Rotoscoping (The Mask) (2004) - This rotoscoping animated short uses several different techniques to combine animation and live action video elements. The first is the animation itself which covers up the body of he subject. This was done using a the program Corel Painter to paint directly on top of the frames. However, the quicktime compression Painter exported these video elements in was fairly low quality and the video ended up being slightly blurry for this section. The second technique was a series of layer masks. One layer completely red placed over the actor and keyframed to his individual movements. Then a still drawing of the character's eye was placed on top of this, and masking elements were dropped onto this element as well. The effect created is like a primitive form of the animation process used in some segments of Richard Linklater's Waking Life. The final segment, in which he removes the face-mask is a simple layer effect with a mask where his hand crosses over to remove the face-mask. Then the face-mask was keyframed in an attempt to get the motion to match the motion of his hand removing it. Click here to view the video. Click here to return to the special effects menu. |