A Scanner Darkly and the art of rotoscoping

[P_T]

...to create a semi-animated effect.

So how can this film be running for the Best Animated Film category?

[mech7]

what picture.. that page is so busy

[Fitzy]

Here Mech 7

http://www.planit3d.com/source/interviews/sabiston/bob_sabiston.html

P_T I agree, I cannot see how it can be included in any Best Animated Film category

[jayrivers]

Because someone has gone through with a tablet and handrawn on some of the frames and software has interpolated between for the rest.

So does that not make it animation?

[mediocre-speaker]

So how can this film be running for the Best Animated Film category?

well, seems as it uses the same technique that was used for snow white i think that seems fair enough. evry frame was hand drawn so......

[Gentle Fury]

well, seems as it uses the same technique that was used for snow white i think that seems fair enough. evry frame was hand drawn so......

Argh, ya beat me to it.....I was going to say this movie is no less animated than snow white...and if you've seen A Scanner Darkly you will know it is so much more than just tracing over images.....the scramble suit alone is freaking amazing. This was a very well done film (tho not the greatest of adaptations of a great book)

[OneSharpMarble]

well, seems as it uses the same technique that was used for snow white i think that seems fair enough. evry frame was hand drawn so......

Yes but not all the characters were rotoscoped, all the dwarves and other characters (other than the human ones) were key framed.

I still don't see how rotoscoping can be considered animation, its like comparing tracing to drawing.

[ericsmith]

I still don't see how rotoscoping can be considered animation, its like comparing tracing to drawing.

I don't want to get blasted here, but "drawing" is broader than just putting the lines in the right place. Creating texture with the application of a medium can still be a craft, even if an image is "traced" to help guide the form.

Of course creating (or discovering) the form without the aid of a photographic reference is also part of the art of drawing.

Eric

[danshewan]

I still don't see how rotoscoping can be considered animation, its like comparing tracing to drawing.

I don't see how this topic (or the War of the Worlds interview just below this thread) can be considered 'news'. Interesting? Yes, but definitely not news.

[OneSharpMarble]

I don't want to get blasted here, but "drawing" is broader than just putting the lines in the right place. Creating texture with the application of a medium can still be a craft, even if an image is "traced" to help guide the form.

Of course creating (or discovering) the form without the aid of a photographic reference is also part of the art of drawing.

Eric

I understand using reference to guide animation but once you use that footage AS the animation its not really animation anymore. Its like mocap to me.

[ringzero]

That site is sooooo bad - my eyes were bleeding

[cresshead]

''I still don't see how rotoscoping can be considered animation''


so you don't use as video camera as a reference or a mirror or turn on onionskins /lightbox or have reference photographs....

not to use a really bad punn but it's a VERY smudggy line we're drawing here...at what point do you consider animation to be animation??....interpolated keyframes not on the agenda?...rule out eveything that pixar has done then!...actually rotoscoping from video on 2d is much more 'hands on' than 3d keyframing...and disney used it to great effect in their old classic 2d cartoons...

in the end it's quite a mute point as the 'public' couldn't care less..they either like the film or not and won't be swayed by the method of creating it was or was not 'tracing' and not 'animation'....animation is 'to animate' as in move or change over time...rotoscoping is ALL about changes over time!...couldn't any more closer to the term animation if it tried!

and if you pull the likes of 'a scanner darkly' then my fav alltime animation would have to be pulled too...namley the ah-ha music video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leMzjdb2WVw

ohh n here's a small animation i rotoscoped today....!

http://www.cresshead.com/wip/welcome_to_tv_paint_animation.mov

[Smartypants]

Somehow, I'm reminded of the bit in Chasing Amy (or maybe it was Mallrats) where the comic inker is reduced to being called a "tracer", in spite of the fact that inking takes skill and accuracy to do well. And so does rotoscoping.

Don't get me wrong. It takes far, far more skill to hand-draw each frame, like the old-school animated Disney films. It takes knowledge of acting and timing in order to create a performance out of nothing, like the 3D animators at Pixar.

However, I think what gets people up in arms about this is the perceived level of skill necessary to execute the effect.

Is an animated Disney film somehow better for the singular reason that it took a supposedly higher level of skill to execute? I say no.

If you ask me, A Scanner Darkly is a film that uses rotoscoping heavily to create a certain kind of visual effect. You can't just dismiss it because of the perceived level of skill it took to create that effect. If you dislike the effect, fine. That's a different debate.

