doing, flashbacks or any changes that happens. Big companies such as Walt Disney Studio creates a storyboard for all their productions. Although storyboarding is a good process it can be tedious. Not only that but by storyboarding it enables a group of people to discuss what should go where/should be taken out, etc.

Personally I'm not a great fan of storyboarding as I'm not very artistic and I can't draw very well to express what I want to show therefore I prefer to speak out my views and ideas.

With more practice maybe my drawings will improve and the more I'll get used to creating storyboards for future projects.

iStop Motion Animation

These are the screen shots of the Stop Motion I did during the tutorial.

These are the screen shots of the Anime Stop Motion I did at the weekend.

iStop Motion is a software which enables you to capture an image frame by frame, producing an animated story/time-lapsing movie. It enables you to slow down and speed up your animation.

The first time using iStop Motion I couldn't think of any good ideas, therefore the first time I screen shot my Stop Motion and rendered it out as a video didn't really last long as it was just me doing some random poses.

I decided to re-do my Stop Motion therefore I came into university at the weekend and re-did it, I had a good idea but then without an external webcam I found it difficult to re-position the image where it previously was therefore the stop motion didn't turn out as well as I wanted to.

Overall, its a great software to use for stop motion, but instead of using the integrated Mac camera it'd be much better and more easier to use an external camera, not only that but it is also time consuming as you'd need to take quite a few of the same shots to expand the time frame.

This could be one of the animation softwares I could use for my final 20 sec animation.

Toon Boom Animation

Toon Boom is a great animation software which enables you to animate and create a storyboard, its great for people who are working/studying in the media area.

This is a nice piece of software, again introduced to me in the class, when I first started using it it seemed to be a bit of a fiddly piece of software but soon after I got the gist of it from the help of the tutorial which was given to us. Although I haven't had much time to play around with this software yet but I have discussed with my group about using this piece of software to animate our final group project - as it seems to be a tad bit better to animate than Flash. It's still in discussion at the moment.

I managed to find some time to make my own animation in Toon Boom, although it's not done very well and could be improved by using Pivots, I think I did rather well in animating my anime character and is happy with the end result. Hopefully, when I have more free time I can spend more time playing around with the software and putting Pivot points onto my character so that its actions will move more smoothly.

Processing Animation

Processing is a software which enables you to programme, animate and interact - its an open source programming software, which is created to teach people the fundamentals of computer programming.

This is a new animating software which was introduced to me - I found it quite hard regarding the scripting since I didn't know whether the scripting was the same type of scripting as Flash uses. Therefore, once I completed the tutorial which was given and was told to try make the ball bounce up & down I found it a bit hard to do, though I did manage to make the ball bounce all over the screen.

In my opinion, if you don't know much about scripting then you'd find this piece of software quite hard to use since it only seems to use scripting - no key frames whatsoever like Flash.

I would like to experiment more in this piece of software to familiarise myself with it in case I would ever need to use it - and it'd also look good if I have a good knowledge of this software noted down on my CV for future employers looking for employees.

Flash Animation Tutorial

Adobe Flash is an animating software similiar to Macromedia Flash, nowadays many more websites have used Flash to add animation and interactivity, a good example would be the Disney Pixar trailers, such as Bolt. Nowadays, Flash is not only used to add animation and interactivity to websites but its also used to create animation, advertisements, etc.

In this tutorial we were to write some scripting to make the ball bounce, since I had already used Flash before in a previous group project back in 2nd year I didn't find it too hard to do - though I did forget some scripting but with the help of the tutorial which was provided I started to remember what the different scripts meant/did.

I found this tutorial pretty easy and simple to do - since I have a fair knowledge of this software already and had already created a detective game all in Flash with the help of other 3 members, I feel there is still much to learn and more scripting out there that I haven't discovered/experimented with.

What I find good about this software is that you don't entirely have to use scripting in order to animate objects, and it's a bit difficult and confusing piece of software when you've never used it before but after a while you just get used to it and end up knowing what you're doing - also helps immensely with all the tutorials which are available in books, internet, etc.