ULEAD Video Paint & Light Sabre ROTOSCOPING

[Jerry Jones]

You might be interested in the Web page links below.

These might be helpful to fellow ULEAD MediaStudio PRO users, particularly those who wish to create Star Wars lightsabre effects.

Clay Kronke is a filmmaker who has done some interesting light sabre rotoscoping work in the ULEAD Video Paint program (which is included in ULEAD MediaStudio PRO).

1. Example of Kronke's approach to lightsabre sequences:

http://www.amfilms.com/~clay/roto.mov

2. Another film by Kronke; this one takes a lot of time to download but the lightsabre scene is worth the wait:

http://download.theforce.net/theater/bs/bs.mov

3. Kronke wrote a tutorial about how to use ULEAD to create the lightsabre sequences:

http://theforce.net/theater/software/ulead/createsaber.shtml

Rotoscoping is a term that stems from a device named 'the rotoscope.'

The rotoscope was invented in 1917 by animator Max Fleischer.

Fleischer created the rotoscope on the theory that animated cartoons could be done more realistically through the use of the rotoscope, which allowed the artist to illustrate animated characters by *tracing* over live video.

Rotoscoping, in today's video context, means PAINTING-ON-VIDEO, hence the term ULEAD 'Video Paint.'

By the way, here is a sketch of the original ROTOSCOPE:

http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Club/9199/Animation/Fleischer_Rotoscope.html

Here is a screen capture of ULEAD's VIDEO PAINT program, which is included with MEDIASTUDIO PRO:

http://www.ulead.com/msp/videopaint_ui.htm

Here is the principal list of features in ULEAD's VIDEO PAINT program:

http://www.ulead.com/msp/videopaint.htm

A note from Kronke:

http://www.theforce.net/theater/shortfilms/brains/director_index.html

Another note from Kronke:

http://www.amfilms.com/~clay/dichotomy.html

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Technoid]

Last time I did something like that I felt really woosy after 100 frames.......

[Jerry Jones]

I've decided I'm going to invest in a pressure-sensitive tablet since ULEAD Video Paint supports them.

I think that'll make the laborious tasks associated with rotoscoping easier and faster.

I think I've found a very cost effective tablet that might work for me:

http://shop.store.yahoo.com/xppcs/747981.html

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[BrianP]

I tried this a year or so ago, using MSP5. In fact I emailed Clay for tips (good to see there is a web page now).

My 10-second clip took forever to do. The process is relatively easy, but the sheer volume of frames can be overwhelming. Even once you have an assembly-line efficiency of doing one frame after another, you figure that it still takes about 2 minutes to do each frame properly. With 30 frames per second, for a 10 second clip, you can easily do the math: that's 10 hours of work.

And that's just for 10 seconds...

[Technoid]

There must be an easier way to do it

[Jerry Jones]

Actually, rotoscoping by its very nature is labor intensive.

There are several applications on the market that can do lightsabres, for example.

But when you get down to the fine print and read *how* they go about it, then you realize they're really not any faster than what you already have in the existing ULEAD Video Paint toolset.

Where roto work is concerned, there really isn't any such thing as a 'free lunch.'

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net