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Ask HN: How to generate flipbook-style animations from video?

2 points by meerab a month ago · 2 comments · 1 min read


I’ve been seeing a lot of hand-drawn flipbook animations on YouTube/TikTok. For example:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Ub_ZmzOrh5g

The creators say they spend 3-5 days drawing this. How do I generate this animation say in Python? Any recommended models, libraries, or workflows?

I am thinking ffmpeg to extract images -> pose estimation -> Line art -> Assemble into Video

wonger_ a month ago

Looks like rotoscoping: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotoscoping.

The closest you would get is maybe an edge detection filter. Or AI rotoscoping: https://pld.reddit.com/r/vfx/comments/1h9wjdv/have_any_ai_ro.... Or maybe EbSynth, as demoed by this guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tq_KOmXyVDo

But it never looks as nice as the hand-drawn way.

  • meerabOP a month ago

    Thank you! It certainly looks like Rotoscoping.

    And EbSynth looks amazing! I wonder what model/tech will track the moment so well!

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