Research Rotoscoping

1) Rotoscoping is an animation technique in which animators trace over footage, frame by frame, for use in live-action and animated films. Originally, recorded live-action film images were projected onto a frosted glass panel and drawn again by an animator, the equipment used is called Rotoscope however this was eventually replaced by computers.

2) History of  Rotoscoping:
The Rotoscoping technique was invented by Max Fleischer. In 1915, he used it in his series called 'Out of the inkwell. Fleischer patented the method in 1917. He used rotoscoping in a range of his later cartoons as well as the animation of Gulliver in 'Gulliver's Travels' in 1939 however the most effective use of rotoscoping was in the series of action-orientated Superman Cartoons, in which Superman and the other animated figures displayed very realists movement. The first cartoons created by Fleischers using the Rotoscope were the Koko the Clown series, and then went on to use it in Betty Boop and Popeye. Rotoscope was mainly used to create the main characters. In 1937 it was then used in 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' by Walt Disney and his animators then from Snow White onwards, the rotoscoping was used mainly for studying human and animal motion, rather than actual tracing. In the mid-1990's, Bob Sabiston, an animator and computer scientist veteran of the MIT Media Lab, developed a computer-assisted 'interpolated rotoscoping'. The Fleischers brothers and Disney constantly raced one another to each new milestone in animation - first sound cartoon, first colour cartoon and first feature however it's heard that the Fleischers often came second because of their studio and Paramount didn't offer the support they needed.

3) Here is an example of Rotoscoping being used. The cartoon as a whole is very convincing as the background is completely still with no movement however there is moving characters.



4) Rotoscoping can be used in after effects by using the Rotobrush tool. With this tool, you draw strokes on representative areas of the foreground and background elements, and then after effects uses that information to create a segmentation boundary between the foreground and background elements. Here is a video of how to use it: