UNIT 34 - FURTHER STUDYMotion Capture

What is Motion Capture?Motion capture is a method of capturing realistic actions when needed in animation. Commonly used for CGI in films but nowadays is a prominent feature in mainstream gaming.

It is done by having multiple cameras flooding a room with infrared light. This light is reflected back to the source off small bobble markers placed in certain points on a special body suit. The position of the marker is calculated and put into 3D space and recorded.

Why do video games use Mo-Cap?In gaming there has always been a push for better, more realistic graphics now use mo cap as it provides very realistic character animation, picking up tiny movements and nuances that can make a character seem truly real. It can also reduce the costs of time consuming keyframe animation as movements are obtained and recorded instantly.

Complex movement and realistic physical interactions such as secondary motions, weight and exchange of forces can be easily recreated in a physically accurate manner, this allows the actors in the suits to actually produce a compelling performance.

Disadvantages of motion capture

Specific hardware and special software programs are needed to obtain and process the data. This can be costly for smaller games so is therefore rarely used.

The capture system has specific requirements for the environment it is used in.

Traditional traits of animation such as added weight and emphasis are hard to reproduce. Therefore traditional keyframe animation is needed.

The Last Of UsThe Last Of Us is one of the many triple A games to use motion capture heavily. The marker based system is used to record the actors performances (done in special suits)

All parts of body movement besides the face, which the developers chose to do via keyframe animation. However the actors performances are still used to animate the face frame by frame.

The developers decided to record the mo cap actions as well as the actors full performances and voices as separating parts of the mo cap performance is off-putting to the brain.

Sources

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~jkh/video_games/mocap.pdf

http://www.streetdirectory.com/travel_guide/139425/technology/advantages_disadvantages_and_applications_of_motion_capture.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH5MgEbBOps

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_capture