Rotoscoping

Since Motion Capture of Virtua Fighter took the realism of authentic human movements in 3D to the video games, the fact of seeing a personage 2D animated by impeccable form already we should not surprise, and nevertheless, the sprites realized by means of the skill of the Rotoscoping still turn out to be impressive in spite of taking above the weight of two decades.

Time behind, the grafistas had to devise them so that his personages not only were well designed, but also they had an animation fluída. Every time the number of grafistas was major inside the same project in order to offer an aspect that was superior to that of the rest of throwings that existed on the market. In the world of the cartoon a skill existed, the rotoscoping, which was taking years being used in qualifications like Betty Boop, Snow White, or the very same Dragon's Lair, the last one already in video game, although in the fund it was only a mythical succession of fragments of cartoon that were happening from one to other on having pulsated (or not) the button in the just moment (or not so just …: ouch!). A man, Jordan Mechner, bet everything for this type of animation, creating an unforgettable game which name resounds every day with more force if it fits: Prince of Persia.

The title was possessing an exact difficulty, was providing many hours of entertainment, and his system of pitfalls, jumps, battles, jumps, mapping and more jumps was (and it continues it being) an authentic marvel, but what really did that they all were putting the eyes on the work of Mechner was his successful animation.

The skill was consisting of filming the stills with persons of meat and bone later to reproduce them as faithfully as possible by means of pixels drawing above. Normally a more or less advanced rotoscopio was used for it, although, on having applied it to the field of the video games, between presupposed shallows and that the final product was not a drawing but a sprite, we might say that the process was done rather to the beast, introducing the frames in a program of graphic design of those of the day before yesterday and tracing in pixels the figure, adapting it to the final size of the sprite treating that it was not occupying very much. So that we understand each other, it was an authentic Chinese work.

David, brother of Jordan Mechner
Prince of Persia – MS TWO

It is no wonder that other big creators were concentrating on this system to do his games. It is the case of Eric Chahi and his understudy Another World in 1991, science fiction game that although it changes into exposition (and naturally subject-matter) with regard to Prince of Persia, yes that there respects not only the rotoscoping even more refined thanks to his graphic symbol based in vectors, but also the displacement system for screens, and not scroll as it would have been the normal thing. The game is provided with the second part, Heart of the Alien (exclusive for Mega-CD), and with a remake done in HD by his 15th anniversary.

The official front of Another World was painted to the oil by the proper Chahi

Another World – Commodore Amiga

Heart of the Alien – SEGA Mega-CD

Another World High Resolution Collector's Edition – PC

Games that continued the same stela, with major or minor quality and success, there are many, but it would result from mortal sin (of that they put you up to a carpet to enter the hell the big door) not to mention one especially of between all of them: Flashback – The Quest for Identity of Paul Cuisset, in 1992.

Flashback – SEGA MegaDrive

His principal characteristics were his magnificent history and his spectacular graphic aspect, which left the too high strip of wood for later games with these esthetics, especially bearing in mind that the polygons and Motion Capture were beginning pushing towards the following technology only a few months later.

He would practise with pleasure the seppuku on me in full center of a crowded public square if I was daring to forget the famous demo (demo or die!!) that Spaceballs did for Friend 500, State of the Art, who would mark a clear difference with most of the previous ones and would inspire many of the later ones. In that epoch (December, 1992), a powerful graphic demonstration as this one turned out to be so impressive that it even finished on the screens of some discotheques.

State of the Art – Commodore Amiga

The rotoscoping kept on using to draw static personages of realistic court in games like Hotel Dusk – Room 215, but the animation system for action games plataformera would remain finally obsolete in favor of other systems and, especially, other genres.

Like that is that as they say when the kings die: "the rotoscoping has died; long life to the rotoscoping“.

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