cartoon/animation look effect to normal film???(rotoscoping)

BillyBoy wrote on 5/8/2003, 7:42 PM

Have no small dreams someone once said.

A qualified yes. If you have tons of time, and can wait for to Boris Red releases their Vegas plug-in. It ain't cheap, around $999 unless they have special intro pricing. Even with that it would be a painfully slow process to make a sizeable video. Yes, it is called retroscoping. There's several other application out there like Aura. Not cheap either. The process involves 'drawing' on your video, similar to a overlay layer. The better applications use vector graphics. If you've ever used Corel Draw, you know what that's about. If you haven't a vector graphic is based purely on a math. Plotting a lines from X to Y. Because of that, the graphics can be very smooth and won't be blockly like a bitmap graphic gets when you attempt to enlarge it becuase that method is based on pixels. Cheaper applicatons can mimic the effect if you don't mind doing it frame by frame. For anything extensive, like just a twenty minute project it good take months to complete, maybe longer. The better applications use a method where they can track the object you want to draw. So you paint it once then surround it with a mask and it gets applies for a range of frames. Something like cookie cutter and keyframes combined on steroids. Again, that's adding a single object. To do a whole video where everything is drawn would be a huge project and involve lots of trial and error. Have you considered using Flash? That is 'cartoon' like and does decent animation.

As far as using the present Vegas filters, some can give you special effects or you can go crazy with color curves and compositing, but not really the 'cartoon' look you are thinking about.

If you want to see a far out series of cartoons created in part with Vegas, check out
Camp Chaos. Be warned some of the language and content is XXX. But if you're open minded a hoot to see.

http://www.campchaos.com/cartoons/

Brest seen with a high bandwidth Internet connection.

seeker wrote on 5/9/2003, 4:41 AM

lowayko,

"...if anyone has any idea how to get a cool cartoon/animation look effect to a normal shot video with using vegas filters"

The effects in the Waking Life Movie were done with custom Apple software, and involved a lot of hand applied art on a frame-by-frame basis using a whole team of animators. I share your admiration for this form of video art, but I don't think that it is achievable with currently available Vegas filters.

I have had some success by importing an uncompressed AVI into Corel Painter, converting the video to a Frame Stack (a FRM file), and applying a script to the entire Frame Stack to posterize and find edges. Then you have to convert the Frame Stack back into an AVI file and bring it back into Vegas for further work. This sort of process is a variation of rotoscoping, and you could do something similar in Photoshop, using its FilmStrip (FLM) format.

Also, in Painter you can export a FrameStack as a sequence of images that you can open in Photoshop to apply effects there. Or, if you have both Painter and Photoshop, you can place a shortcut in Painter's Plugins folder pointing to Photoshop's Plug-Ins folder to make Photoshop's plugins and filters available for use directly in Painter. Photoshop's CutOut filter does a good job of simplifying an image. Painter's Posterize effect might be more to your liking. I am still experimenting with this, but I have gotten some effects rather similar to Waking Life using this approach. Of course, there are several different "looks" in Waking Life, because each animator used a different style on his or her section of the movie.

Another approach that looks promising is to export your Vegas footage as an AVI, convert that AVI to a vector Flash video to get a "Waking Life look", and convert that vector Flash video back to an AVI for re-incorporation in Vegas. You need something like Wildforms' Flix Pro to make the vector video. For a couple of examples, see:

Regan vector video

Leary vector video

Wildform's Flix Pro lets you create several different styles of vector video, like in most of the Waking Life movie. You can see them on the following webpage. However, I am not sure that you can create outlined multi-colored areas in Flix. I did create such outlines in my Corel FRM rotoscopes, because I like the "comic book" look. The Wildform movies open in small thumbnail screens but you can expand them to full screen if you wish.

Vector video with Wildform's Flix Pro

One limitation of this vector Flash approach is that the outlines are made up of straight line segments. I like the look of curved lines better, and you have to use a lot of short straight line segments to approximate a decent curve. And that, in turn, runs up your file size. There is another program called Optimaze that does a good job of compressing large Flash files, and you can see more info on it at:

Optimaze file compression for Flash

You will also need to be able to convert the Flash SWF file back into an AVI so you can work on it some more in Vegas. If you have Flash, Swish, or QuickTime Pro, they all have the ability to export Flash as AVI. There is also a third party utility called SWF2Video that can do the conversion for you. For more info on it, see:

FlashAnts' SWF2Video Flash to AVI utility

Approaches like this can yield effects somewhat like those in the Waking Life movie, but with much more of the work being done by the computer. I still haven't achieved any Waking Life style footage that I am proud of, but I will keep trying. I think it is possible. But not completely inside of Vegas.

