CineMontage

Q1 2019

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58 CINEMONTAGE / Q1 2019 58 CINEMONTAGE / Q1 2019 TECH TIPS Microsoft Kinect or small, inexpensive video cameras such as the Sony PlayStation3 Eye or the Logitech C922 (see Figure 1). I wanted to see how good iPi Soft Motion Capture worked so I got my hands on the depth sensor configuration, consisting of two Kinects, and downloaded iPi Soft's software from its website: ipisoft. com. After jumping around and doing a little dancing, I fed the depth videos into iPi Soft to track my movements and applied the results to a 3D character. iPi's markerless motion capture worked as promised, without the hassle or expense of a MoCap suit. The era of "Motion Capture for the Masses" had begun. iPi SOFT GETS REAL (TIME) Recently, iPi Soft released version 4.1 of its markerless MoCap system, and with it an important new feature for which users have been waiting a long time, something that has been available only in more costly systems: real-time tracking for multiple depth sensors (see Figure 2). Previously, when using depth sensors, motion- capturing with iPi Soft was a two-step process. First, record your performance. Then track it. While this method is effective, some users may prefer to see a real-time preview of their characters before and during the performance. The ability to track a 3D character in real time is important because you can immediately see what's working and what's not, and hone the actor's performance accordingly. You can also check to see if the mesh is intersecting or colliding with itself, or practice your moves before recording them. With version 4.1, that is now possible and it's "an important development milestone that users have been anticipating" according to Michael Nikonov, iPi Soft founder and chief technology architect (whom I had the pleasure of meeting not long ago in New York). "We're excited about real-time tracking with multiple depth sensors to obtain quality MoCap data easily and quickly without the need for multiple recording, tracking and motion transfer iterations," Nikonov says. Figure 2: Real-time tracking in Version 4.1 allows you to immediately preview the motion of the actor on your 3D character.

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