Rotoscoping is the process of painting on a movie, applying effects to a movie, or compositing a portion of the images from one movie with the images of another. This is often done to make the action of a person filmed in one place appear on a background filmed in another. You can also use rotoscoping to remove an element from a video clip, as shown below in the frames from a short movie of an owl on a roost. After the video was captured digitally, it was imported into Corel Painter, and the roost was removed frame by frame by using the masking tools.
(1) The frame shows an owl perched on a roost. (2) The frame shows the owl without the roost. (3) The frame shows the mask used to hide the roost.
Rotoscoping is also useful for adding a background to an animation. The process is the same whether you work with digitized video or painted animation cells.