-- Seeker --

lowayko wrote on 5/9/2003, 5:19 AM

Thank you so much guys...all that information is helping me a lot on that...i still think though if someone (a programmer) can come up with a filter effect for that (maybe something close) and included to vegas...it would be great and so much easy:)...anyways..once again thanks so much for your time!

FuTz wrote on 5/9/2003, 8:19 AM

Satish (at www.debugmode.com) said in a post that he is actually working on a rotoscopy application for Vegas. There would be a "ghost image" from one frame to another, using bezier curves that we just could modify along the process. Let's just hope he succeeds! And he must; he's been doing hell of a few plugins for us up to now and he's, well, the KING!
Meanwhile, do like me: cross your fingers.

P.S.: What I do now is use the Animation Shop (part of PaintShop Pro7) to make rotoscopy but it's really not an ideal solution since I have to render in mpeg to be able to export into Animation Shop... but for making masks, it's not so bad. It's the best I've found so far.

P.S.(part II): Concerning just the *cartoon / animation LOOK*, you can probably achieve an interesting picture using a few FX plugins, right now, in Vegas. I'm gonna try a few things and come up with my results if I find something interesting...

mikkie wrote on 5/9/2003, 9:35 AM

Problem with software filtering is that it's hard to define the subject edges going from a continuous tone image. What you'd want to do is make it easier for whatever software to determine your subject edges, first by considering carefully what you shoot. An image editing prog. has threshold settings and edge detection which might get you close, & then might use a vector conversion program like Adobe's or Corel's or as included in Freehand (get a trial & see if it will do what you want). These prog. will trace over the image and depending on how set, convert the picture to vector outlines. These could be used to finetune animation in a prog like freehand or flash. I know they do work with scanned cartoon stills.

That said, don't think there's a set method that works well in every situation, or really well at all. I've heard of one facility making hundreds of prints, then altering and scanning them.

BillyBoy wrote on 5/9/2003, 9:47 AM

Just messing around, I tired applying the Convolution Kernel (try both the emboss and bump map preset, then play with the settings) combined with Gaussian Blur (very, very low settings) which gave some interesting if not odd effects. If you think the results are close to what you want, once you get fairly close then also experiment with the new Bump Map filter and adjust the light source.

satish wrote on 5/9/2003, 10:43 AM

Drop me a mail at 'satish at debugmode . com' and we can discuss more about these type of effects. I am currently working on a rotoscoping plugin for vegas and your input would be of very much value.

Thanks

lowayko wrote on 5/9/2003, 6:30 PM

fUtZ
"P.S.: What I do now is use the Animation Shop (part of PaintShop Pro7) to make rotoscopy but it's really not an ideal solution since I have to render in mpeg to be able to export into Animation Shop... but for making masks, it's not so bad. It's the best I've found so far."

hey great because i'm using animation shop too to work on each frame than save it as avi and import to vegas:)...if you can help me what kind of effects you use in animation shop and than what you do in vegas i would apparciate it...

also BillyBoy: Thanks for your info too...i also tried messing around with Convolution Kernel,bump map,mask generation vs...it really helps but still it would be awesome if Satish can come up with that new rotoscoping filter for vegas...since there is no nle's does that it would be soo unique for vegas...great:)

Thanks again everyone for sharing their experieneces on that!

PDB wrote on 5/10/2003, 12:12 PM

Satish...

You are THE man!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

shogo wrote on 5/10/2003, 12:28 PM

Man do you make any money for this, you are great "were not worthy!" Must be nice to be able to just make what ever you like satish. He really has added alot for us vegas users I use his plugins for almost every project I have I love you man!!!

lowayko wrote on 5/11/2003, 10:21 PM

seeker
"This sort of process is a variation of rotoscoping, and you could do something similar in Photoshop, using its FilmStrip (FLM) format"

hi seeker,I tried the cutout effect in photoshop as you metioned for an image and it looks really good so close to what i want(waking life look) ...But how i can convert my uncompressed avi to .flm format and load it into photoshop and apply that effect to the video and save or convert it back as avi to get it in vegas...also is it possible to apply that effect to the whole .flm format scene instead of doing it each frame by frame in photoshop...please let me know...

Thank you soo much!

Luxo wrote on 5/12/2003, 1:01 AM

I don't know about the .flm format....but I've done this in the past using the method I describe in this thread.

I wrote that a year ago, and it can now be simplified using Satish's frameserver. Just frameserve the project to Virtualdub to create the image sequence instead of exporting an uncompressed AVI.

