How To Convert A Video To Drawing Animation In Adobe

Rotoscoping is a technique of drawing over the frames of a video to create a realistic animation. It'south a great mode to create a professional-looking animation without having to organically draw each individual frame—and you can do information technology using Adobe After Effects.

You might believe that animators always draw their characters from scratch, but many get-go off by tracing a video reference frame-by-frame. Rotoscoping is time-consuming, but it doesn't require whatever drawing ability and often leads to a polished-looking final product. You can use this tutorial with whatsoever video you have on-paw. I used an iPhone video of my friend dancing, but you tin search for something specific on the internet and use that likewise. (And, fun fact: Since nosotros will exist drawing over the video, there are no copyright issues with using someone else'southward footage for this project! Simply be certain to hide the actual video in step six.)

Bring your video into Later Effects and choose a modest portion to breathing.
To brainstorm, drag your reference footage into Adobe Later Effects. Create a limerick from the video layer. Beware—rotoscoping is a tedious process. Animating one 2d of motion might accept you as long every bit 30 minutes, and then don't select a long clip unless y'all accept plenty of time on your hands.
Double-click the brush tool () on the video to create a paint layer.
Once this is created, y'all can select your paintbrush every bit well.

In this example, I created my black outline using a brush with a 15 px diameter. The colour scribbles below were roughly twice as thick. You can mess effectually with the settings in this menu and utilize whatever you would similar.
Gear up your frame duration in the "paint" panel.
This will indicate how many frames of motility your paint strokes volition be on-screen for. The lower the number, the longer it will take you to animate—but the more circuitous the blitheness will be. For fast-moving motion, yous will want to work with single frames. However, slower video footage works fine with a frame duration of 2 or even four. Information technology'south okay to switch the frame duration throughout this project depending on the speed of the video'due south motion.

In this example, my dancer's arms move faster than his legs. For almost of the video, I used a frame duration of 1 for the upper body and 2 for the lower body—though I used single frames for faster sections of legwork as well.

One time your paintbrush has a color, size, and duration, yous may begin painting over your first frame!
Use the control fundamental and arrow keys to accelerate to the next frame.
If you have finished your first frame, press the control and arrow keys at the same fourth dimension to skip to the next frame in the reference video. (If you are using a frame duration of 2, you'll take to printing the right arrow key twice, since you're skipping two frames.)

To delete a brushstroke or change its duration, click the downward pointer abreast "furnishings" in your timeline window. Open the pigment layer. You should be able to see all of the brushstrokes you have created, each spanning the number of frames information technology occupies onscreen. Scroll until you lot notice the brush you would similar to delete or modify. You tin delete a brush using your figurer's delete key or modify the length of a brush by dragging the beginning and endpoints back and along in the timeline.
Brand the video invisible.
For nigh rotoscoping projects, you'll want to remove the original video reference and add together a groundwork of your own. Open the paint layer, similar we did in the previous step, and change "pigment on transparent" from off to on.
Click back into the main composition to view your blitheness.
Close the paint layer by going back to your original composition. (The tabs normally appear along the acme of your project window.) Elevate the playhead to the beginning and press the spacebar to spotter your animation from outset to terminate.