cmiVFX: Silhouette Intro To Rotoscope

cmiVFX launches its latest training video for the Silhouette Rotoscoping And Tracking Software. Silhouette Roto and Paint is a very specialized software to execute rotoscope and generate mattes. It is fast, stable and has a great interface, enabling the artist to execute traditional keyframed roto and assisted roto with point and planar tracking efficiently. If you need to do rotoscope frequently, it is unbeatable.

Silhouette is able to export mattes, vector shapes and trackers to compositing softwares like Nuke, After Effects, Flame, and Fusion making it a great asset for vfx and motion graphics pipelines.
Chapters Descriptions



Introduction

User Interface tour and overview, learn how to setup projects, sessions, and load media files. Explore the user interface layouts and performance settings that will affect footage playback and rotoscope speed.



Drawing Shapes

Extensive explanation about Silhouette’s shape types: b-splines, x-splines and bézier. Drawing techniques, using the reshape tool, adjusting curve tension and point modes: cardinal, corner, b-spline and center. Navigating the viewer with tools and shortcuts: zoom, pan.



Intro to Rotoscope

In depth review of the Project window. Discussion of strategies to break down subjects into shapes for rotoscope. Working with the Viewer modes and inputs to help on shape drawing, rotoscope evaluation and to avoid background color contamination.



Animating Shapes

Using the reshape and transform tools to manipulate shapes: moving, rotating, scaling, skewing, and corner pinning. Setting the anchor point and using special transform tool modes to manipulate groups of shapes and points. Planning the animation, optimal keyframe positioning in time and dealing with keyframing interpolation. Introduction to the “back and forth” technique.



Point Tracking

Review of the Object List: creating and manipulating layers. Techniques to create and use Silhouette’s excellent point tracker. Applying 1, 2 and 4 point tracking data to layers, refining problematic trackers, manipulating the transform matrix of layers and using the layer stabilization feature.



Planar Tracking

Use of Silhouette’s Planar tracker. Evaluating the planar tracker results. Pre-processing plates to improve planar tracker results. Extracting point trackers from shapes.



Finishing the Rotoscope

After learning the tracking techniques, the rotoscope continue and the project is finished. Discussion of other useful rotoscope techniques, tips and tricks: Using the Multiframe tool, animating shape opacity, layer stabilization, extracting trackers from shapes, breaking keyframed shapes into smaller pieces.



Hair

How to deal with hair and other thin rotoscope subjects. Working with open shapes and stroke width. Open shapes drawing techniques, and manipulating/animating complex groups of shapes.



Rendering

Rendering the mattes to be used on any compositing software. Discussion of render settings and node parameters that affect the render output. Rendering Slap Comps for previews and dailies.



Exporting Shapes

How to export shapes from Silhouette. Detailed export/import overview to After Effects, Nuke and Shake. Using Silhouette Actions.