If you think about it, the technique applied in A Scanner Darkly is just starting at the other end of animation in order to achieve an animation. Instead of starting with cartoon characters and animating them by observing the real world, and distilling those observations into an animated performance, the artists in A Scanner Darkly went about it in the opposite way. They took real-life footage and distorted it in order to create their own unique animated effect.

And let's not forget that old Disney films had plenty of straight-on rotoscoping in them; Snow White and Cinderella are just two that utilized the technique.

Let's also not forget that mocap is being used more and more in animated features and live action visual effects films. Granted, a lot of mocap is tweaked, and facial animation on mocap characters is almost always hand-animated. But isn't mocap a form of cheating too?

[cresshead]

if someone has to move or re time then it's ''animation''...

[_mg_]

From some of the views posted, it seems that some are in need of an expanded view of animation. Paul Wells 'Understanding Animation' is a good place to start. It's a shame that if it doesn't have big cutesy eyes, cutesy characters or squash and stretch etc. it can't be considered animation.

i thought that Scanner, despite the visual appeal, was an insanely dull film and by default should not be considered best animated anything.

[OneSharpMarble]

so you don't use as video camera as a reference or a mirror or turn on onionskins /lightbox or have reference photographs....


Read my last post.


not to use a really bad punn but it's a VERY smudggy line we're drawing here...at what point do you consider animation to be animation??

Hmm i'd say the point where you are colouring in frames and not doing things like overlap, settle, anticipation yourself anymore. Its relying on the actor more that anything.

animation is 'to animate' as in move or change over time...rotoscoping is ALL about changes over time!...couldn't any more closer to the term animation if it tried!

Well I guess any movie ever created is in your definition as animation, because other than a still life painting things move.


and if you pull the likes of 'a scanner darkly' then my fav alltime animation would have to be pulled too...namley the ah-ha music video

Did someone say something about "pulling" it?

It's a shame that if it doesn't have big cutesy eyes, cutesy characters or squash and stretch etc. it can't be considered animation.


Yes that is exactly what I said! I think that if it doesnt have cutesy characters and fart jokes it is not animation! Simple as that get out of my house!

Whats really a shame is the reading comprehension or the lack thereof on this board.


Smartypants: Good post, I am sure rotoscoping and mocap take a great deal of skill to master but would you say it is comparable to key framing? I just see it as the show has already been made before the animators even get their hands on it, the actors have done the shots, and everything is acted out.

For example, would you say gollum from LOTR was beautifully animated or acted? If I want to learn technique and how to animate I wouldn't watch a scanner darkly or play a mocapped video game, I would watch something like the incredibles.

[P_T]

The title said "the art of rotoscoping" not "animation". The article mentioned "...to create a semi-animated effect".

I'm not saying it doesn't take any skill to rotoscope but I think the skillset is different to that of animating. Just curious, do they teach how to rotoscope in Animation Mentor program?

If I film some people then draw over the frames and post it here, I'm pretty sure it won't be accepted as an animation, on the contrary, I'd probably be ridiculed.

[Boone]

Yeah, Rotoscoping is basically tracing - you can't get out of that one. But the fact is - someone has to still go about tracing frame after frame and thus its still alot of work.

The appeal of Rotoscoping(like in LOTR, Fire & Ice etc) is that not only can you turn a human actor into an animation(Wayhey!) - you can also change or add elements that are not avaliable with the original live-action shoot. I do the odd Rotoscope of my self and I have to say that there is something rather appealling about it...

Its worth a shot. I upload images from my camera to my PC, then open them in MSPaint. Using Red, Green & Blue lines I produce an outlined bitmap image and then run it through a quick program to remove the rest of the picture - leaving just the rotoscoped lines. After that you quickly fill in the spaces with the fill option and you can get something that just looks rather stylish. The fun part is giving yourself red eyes!:twisted:

Trust me - its not quite as easy as they make it out to be - give it a bash and draw your own conclusions...:D

[Nitefyre]

Not to get too far off topic but...

Just curious, do they teach how to rotoscope in Animation Mentor program?

Nope.

[Smartypants]

Smartypants: Good post, I am sure rotoscoping and mocap take a great deal of skill to master but would you say it is comparable to key framing? I just see it as the show has already been made before the animators even get their hands on it, the actors have done the shots, and everything is acted out.

For example, would you say gollum from LOTR was beautifully animated or acted? If I want to learn technique and how to animate I wouldn't watch a scanner darkly or play a mocapped video game, I would watch something like the incredibles.

