Rotoscoping Help Needed! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- First of all I would really like to thank everybody in helping me find that Poser figure. Now I have another "little problem." Anyway I have a deadline for a festival and I have a scene where there are two pro wrestlers in the ring and I want to rotoscope a poser figure over one of them. I shot it and did the greenscreen and that seems to be coming along okay but replacing a greenscreen if you light it right isnt as hard as I had imagined. Anyway I need tips, suggestions, help, whatever on how to finish this scene. I also understand that it is just plain tedious and time consuming but you all are the experts. Thank you.

For 3D rotoscoping it is best to have two video views 90d apart (front and side, for instance). Even better if you can get three perpendicular views (one on each axis). It can be done from a single video, but you are going to be guessing on many body part angles due to foreshortening. It is very difficult to precisely line up figures, especially when you have more than one and they are moving around and the filming conditions aren't optimal. You need to get the figures placed rather precisely on the first frame (in all respectes - position, rotation, distance, pose) and continuously check the figures against the video as you go. In some cases, I've had to start over from scratch because my assumptions were not correct and led to an impossibility to continue further. Use Wireframe mode to do figure/person comparisons.

what's rotoscoping?

Rotoscoping the process of taking live footage and creating an animation (2D or 3D) that matches it by tracing over it or overlapping the animation with the live footage.

"what's rotoscoping?" A pain in the ass. Actually, it's what kuroyume0161 said too. ;-)

what's rotoscoping?

Nooooooooo!!!!! Not Tom Cruise in "Risky Business"! No, please, no!!! ;p

Hey LD, Nicely done.

Tom Cruise? C'mon LD. You should have done Rebecca DeMorney! [grin]

Rebecca DeMorney naked in a temple.

Hey, LD... HOW?????????????????????????????????????????????????? (really I would prefer Rebecca DeMornay, but the scene of the film I would like rotoscope, I would only post at Renderot... er... at other website) :D

1. Load the video either as background or onto a reference plane.

2. Load the figure to be rotoscoped.

3. Go to a starting reference frame (LD appears to have started at the end and worked backwards since there is no figure at the start and the figure is moving from when it enters the scene).

4. Fix the camera so that the figure and figure in video correspond. Depending on the precision requirements, you may need to also adjust focal, dolly, perspective. You want the Poser figure to be virtually placed within the video's scene (a lot of correlation here to what is called 'camera matching').

5. Pose and proportion the Poser figure to match the figure in video.

6. Advance frame and repeat 4. Repeat 3 if the camera is not fixed.

Message edited on: 07/26/2005 03:13

You should have done Rebecca DeMorney!

I would have, had she been doing the dance ....

I really should return to work on that animation. I only rotoscoped another 37 frames after creating that preview GIF, and haven't even looked at it since April.

You can't see it in the previews, but she's also lipsyncing to the song, courtesy of Mimic.

Here's an MPEG clip of the most recent build:
http://www.zippyvideos.com/13925884709735.html

Jessica Alba does a nice little dance scene in "Sin City." [hint, hint]

Watched that movie four times in theaters (mainly for Marv's story), but I can't rotoscope from the DVD until August 16th.

So you're basically saying we've got to wait 22 days? OK. I'm willing to do wait that long. (grin)

I'm pretty sure the 22 days have elapsed. I wonder where the Jessica Alba dance rotoscope is?

Sorry, currently working on a Heizman dance ....

HeizmanDance01b.mpg (2MB MPEG-1 video)

That's REALLY wierd, Little Dragon. But then, it's hard to beat your avatar. Anyone got any examples of full rotoscoping -- i.e., more than outline -- that they've done using Poser? I've gotta try doing one.

No idea who Heizman is but it looks like it's got great potential for coolness!