Scott,
We did a whole bunch of this sort of rotoscopy this year for Sinatra Live at the London Palladium. Way more than I ever want to do again in my life. Here's what we learned:
SO MUCH depends on the quality of the source footage. If it's nice clean scans of 35mm film, that's in good shape, it makes life a whole lot easier. Oddly enough roto work with color footage proved to be easier than B&W. More values to differentiate with.
We used 3 main apps to do the rotoscopy. The bulk of it we accomplished with Mokey and Motor (a subset of Mokey). The Mokey guys were really helpful. In the end we found Mokey to be a bit crashy and required alot of communication to keep it happening... We also used Shake, with methods pretty much as explained in the other posts in this thread. It was ultra stable, but required alot more hands on keyframing than Mokey. We also used Sillouette Roto, which I LOVED. Very smooth, very powerful, pretty simple to assimilate, stable, and fast.
With any of these approaches, the key to getting it right is time. As much time as possible. To do it really perfectly and flaw free is going to require patience and endurance. Roto is a an artform that demands a zen like approach, and a true desire for perfection. Any tosser can define an animated mask and go with it, but getting it all crisp, not losing body parts, keeping shapes correct, avoiding marching strobing matte lines... All of this requires real dedication. There is NO magic solution to this yet... We thought Mokey was it, and admittedly it was a way more advanced approach to simplifying things, but it had it's own quirks that kept us jumping.
Good luck.
Bob Bonniol
MODE Studios
http://www.modestudios.com
Contributing Editor, Entertainment Design Magazine
Art of the Edit Forum Leader
Live & Stage Event Forum Leader
HD Forum Leader
Reply
Like
