Good software for rotoscope/paint

vegemite wrote on 10/26/2015, 11:30 PM

Hi all! Over many years of happy Vegas ownership, I have wanted only two extra facilities - motion tracking and rotoscoping. Especially the video paint component. years ago, I used to use the painter in the predecessor of Corel to good effect, but that seems now not to work with the AVCHD files from my Panasonic AF-100. Similarly, it was possible to go to Photoshop and back via Premier and work in their frame-list, but no way am I joining their cloud. Same problem with AE.

So, to my question; does anyone know of tolerably inexpensive software that will perform this rotoscope, or more especially, video paint process? I have checked out Resolve and Fusion (mostly Mac oriented and a steep learning curve), Blender (seems much more a 3D effects program), Wax (could have been a possible starter, but works with AVI files only and seems to have lots of deficiencies), current Corel (won't accept MP4 files and has lost some functionality), and so on.

I have run out of ideas. And I have searched the forum and knowledgebase. If anyone knows of any suitable software that will handle current file-types and won't break the bank I would be very grateful to hear about it.

Thanks and best wishes

Comments

NickHope wrote on 10/27/2015, 1:51 AM

The best answer is probably to bite the bullet regarding the learning curve and use Fusion 8. There's a Windows version of the free Beta and it's free.

deusx wrote on 10/27/2015, 3:39 AM

>>>Resolve and Fusion (mostly Mac oriented and a steep<<<

Don't know about Resolve, but Fusion has never been available on Macs. It's always been a Windows program and you can't beat the price ( I still can't believe they are giving it away ).

Edit: Looks like with version 8 Fusion is for the first time available to OSX people who won't know what to do with it anyway.

astar wrote on 10/27/2015, 4:43 AM

Blender would be the go to Free to use application. Other apps may have free educational versions, but they do not allow professional use in the license. You may want to watch some videos on Roto, motion tracking, compositing in Blender. Most tutorials will show how to setup blender into the 2D modes necessary for Roto and compositing work. Learning Blender, is like learning to play an instrument that takes a lot of practice.

Vegas has Rotoscope in its purest form. Roto was the pain staking process of manually painting frames and masks individually. The Masking tool and key framing in Vegas does all this very well. If you think Roto is a mask that is motion tracked, that is not Roto or what is in Vegas.

AfterEffects and Mocha are probably the most common tool for roto and paint.

Nuke is a very high end solution used by the bigs.

vegemite wrote on 10/27/2015, 7:30 PM

Thank you all for your advice. It seems there is no "simple" solution to my need anymore. Pity. I shall have another look at Blender - plumb the depths a little, this time. And, longer term, try to come to grips with Fusion. I just wish it would handle more file formats! Anyway, at least I have now downloaded the user manual.

Thanks again.

set wrote on 10/27/2015, 10:09 PM

Besides Fusion, new compositing software, still heavily developed, Natron, have Rotoscope feature too. The UI is extremely similar to Nuke.

http://lesterbanks.com/2015/01/look-natron-rotoshapes-node-action/

I haven't learned the Natron although it seems very promising.

NormanPCN wrote on 10/28/2015, 12:06 AM

Hitfilm 3 Pro has the Mocha Planar tracker.

Hitfilm 3 Express with a $60 Mocha expansion adds planar tracking to Express.