Anyone up for another TFN rotoscoping contest?

A few years back there was an official TFN lightsaber rotscoping contest. Would anyone be up for another one? I know we've had the choreography contests, but I think it would be neat to have another contest where any number of people work on the same raw clip, rotoing the sabers (preferrably with a varied background that can show the saber glow in different color/light conditions).

Preferrably, we would want to have at least one or two people for each of the different programs. The benefit of this would be that we could take the best results from the different programs (AE, Photostop, Ulead, etc), and put them up side-by-side. That way, we could reference n00bs to this comparison page whenever they ask "which fx program does the best sabers" or whatever. I know the old contest had a comparison page, but it's a few years old and I think a fresh update would be nice (not to mention the old results page is down).

 

yes

 

of course.

- Ian

 

Yeah it would be a lot of fun to participate in.

From each program, there should be all the methods introduced. A lot of AE is the same, but people have many different ways of going about rotoscoping, so it should all be very cool to watch.

 

soooo.... can we begin yet? bring the footage in.

- Ian

 

What I was thinking is that the people who's clips are chosen to represent that particular program (the winners from each program, in other words) could write up a tutorial on how they did it, because while we may already have a tutorial up for that particular program, the new tut might be able to show how to get better and/or more efficient results.

Edit: I don't think we want to start right away. I think first we need to make sure everyone has the opportunity to learn about the contest, and we need to organize it and make sure there is at least one person working with each of the usual/major programs (AE, Ulead, Photoshop, ALAM DV, Axogon/MainVision, and whatever else). Plus, we need to find some good-quality footage to roto.

 

are we allowed to use a tutorial that already exists?

- Ian

 

If I didn't just spend entirely too many hours rotoing on my last film, I might consider this. But, I'm a little burned out on rotoscoping right now.

You guys have fun, though!

 

I think following a previous tutorial would be okay.

As long as you follow it as a guide, and not word for word, blur for blur, it should be alright.

I mean, they don't expect you to come out with a new way to do it in AE than keyframing, right?

 

Of course you can use an existing tutorial. The only reason I said the thing about the winners writting tutorials was so that they could show what things they tweaked to get the results they did. In fact, in most cases, they could probably just write up a sort of add-on or modifier for an existing tutorial (meaning they say something like "use such and such a tutorial, only use these RGB values, or these blur settings", etc, and only include the things they did different).

 

ok. but when are you going to post the footage. I want to get started.

- Ian

 

the thing is, blur settings and the like are only pertinent on a case by case basis. Identical blur amounts, for example, won't look the same on two different pieces of footage, depending on several factors, such as:

distance from the camera,
background,
and scene lighting.

So to write a tutorial on how to do the glows for ONE particualr clip is the only only way it would work, and that, my friends, would be pretty ridiculous...

 

I know settings should vary depending on conditions, since different clips can have different background, different lightings, different color balances, etc. However, there are some values that generally seem to do better in more conditions than others. For instance, if someone found an RGB value for a certain color saber that works well in more instances than others, it would be a help to let other people know about it. Besides, that's why I would like the roto clip to have a varied background, so that the saber could be seen in different conditions throughout the clip.

 

what's the deadline?

- Ian

 

Not sure. The contest hasn't been officially started yet. I'm mostly trying to see how much interest there is in it. Plus, I'd like to get permission from the forum mods to make it an offical TFN-sponsored contest, and we need to find a good raw clip (I don't just want any old crappy clip).

 

So when are we getting the foootage

 

I don't have a clip yet. That's what I'm seaching for. If anyone knows of a good clip, post it (in fact, it'd probably be best if we post several raw clips, and then decide which one will be the one we use for the contest).

 

i can see:

Winner LRC/05

under my forum name already.

 

Yeah Im up for it when it all gets off the ground!

Blue

 

Bring it on.

- Ian

 

I'll try something.

 

I would do this.. but we're all us AE guys are gonna use the Wieber method anyway.. so what's the point?



Actually, my reasoning is that I have enough to do for my own films. So, sorry guys.. maybe some other time.

-Vaportrail

 

I PMed you, Jace Taran, by the way.

- Ian

 

I'm in.

 

I'll do it!

Alos, we should do some footage from one of the Star Wars movies so we can show why we don't like the way the movies (EpII in particular) look.