Stick Animation and Gait of Animals

solarblast · Member Joined: 29 Nov 2004 Location: N. California. USA

A colleague does a lot of work with animals, and would like to do an animation of their gait. He'd like to show, say, a wolf walking, across the top of the screen, and below it a stick animation of the walk. Is there any software that would help do this, or does anyone have experience using it? Ultimately, it would be done in Premier (I think that's the product).

filmboss80 · Member Joined: 31 Jan 2007 Location: United States

In Premiere, your friend would export a video clip as filmstrip (where each frame can be accessed with Photoshop), then trace the animal's gait, frame-by-frame, in Photoshop (a process called rotoscoping), then bring that filmstrip back into Premiere, where the original clip can be split-screened with the rotoscoped animation filmstrip.

For a bit more on rotoscoping with Premiere and Photoshop, look here:

http://premierepro.wikia.com/wiki/Tutorial:_Rotoscoping

guns1inger · Member Joined: 01 Apr 2004 Location: Miskatonic U

If you wanted it automated then you are looking at motion capture - little white balls on the animal, digital tracking of the footage etc.

You can do it via rotoscoping, although photoshop is a slow method. After Effect would be better as it has dedicated tools, but none are cheap.
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solarblast · Member Joined: 29 Nov 2004 Location: N. California. USA

As it turns out, these are wild animals. Wolves, bears, and the like. However, it may not be necessary to do this for more than one species, a wolf might do. There are essentially four recognized gaits for four-legged mammals: walk, amble, trot and gallop. However, there are a number of patterns that are dependent upon where an animal might be looking, or needs to change pace quickly. I have no idea where he wants to go with this, but I would think he would want to do something simple at first, a walk.

What if he hires someone to do it? Are there studios or individuals that might do this or specialize in it? He lives in Wyoming near Yellowstone National Park. Some years ago, the Univ. of Utah was well known for its graphics work. Perhaps there is someone there that could take on the work. Are there any illustrations, videos, that might show what is done?

BTW, he's so well versed at this, he can demonstrate it with great zeal on the floor as he pretends to be a four-legged animal. Knee pads are needed.

guns1inger · Member Joined: 01 Apr 2004 Location: Miskatonic U

This type of thing has been researched for years. I suspect that there is plenty of footage around, including motion capture data.
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solarblast · Member Joined: 29 Nov 2004 Location: N. California. USA

Onward to Google.