It is best for me to me be clear about the differences between rotoscoping and roto-animation.
Rotoscoping is a technique that is majorly used in 2d animation where an animater essentially traces a peice of live action footage frame by frame to imitate the movement of the subject in a 2d animation.
Roto-animating is a 3d variation on that technique where a peice of live action footage is braught into a 3d program and the character is animated using close referencing on top of the footage. The first instance of this technique being used is (once again) with Gollum in The Two Towers and i believe it was the team at weta digital that gave it its name of Roto-animation.
Both of these techniques are incredibly useful to animators especially for studying the movement of subjects that may be more difficult to animate such as animals.
I mention rotoscoping a lot on here however i do mean roto-animation when that is said, The reason being is that the term roto-animating does not seem to be as well established as the term rotoscope and it is in the end merely a variation on the rotoscope technique.
In conclusion when i mention rotoscope on this blog i am mostly refering to roto-animation.
