Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/65907
mators in various studios are now using the systems for tests and reference. Animators at Halon used the system, and those at Double using the MVN system as well to sketch out Century Fox are now Negative created reference moves for John Carter. ILM's Colin Benoit tried camera moves using an Xsens motion tracker to orient the camera for Rango. Animators in the pre- vis department at 20th elaborate fighting moves for such films as X- Men: First Class more quickly than possible with keyframe animation. Further speeding production is the company's plan to move data straight from Xsens to Autodesk Maya without traveling through MotionBuilder on the way. Customers should expect pricing in the range of systems from OptiTrack and Phase Space. Kinect-ing At Digital Domain, though, Roberts has begun experimenting with an even lower cost method of capturing motion for previs—using Kinects. "We have a couple of Kinect cameras in our previs department, and they're great," he says. "It's simple and crude, but for previs, it's great. You can stand up, turn it on, get a quick calibra- tion, and animate a character quickly." Digital Domain has created proprietary of a sensor, puppet a character, and in real time you'll see the character performing the way you move." The company's software provides tools for quickly building animated characters that can be puppeteered with Kinect. Motion data can be output as FBX files, and game develop- ers can use HumanIK, the middleware from Autodesk, to edit the motion files. Also offering marker-free motion capture MOTION-CAPTURE SAMPLING HARDWARE (SYSTEMS & CAMERAS) Animazoo IGS, Gypsy suits iPi Desktop Motion Capture markerless system Measurand Ascension Technology MotionStar tethered system iPi Soft software to run with the Kinects, but those without an R&D department at hand might try Reallusion's iClone 5 software. "We started working with Microsoft in February 2011, when they introduced the research SDK for Kinect," says John Martin, vice president of product marketing. Now, we have the capa- bility through Kinect for Windows, and the camera has higher resolution. You can hook up Kinect through your USB, stand in front at low cost is iPi Soft, which introduced iPi Motion Capture first in 2009 and recently upgraded. The software uses image-processing and computer-vision algorithms to track mul- tiple people even doing 360-degree turns, the company claims, using one or two Kinect in- put devices, three to six Sony PlayStation Eye cameras, or Webcams. Motion data can be exported as FBX, BVH, and Collada formats, and thus used in a variety of game engines and 3D software packages. "[Kinect] is amazing," Wright says. "At the point when you can put 40 Kinects in a room and have the quality we get with 40 of our sys- tems, we'll see it permeating high-end produc- tions. We're on track for that." But, not this year—or even next year. May- be in the next decade, according to some. "I think the emphasis in motion capture has shifted the right way, to the creative goal," Elderfi eld says, but cautions, "I think the expectation also is that as an industry, we're already there. We all understand that this is where we need to be focused, providing cre- ative decision need. But, there is still work to be done." n makers with the tools they Barbara Robertson is an award-winning writer and a contributing editor for Computer Graphics World. She can be reached at BarbaraRR@comcast.net. OptiTrack's Insight VCS-Pro Virtual Camera System can capture and stream live-action camera moves into Autodesk's MotionBuilder or Maya. The system sells for less than $5,000. Distributor—systems, hand, face; software Motion Analysis ShapeWrap system Meta Motion Raptor optical systems, cameras OptiTrack OpenStage, BioStage markerless systems PhaseSpace Flex, S250e, V100:R2 cameras Organic Motion Patriot, Liberty, Liberty Latus, Fastrack tracking systems Impulse, Improv optical systems, suits Polhemus Vicon MX, Bonita systems, cameras Xsens Oqus system, cameras Vicon Qualisys MVN (Moven) camera-less system Data Gloves HANDS 5DT AnthroTronix Acceleglove ShapeHand data glove Measurand MindFlux CyberGlove Phasespace Impulse glove 3dMDface system AVSoft FACE 3dMD Contour facial-capture system/software Faceware markerless system/software Mova FT2000 software Image Metrics Standard Deviation 2D Face Tracker SOFTWARE (commercial) IKinema Action, RunTime Autodesk MotionBuilder IKinema iClone, CrazyTalk facial animation Tracker Manager, Visual3D Reallusion Arena, Expression Qualisys Image Metrics Faceware OptiTrack Tracker, Blade, Nexus, BodyBuilder Smith Micro Systems Poser Vicon April/May 2012 31