Would I say rotoscoping is comparable to keyframing? Not really, unless the live-action plate being rotoscoped is used as a reference, and the final product is somehow creatively different from the action represented on the live action plate. I CAN buy into the argument that techniques such as those used in A Scanner Darkly should not qualify as animation, but should instead qualify as a "visual effect". There's a great deal of copositing that contributes to the final effect in A Scanner Darkly, and most rotoscoping done these days is done mostly for the benefit of compositing in live action features.

So I guess the question is, should rotoscoping be classified as an animation, or a visual effect?

What chaps my hide is how people look down their nose at rotoscoping. It's the un-sexy redheaded stepchild of visual effects. However, the visual effects industry would be screwed without it, and you can get some really neat, interesting effects if you know how to put rotoscoping to good use.

[ingramworks]

Rotoscoping is animation, simple as that. It is at the level of hand animation? Certainly not, but then the same can be said for 3D animation. There are different levels of animation, it is, as in all things, not easily boiled down to black and white.

I think the question and the debate is rather "A Scanner Darkely" should be in the catagory of a Animated Film or a Film with very heavy visual effects. For me personally, I would rather see it in the Visual Effects catagory, because that's what I see it as. As complicated as it is, I see it in the same light as a very intricate Digital Grade. Essentually, you are watching the original film, frame by frame, with an effects pass over. Does this devalue the effort put into? Certainly not. But I feel it would call it was it really is.

On a side note, the effect was wasted, in my opinion, on this film. I saw it with a preview audiance and the amount of grumbles and negative statements was the worse I have ever heard in leaving a crowded film. In his previous film (the name escapes me right now) it was atleast used to further the story, here it was really just a destracting. They could have left the original frames alone and accomplished the needed special effects in other ways. Of course, that's just my personal opinion.

[cresshead]

Quote:
Originally Posted by P_T
Just curious, do they teach how to rotoscope in Animation Mentor program?






animation mentor is just a bunch of people who setup a business teaching their flavour of animation and as such is not the 'de facto' only method to learn ''animation''..go on a dave school course and you'll be learning how to mo-cap as well as run lightwave and maya and keyframe rigs..

such ''pidgeon holeing'' detracts from the vast depth to the subject of animation really does cover what animation metor covers is the subject of keyframe animation with maya nothing more..quite a small portion of the subject for sure but covered in great depth..they do it well but to describe the animation mentor course as 'how to animate' is simply waay off base.

there's far more to it than their course which is built around using maya...we have several 3d apps availabe and animation mentor covers character animation which is just one aspect of the subject.

[Nitefyre]

Again, not to get too far off topic but...


animation metor covers is the subject of keyframe animation with maya nothing more..quite a small portion of the subject for sure but covered in great depth..they do it well but to describe the animation mentor course as 'how to animate' is simply waay off base.

That's a pretty inaccurate description. Animation Mentor is not exclusive to Maya, it is the software that they support on the technical side. We have many students using 3ds Max, Lightwave, etc. We also have training for stop-mo and 2-d, many students will do assignments in these styles too. Describing the course as 'How to animate' seems pretty accurate to me.

Back to your regularly scheduled forum topic...

IMHO, I would be one to put it into the heavy fx field. While I'm sure some of the rotoscoping had elements required by an animator the majority of it was simply effects over a pre-set shot.

[P_T]

*shrugs* I figured with the way people are so enthusiastic about AM, it must be a really good program and as such, should teach all the important stuff. Now if rotoscoping is not part of the curriculum at all, I'm guessing it's because rotoscoping is irrelevant to animating.

I'm guessing it's also why we refer to people who do rotoscope and mocap work as "rotoscope artist" and "mo-cap artist" instead of just calling them animators.

[cresshead]

take another guess:)

[Fitzy]

I personally felt the reliance on the actors performances and their images moved this to visual effects rather than an animation award. I appreciate the fact that many animation processes require the use of film footage or photographs as reference, but this film was sold on the actors performances as much as the animation work.

That said like Sin City it is nice to see something a bit different and a good attempt at capturing the dark side of Philip K Dick's original book. The story seems as fresh now as when the book was first published in 1977.

[P_T]

take another guess:)What for? I already took the right ones. :)

Nitefyre already explained my first guess and as for the second one,

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=428922
"We are looking for an experienced mocap artist."

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=344240
"Rotoscope Artist/Jr. Compositors"

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.