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The Evolving World of Mocap KnightVision recently helped out with this mocap shoot: The studio’s goal is to “provide motion capture as turnkey as possible,” says James Knight. In 2007, the company decided to incor- porate Xsens MVN wireless motion capture suits into their process. The Dutch-made suits were originally designed for sports medicine, Edwards says, and The Third Floor was the first company to leverage this tech- nology for previs. “Since they’re wireless, no particular space or volume is needed, so we can run around in the street or the parking lot and use Bluetooth transmission from the suit to a laptop as long as we stay within 100 me- ters of the performers,” he reports. “The system provides smooth data instantly — unlike many optical tracking systems that re- quire fixed camera arrays and require the data to be filtered or cleaned up manually.” The Third Floor’s proprietary virtual cam- era system uses InterSense technology, which is also deployed by the military to track helicopter pilots’ heads-up displays. “Our teams of veteran artists adapt to provide whatever a director needs, including the preparation of large-scale virtual envi- ronments for films like Alice in Wonderland, where we enabled Tim Burton to see the virtual world at the same time he was fram- ing up his live action,” says Edwards. The Third Floor’s additional credits include Cloverfield, Iron Man 2 and Avatar, and the company is currently busy with projects for Sam Raimi, Steven Spielberg and Marvel Stu- dios, among others. The Third Floor’s mocap performances usually do not translate literally to the final performances seen on screen, however the previs scene files are passed on directly to the final VFX vendors.“We use our Xsens MVN suits to capture data that is pretty so- phisticated, but it’s intended for previs pur- poses:We discipline ourselves to spend up to one day per artist to produce a shot in- stead of multiple weeks for a final visual ef- fects shot,” says Edwards. 18 Post • May 2011 The Third Floor provided mocap previs on The company has a PhaseSpace Impulse optical motion capture system, which can be used on its volume stage or in mobile applica- tions. “The system is so lightweight and portable that we can create a volume very quickly,” Knight points out.“Performers wear 40-50 active LED markers with individual fre- quencies so there’s no marker swapping:You www.postmagazine.com . of While Knight Vision is on the leading edge current motion capture technology, Knight says the company’s “secret sauce” is the experience of its team.“We were all learning constantly on Avatar and using mo- tion capture in ways it was never used be- fore. So now we’re taking that knowledge and showing studios, directors and produc- “At the end of the day, previs is all about making the smartest choices far enough in advance to be able to optimize the efforts that are applied to the film down the line. If we play our cards right, we can build a strong foundation, and help everyone make a better film.” KNIGHT VISION New on the motion capture front is Playa Vista, CA’s Knight Vision Studios (www.knightvisionmocap.com), a VFX com- pany that launched earlier this year with members of the former Avatar mocap team. Its goal is to “provide motion capture as turnkey as possible,” says James Knight, who was mocap project manager for the Academy Award-winning Avatar. “If a client wants only the motion capture data, that’s fine or we can take the data to a final ren- dered character.” won’t confuse my knee with somebody else’s ankle in a combat scene, for example.You get fluid, realtime results so directors and pro- ducers see smooth, organic movement on the monitors with no popping when watch- ing the realtime display on any monitor. “Because of this, the data is delivered a lot quicker — with other solutions you can spend hours tracking and replacing markers. Straight motion capture data is delivered al- most instantly, in a cost-effective, streamlined process. The data is so accurate: You can zoom to one-tenth of a millimeter and pick up the motion of somebody breathing, so secondary motion is also much more pris- tine. Secondary motion is what makes things believable, and it’s the best I’ve ever seen.” The PhaseSpace system yields c3d files, a universal file protocol that “plays well with Maya and MotionBuilder, the industry stan- dards,” Knight says. Iron Man 2