Ok so i have never animated anything and i am bad and drawing and very beginner at video editing but i was thinking of making a youtube video with animation
i wanted to record myself doing something like fighting or walking and then draw each frame seperatly like i said i am not good at drawing but i think i will try that anyway
so my idea is to record myself then draw over my siluette in paint and then put those frames together in shotcut maybe i can even surround the drawings with green so that i can put my animation somewhere
anyway thats my idea pic for attention merry christams everyone!
This is called Rotoscoping! It's a classic and widely used technique. Check YouTube, you'll be able to find a bunch of tutorials and tips for Rotoscoping. :)
well checking youtube tutorials sounds like a good idea buuuuuut i think i will just freestyle it and figure it out on my own i just wanted to knwo if its possible thanks :)
Rotoscoping is how Walt Disney made Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and many other classic animations. It's often seen as "Cheap" but it can have good results.
I think that the key is in the embellishments layered on top of the reference motion.
In depends, the "cheap" way would literally be tracing over movement from filmed footage. The way Disney did it for Snow White was, like you said, still requiring additional animation on top of the copied stuff.
Eventually, it would become just using live action footage as reference did movement rather than tracing directly.
This is a niche part of animation called rotoscope. Most animation isn't this though.
so is there like an easier way to do that? i wanna draw over myself to have a reference and not jist do it from nothing
The problem with rotoscoping is that it takes forever because there are so many frames in a video (usually around 24-30). So you're going to be drawing ~30 frames for every second of your animation.
A better option would be to export your video at 12 frames per second. This is what most animators use.
There’s also software like EbSynth that can automate a lot of the tediousness of rotoscoping.
They have a free tier that lets you export at 720p. Enough for starting out.
The way it works is that you paint one frame as normal. And then EbSynth will warp that frame to fit some number of subsequent frames before you have to manually paint another frame again.
The less motion there is, the better it works. If you have drastic changes from one frame to the next you will need another manual frame there to get good results.
Joel Haver uses EbSynth for his videos.
He made a little video a few years ago about how he’s using EbSynth. Although the software may have changed quite a bit since then. It was in early alpha or beta when that video was made. I tired it out a bit myself too back then. But I haven’t checked what the current version looks like compared to what it did back then.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tq_KOmXyVDo
https://ebsynth.com/
Animation takes time to do however you approach it.
This is actually called Rotoscoping! A lot of the original Disney movies were actually animated this way. That’s how they got the super realistic movements for Snow White, in an age where cartoons moved very artificially!
It’s a good way to start if you’re just learning, and there are a whole ton of tutorials on YouTube that teach you how to animate without video reference if you ever wanna try something different
wow thank you for the advice and interesting facts! i have decided to just freestyle my animation process and not watch anything but i am glad that it is at least possible thamk you!
If u wanna put it over sth later u could instead of drawing on green, draw on transparent and export as .png, that way u won't have to worry about cutting it out and u will be able to use any color u will want. Idk if paint handles transparency and png, haven't used it for decades, but there are free programs that do, like affinity, Krita, gimp.
Your post has the "Beginner"-flair which means you might want to check out The "Ultimate" Reddit Beginners Guide to Animation <- click link
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