Entry 18 · the alphabet of motion

R

Rotoscope

Tracing live-action footage frame by frame to derive animation.

CSS @keyframes · rotoscope

The long entry

Rotoscoping was invented in 1915 and remains a working technique a hundred years later. The process is humble — film a person, draw on top of every frame — but the result captures the irreducible weight of real human movement. Modern tools have automated parts of it (Adobe Roto Brush, runway), but the skill of selecting *which* frames to keep is still human.