FMP: Adobe Animate Rotoscope Experiment

I have experimented with rotoscoping in Photoshop, however, I had not tried using Adobe Animate, so I wanted to try this. I, first, found a video to rotoscope over:

Once I had found a clip I wanted to rotoscope over, I found a simple tutorial on how to use Adobe Animate to create a rotoscope animation.

I, first, cut the video in Premiere Pro to the frames I wanted, in order to reduce the amount of frames I would need to remove in Animate. I imported this video into Animate as a graphic, and increased the brightness so I could see the lines I was going to draw over the video more clearly. Once I had done this, I went through each frame of the video, marking the key frames I would need in order to make the animation look smooth. I then removed the frames I would not need, and locked the video layer. I then created a new layer, and began drawing the key shapes/lines over the top of each frame. I also had another layer with a basic line, showing the floor. Once I had roughly 2 seconds of animation, and had rotoscoped both of the feet moving, I copied the frames to create a loop. I then exported the video, and created a GIF using Photoshop. This is the final GIF:

I also posted the video on YouTube:

A test with a simple background video:

Overall, I am happy with the outcome of this experiment, and I will be using Adobe Animate to produce the final video. I’ll be using it as I feel it is more efficient than Photoshop, and it is more simplistic in terms of the frames and layers. I may also use a background video to make the animation background less static – as inspired by this animation:

I think the GIF could be smoother in terms of the loop, which I could have fixed by making the start and end point the same frame. Despite this, I am pleased with the way it looks and will be using this style of animation in my FMP. I may develop a more sketched style to my animation rather than using the solid lines I have used in this GIF, this is in order to create a more altered sense of reality which is experienced by dissociation sufferers. As well as this, producing an animation with solid lines is more time consuming than producing a sketched animation – this is something I need to consider in terms of the amount of time I have to create my final piece. I am prepared to adjust my animation slightly if timings don’t go to plan, in terms of animation style and what is included in the animation.