Rotoscopy Ring

Here's an OBJect you can use for rotoscopy

To add animated screens, TV screens for example, it may be preferable to use my other script: Texanim

The rotoscopy ring is not user friendly - but if/when you understand it, it can be set up in a few minutes.

256 images (primitive planes), arranged as a ring

the ring turns 1/256th of a turn each time you advance by 1 frame on Daz Studio's timeline

it's the principle of cinematography, isn't it

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instructions

download the OBJ and MTL files here : ROTOSTRIP.ZIP

this zip file contains rotostrip.obj, and rotostrip.mtl

the zip file also contains a "Maps" sub-folder with 13 images

convert the "movie" you want to "play" on the ring as a series of jpg images, and place them in the "Maps" subfolder". The images must bear exactly the names pic0.jpg, pic1.jpg, pic2.jpg ... pic255.jpg ( personally i use the free program VirtualDub for this task )

import rotostrip.obj in daz, using File/Import/wavefront Object(.obj)

use "Poser units" as your Object Import Options

you should now see a gigantic ring ( radius of 40 meters ) and on the ring should be displayed your 256 jpeg images or the 13 images of a horse galoping (see fig. 1 )

the center/axle of this ring is located at ( 0, 0, -4074.27 ) ( each image is 1 meter tall and there's 256 images along the circumference )

so, create a null at ( 0,0, -4074.27 ), create a keyframe on the current position of the rotoring ( not always necessary ) then Parent the rotoring to the null, by dragging and dropping the rotoring onto the null, in the "scene" tab.

select the null, create a keyframe at frame 0, with XRotate = 0.001

then create a keyframe at frame 256 with XRotate = -360.0

we're close but we're not there yet

if you press Daz's play button, you will see the ring slowly start to turn, accelerate, then decelerate, then stop at frame 256, Daz studio adds that slow-in/slow-out effect to everything. which can somethimes make life difficult for things like car animations

so i created a script named "SetInterpolation" and you can download it from this web page

select the null, run my SetInterpolation script, and use the defaults, which set the interpolation to "Linear" for the whole range of the animation, for the null

now if you press daz's Play button, you should see the ring displaying your movie, or the galopping horse and each time you change the timeline's frame number, the ring should jump to the proper image

i know many who reached this point of the post are mumbling and cursing at me, but i did say "for technically inclined daz users" in the title

search the forums for my TexAnim script it can do neat things i tellya

figure 1: