Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/4522
ter, which also houses the Electronic Arts Game Design Lab, Furie began leading workshops for animation students interest- ed in rolling mocap into the curriculum. Furie emphasizes the skills students need in order to successfully learn motion capture. "We need them to come in with a solid foundation in 3D animation," he stresses. e intro class is in the fall, and in the spring the advanced class focuses on performance capture. Once students are grounded in the technical aspects of mo- tion capture, they can begin to fi gure out how to use it as an art form. "SCA is divided into six divisions, three of them focused on media creation: production, interactive, and animation," Furie explains. "With most SCA students in one of these three divisions, the major- ity of them are interested in using mocap for projects they'll be working on later, including games, art, or live-action and animated fi lms." While primarily for grad- uate-level SCA students, the course does accept some undergrads. e stage is a 10-by-10-foot motion- capture volume outfi tted with a 20-camera system from Vicon. Eight cameras are ded- icated to body capture, while the remain- ing 12 are designed for 180-degree facial capture. For processing data, the system uses Vicon iQ and Vicon Blade, a single unifi ed tool set for acquisition, solving, cleanup, and more, along with Autodesk MotionBuilder for character rigging. " e mocap stage is really a lab space," says Furie. "Once students have been trained and cleared, they're allowed to book time to do motion capture by themselves." Taking the Stage Ben Hansford is a student in USC's Film Production/Directing program. "As a di- rector looking to make a career of integrat- ing live action and VFX, having access to motion capture as a student opened amaz- ing doors and infi nite performance possi- bilities," he says. Hansford completed a spec commer- cial, called "Hand 2 Hand," as one of his student projects, which marries motion capture, CG character animation, and live action. He learned how to work with mo- tion capture fi rsthand in the USC program (go to www.cgw.com to see a video of his work). e mocap class at USC starts out in the fi rst semester by covering various es- sential software tools of the trade: Vicon iQ and MotionBuilder, as well as Autodesk's FaceRobot and Maya. In the second se- mester, the students were able to apply all of that knowledge to real-world projects, with ample access to the mocap stage. "Eric Furie, who teaches the class, is a fi lmmaker and technology guru, and taught me that no matter how great any- thing looks, you always have to tie it back to the story. Not to mention, when we needed access to a larger stage to do some high-fl ying rig-based stunt work, Eric connected me with a local facility, Vicon House of Moves, which was incredible," says Hansford. "USC's stage feels like the Ferrari of school stages, but House of Moves—that was like having your own private jet to Paris." Hansford says the students got to meet with Zemeckis a few times throughout the semester when he took the motion-capture class. "[He] was enlightening to the point of being mind-blow- ing," he says of the famed director. "We'd get to go on his sets and see what his vir- tual camera was seeing on the mocap stage and how he was dealing with actors. For Zemeckis, the technology was invisible and the story was king. And his process for working with actors on that bare stage: experiencing that alone was worth my four years of tuition." Elyse Kelly is a second-year student earning her MFA in animation and digital arts at USC; she had her fi rst expo- sure to motion capture as an undergraduate student at Carnegie Mel- lon in the robotics department on a Vicon system. "Having a mocap stage available to USC students provides a great opportunity to learn about how production is being done in the industry right now." According to Kelly, students take advan- tage of having access to the stage: ey go in and test things out, "and it's always excit- ing to see them get suited up and experi- ence seeing themselves move in 3D space, in real time," she adds. Moving into the Future Plans are under way to expand the SCA mocap volume to several times its current size, and several cameras will be added to the system, making it into a true perfor- November 2009 45 The state-of-the-art motion-capture stage at USC's School of Cinematic Arts, coupled with a course in performance capture, provide students with invaluable experience in the technology. Education