

This is important for a traditional 2d look. The animation is organic, and the hand of the artist remains evident. The results we achieve in TVPaint are similar to what we would get working on paper. What are the benefits of TVPaint compared to other softwares? We find that TVPaint is a good platform for our hand-drawn frame-by-frame approach. Our process is built on traditional animation pipelines.

Why did you choose TVPaint to make this project rather than another animation software?

We used that flexibility for some of the more surreal moments in the series. Rotoscope allows the audience to relate directly to the actor’s performance but retains the flexibility of animated character animation.
#HOW TO USE TVPAINT SERIES#
Why did you decide to realize your series using only the rotoscope technique? I like how I can capture an idea, build animation, and produce finished work entirely inside TVPaint. What do you like the most about the software? Animator working on “Undone” at Minnow Mountain.
#HOW TO USE TVPAINT SOFTWARE#
I’ve been working in TVPaint for 15 years now and find the software works well for our studio. We also produced 2016’s Emmy-winning documentary Tower using TVPaint. Our workflow is based on traditional structures, with our animation team leads drawing key poses, senior animators drawing breakdowns, and staff animators drawing in- between frames. Our unit produced the line work and then the animation was delivered to Submarine in Amsterdam who did the color, backgrounds, and composite. We use frame-by-frame hand-drawn rotoscoping, custom brush animation, roto-tracking, and limited animation approaches like loops and holds to complete the character layers. Secondly, the animator rotoscopes one character at a time using a custom “pencil” tool Hisko Hulsing designed for this project. First, the video is loaded as a layer and the opacity is lowered so the animator can see the line work. Staggs: TVPaint was used as our primary platform for producing the line animation layers for Undone. Read on for the interview:Ĭartoon Brew: Why and how did you use TVPaint to rotoscope Undone?

As artistic director of the studio Minnow Mountain, Staggs oversaw production of the rotoscoped animation for Undone. In September, we conducted an interview with Craig Staggs. In the video below, director Hisko Hulsing explains the making of the series: A good example of the use of TVPaint for rotoscoping is the series Undone, which premiered in September 2019 on Amazon Prime Video. Rotoscope features in TVPaint allow for multiple applications, ranging from character movement in feature films to dance scenes in music videos. Also, the colorization is simple and fast thanks to the CTG Layer tool. The rendering looks a lot like animation that’s traditionally rotoscoped by hand. Animator working on “Undone” at Minnow Mountain.įrom a completed roto, the artist generates a matte painting in black and white that perfectly matches the object on all planes. This is what makes TVPaint such a rich and versatile software for creating great rotoscoped animation. TVPaint offers the possibility to draw frame by frame, as well as brushes that let artists trace curves around the subject with detail and precision, and a Light Table tool that help animators add definition. Originally, it involved projecting live-action footage onto a glass panel animators then traced over the image. Rotoscoping is a technique whereby animators trace over filmed footage, frame by frame, to reproduce realistic movement. The result is similar to hand-drawn animation, and the process provides them with a range of tools to achieve their goals. Animation is easier, cheaper, and faster on a tablet than on paper, which is why traditional animators around the world are adopting the software. This is why one of TVPaint‘s objectives is to equip artists with the ideal tools to create realistic animation. Yet this option - creating human characters that appear and move with the highest degree of realism - continues to pose great challenges in 2d computer animation. A naturalistic style is one choice among others. Animators choose between different styles of movement, from cartoony to realistic to experimental.
