Toon Boom Studio/After Effects

Here i Will Show You Step By Step My Process of rotoscoping in 2D

 

Open Up After Effects

 

 Take your mouse cursor to the box area under project on the left hand side.

                           Left Click and you will see a option box scroll down to import and click file.
                                            

                          Once your option box appears find your video you will be using to rotoscop click on it and your video will appear.

                   Drag Your Video in to the composition area and a new composition layer will be created left click the layer and select composition settings. This will display options to alter the video name and the video size ect if needed.

The video size option will naturally show width bigger than the height change the number of the height to the same number as the width and click OK.

Now your video display will be smaller with a black frame on the top and bottom of the composition

On your bottom left of After Effects there is a sequence column next to it will read 'Render Queue'  click on it and now drag the video composition layer into the open area under the name 'Render Queue' and should display with default settings.

Click on were it says lossless and your 'Output Module Settings' will appear click on format and a drop box will appear scroll down and you will see Targa Sequence and Tiff Sequence click either of these and then click OK.

Next to the 'Output To' icon click on the file name displayed next to it highlighted in yellow text 'Output Movie To' box will appear this is were you set up or set your movie image sequence to be transfer to once you have chose the location of your folder click OK.

After your render has finished locate your files and they should be looking something like the example in the box above.

Open up Toon Boom Studio.

Create a new Toon Boom file type in the name of what you would call your file you can change the frame rate and camera size but i left it on default and my format was set to custom.

 After finallising your settings the home screen will appear were we will be taking a first steps to creating the rotoscope technique through 2D.

 Firstly click and hold on to the second tool bar icon an select what you will be using to draw with out of a brush and pencil, there are also shapes you could use but is not relavant to what we will be doing. i choose to use a pencil.

 After deciding what tool you will be drawing with you must get your images into Toon Boom first before importing you must create a section to place your images. In the 'Exposure sheet' you have a drop down box named 'Drawing' this is were you will see the numbers of all the drawings you will do in the grey area next to it right click on the mouse and a option icon will appear, you see the 'Add' put your cursor on the area of the arrow were another drop down of options will appear.

 Click on Images and you should now have two icons named 'Drawing' and 'Images'.

 Now to import images right click on any of the 'Image' boxes below and drop down will appear at the top you have 'Import images' drag your cursor to were it says this and another drop down will appear click on 'From File'.

After clicking 'From file' it will open up your computer finder this is now were you find the folder were you sent your Tiff or Targa Sequence previously rendered from After Effects once found highlight all the images you are planning to use and click 'Open'.

After clicking open, your images will appear for you to start rotoscoping over them.

Click in the first box of your 'Drawing' coloum and direct your pencil or brush and start 'Rotoscoping'.

 Here i have a example of a fully Rotoscoped image, above the top there are fuctions there what can come in handy when using Toon Boom. Above you can see a drop down has appeared after holding the button named 'Show Previous' this function is as striaight forward as the name, it basically shows you a faint outline of your previous sketches you have completed.

 Here is an example of the function 'Show Previous' i clicked on the maximum number what is three so above it will display three light sketches of previous drawings highlighted in a light pink. The darker the shade represents the last sketch.

 'Turn AutoLight Table' this enable's you to turn on and off the light to view the image this is another handy function Toon Boom has. Right now the light is on so you will only see the solid structure of your drawing.

 But when the light is off you can see the image, i tend to think of it as a computer light board.

  'Turn AutoLight Table' off to return to rotoscoping view

So this concludes how to get started in Rotoscoping in a 2D software Toon Boom I hope this helps always remember to convert your video first in After Effects into Targa or Tiff Sequence then Add a image Column before importing the image sequence into Toon Boom to start rotoscoping, also remember to 'Turn AutoLight Table' off to see the image you are Rotoscoping over.