Let me know if it's unclear....

seeker wrote on 5/12/2003, 6:21 AM

Lowayko,

>" But how i can convert my uncompressed avi to .flm format and load it into photoshop and apply that effect to the video and save or convert it back as avi to get it in vegas..."

Right now the only certain way I know to convert your uncompressed AVI to FLM is to open the AVI in Adobe Premiere and save it as FLM from Premiere. Premiere would do the conversion from AVI to FLM. There has been a request to Satish to make a utility to do the conversion, but as far as I know, that is still pending. Maybe Satish needs some more encouragement on that project. I personally don't think he should be expected to do all the work he does for free. I think a lot of people would be willing to pay a reasonable price for the software he produces and he would be suitably compensated for his effort and expertise. For more info on the AVI2FLM request, see:

Debug Mode forum

Ideally, a new version of Photoshop could open uncompressed AVIs into FLM filmstrips, but my version of Photoshop, 5.0.2, can't do that. What version of Photoshop do you have? This would be a good feature for Photoshop 8.

An alternative is to convert the AVI to a sequence of bitmap images which are then processed in Photoshop one at a time, possibly with the aid of an Action Script to automate the process. Then there are available shareware utilities to combine a sequence of bitmaps back into an AVI.

I find Corel Painter 7 to be very convenient because it can open an AVI directly into a FrameStack FRM file which is the same sort of thing as an Adobe FilmStrip file. And then you can get a good "Waking Life look" with Artistic-CutOut followed by Artistic-Poster Edges (to get ink lines if you want them). Both of those are Photoshop plugins that can be accessed by Painter. You can use a Painter Script to easily apply one or more effects globally to each image in the FRM frame stack and then, still from Corel Painter, you can "Save As" the rotoscoped movie back to AVI.

You have several options on the saved AVI, including framerate. You can select it to be uncompressed or you can select compression with any of your system codecs. I have 8 codecs on my system, which is probably not a lot. I haven't been actively collecting codecs. Incidentally, SoFo's proprietary DV codec is not available on Painter's codec list, probably because it is proprietary to Sonic Foundry. I think Main Concept sells a codec that is supposed to be good. Too bad we can't figure out how to use SoFo's DV codec outside of Vegas. But for the time being "uncompressed" AVI will get your video back into Vegas in fine shape. You have to recombine the rotoscoped video with the original sound in Vegas because the Corel Painter FRM file has no audio so your exported rotoscoped AVI has no audio. I suspect Adobe's FLM rotoscoping also contains no audio.

>"...also is it possible to apply that effect to the whole .flm format scene instead of doing it each frame by frame in photoshop...please let me know..."

Yes, you can apply effects to the entire Filmstrip in Photoshop. That part works rather well. The problem is you need Premiere to get your AVI into a FLM file that Photoshop can use and then when the FLM comes out of Photoshop you need Premiere to get it back to an AVI again. Adobe intends you to use Premiere and Photoshop as a team on this and maybe even Adobe After Effects as well. Too bad all that Adobe stuff costs so much. You might want to take a look at the new Corel Painter 8. It's not cheap, but it doesn't cost as much as Premiere. I think Corel may have a downloadable demo, although it may be Save-disabled. I don't like to mess with Save-disabled demos.

My copy of Corel Painter 8 is on the way, and I can't wait to use it. I think it is amazing that Corel didn't advertise the video capabilities of Painter 7. I "assume" that Painter 8 will have the same or better video capabilities, but I won't know until I use Painter 8. Painter has legendary natural art effects that look great in stills. Most, if not all of them, can be applied to motion video. I think I said it before: Photoshop, Painter, and Vegas can make a great team for creative video. And I share your admiration of the "My Waking Life" video effects.

-- Seeker --

Erk wrote on 5/12/2003, 10:32 AM

Here's an off the wall suggestion for a cartoon look: use Curious Lab's Poser, a 3d figure program. You can import an AVI as the background for your 3d figures, and it offers a "sketch" type setting as one of its rendering features. You can adjust a number of variables when sketch rendering. The resulting video looks sorta hand drawn, and might work well depending on your source material and what kind of look you want.

So what I'm thinking is import your AVI and just render it out in Sketch without any 3d figures. I haven't tried this beyond playing around with a 5 second piece. Might be timeconsuming, but wouldn't be nearly the job as actual rotoscoping.

Poser 5 is about $200 - $300. Very useful for lots of other tricks as well.

Again, just a workaround.

G

roberths wrote on 9/19/2003, 5:42 PM

Keep up the great work Satish

FuTz wrote on 9/19/2003, 7:55 PM

YES! keep up the good, no, EXCELLENT work !!!