Rotoscoping frame by frame

I think this can't be done in Motion. Correct me if I am wrong.
First of all there is no freehand tool and the pen tool won't work for this.

I want to animate frame by frame drawing freely over video.
I don't want to have 45 layers of drawings.
Can this be done...simply.

For example, with the now gone Flash software I could animate frame by frame on top of video and all on one layer using the freehand tool.
I presume Adobe Animate does the same but can we do this in Motion?
I have not found a way to do this. maybe it can be done! I just don,t know how.

Thanks.

Rotoscoping is one thing, animating using shapes is kinda another.
It's entirely possible to rotoscope in Motion. But I wouldn't recommend rotoscoping with a single layer on any program for complex shapes. Rotoscopes can be done with the pen tool and then those shapes used as a mask.This will create a great roto thats still adjustable.

I have a whole lesson on YouTube that covers this in apple Motion if you search for AV-Ultra Rotoscope.

Animating can be done the same way. If Im making a character- I would have a layer for basically any articulated points. Group them and change the anchor points to act as null positions for rotations.

Need displacements? Or want to animate a T-pose 2d character?
MotionVfx recently released mPuppet which can create a mesh form an image and you can animate the displacement mesh over time. Even add behaviors to the various control points to create keyframe-less animations.


Couple tips for roto work that have helped me:
1. Break up complex shapes into several pieces. Don't try and roto a big complex shape in 1 layer.
2. Unmoving simple shape? Track a feature on it and then make a mask from pen shape and tweak only where needed.
3. Start with making keyframes every 10 frames. Then after you get that, go to the 6th frame and tweak if you need to, and go to the 2nd or 4th. if you don't have to do every single frame, don't.
4. Make sure you are moving the point coordinate and not the whole shape. Motion unfortunately has a tendency to move a whole shape sometimes and that can throw things off.
5. if you are doing a LOT of roto work use silhouette- its not in Motion or FCP- but having onion skinning alone is worth the price of serious roto. Plus 2020 has some crazy cool features.
Its now part of BorisFX

Hope that helps!

Something like these,
store.pixelfilmstudios.com/product/fcpx-brush-glow/
store.pixelfilmstudios.com/product/fcpx-brush/
store.pixelfilmstudios.com/product/fcpx-brush-v-2/

You might also want to check out Coremelt PaintX:
coremelt.com/products/paintx-powered-by-mocha
and in particular the painting frame-by-frame option:
vimeo.com/340686132

I use Coremelt PaintX every week to fix things. Especially blemishes and other irregularities on people's faces. I swear by it. And I do it directly inside of FCPX, with tracking, so I don't have to go frame by frame.

Thank you all.
I am an animator so I want a lot of control.

What is the nearest to what I am looking for is PixelFS Brush V2.
I'm a bit hesitant to buy from PFS. Not a great experience in the past...

I tried Corelmelt Paint but it is to crude for what I want to do. I what more organic brushes.
I am also considering doing this in AE. I will need to learn but that shuld not be an issue.

Mpuppet is quite nice but not what I am looking for.
I also realize that Motion is just not conceived to do this sort of work.

Your input is greatly appreciated!

UPDATE: Just went on PFStudio website and it doesn't even have an email support I can find...Not encouraging!
It shoudn't be necessary to dig into a website to find this.

If AE is the best tool for the job, by all means, use it. Motion is not a rotoscope app, and the rotosope plugins are slightly crude at this point. I'd personally stay away from PixelStudios.

Exactly. Will be learning AF soon.

Thanks

you could use photoshop as well.
it works with video, and there are workflows that work good for drawing over video frames.