Roto Artist

Roto artist job description

A lot of what a roto artist does is behind the scenes, so what you see in the final film does not really reflect their work. Much like a Compositor, their role is to help make each shot and all its components seamlessly fit together. They create mattes to help other artists build up a shot in different layers (either in front, alongside, or behind something in the live-action plate) and provide hold-outs that help other artists add shadows and reflections that match the plate.

Role & responsibilities of a roto artist in the film industry:

• Use Silhouette, Nuke to create and track roto shapes and lines for various elements within a shot
• Create roto mattes for Compositors and foreground mattes for Animators with a comprehensive understanding of how these mattes will be used
• Shape creation/editing; shape animation by hand and with trackers; and shape compositing, fill modes, and opacity settings
• Maintaining consistency of visuals and style throughout the production
• Basic green and blue screen compositing

Roto artists require a strong attention to detail along with sound technical and creative skills. The VFX industry is a highly collaborative environment so a roto artist must be able to work well in a team, and have a solid understanding of the VFX pipeline.

Film studios may look for the following skills in a roto artist:

• Strong eye for color and understand grain structure and successfully de-grains scans and re-grains paintwork for further use
• Extensive understanding of 2D and 3D tracking and is able to create accurate, steady tracks
• Able to handle complex shots with heavy motion blur, defocus, hair, fur, lots of layers, etc.
• Drawing ability, accurate tracing skills with high attention to detail