This post is going to be all about Motion Capture Technology. How it works and how it has helped out in a lot of films and video games. But before I say how motion capture works, we need to know what exactly motion capture is so I will be writing about both those things in this article.
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| Source: Internet |
What is Motion Capture?
You're probably thinking yeah I already know what motion capture is but it isn't necessarily all that you think it is. It is only the capture of bodily motion. It's not actually the capture of the face or eyes or anything like that, just bodily motion, and there are two overarching types of motion capture.
- Non-optical Motion Capture
- Optical Motion Capture
1. Non-optical Motion Capture:
Non-optical motion capture brings in data. It does it from mechanical movement or inertia movement. Something that doesn't rely on cameras. Some non optical motion trackers are out there, with a good example of this being the X and Su. This uses accelerometers as well as gyroscopes to track their users' motion and translate that into data that again a computer can use. And in case you didn't know, accelerometers measure the acceleration till, and vibration and gyroscopes measure orientation and how fast the motion is happening in a 3d space.
2. Optical Motion Capture:
Optical motion capture is based around cameras that track some sort of trackers movement and translates into data that computer can use. Optical motion tracking is used widely and most of the times you will see this motion tracking used in bigger projects. Optical motion tracking is a lot more common and it comes into three types itself.
- Passive Motion Capture
- Active Motion Capture
- Markerless Motion Capture
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| Source: Internet |
Passive Motion Capture:
Passive motion capture is the one that you have probably used to see. It uses this kind of reflective spheres that are placed strategically along with a motion capture suit that a person wears. How this works is that there are infrared lights all around the cameras. When this infrared light shoots off, they hit the reflective spheres and bounce back and the time it takes between leaving the motion capture camera to come back to the camera is used to animate a virtual actor.
Active Motion Capture:
Active motion capture is pretty similar to passive, although the difference is that active makes the light itself and it sends that light to the cameras without the cameras. I mean to send light to it first. So this is used in outdoor scenes where light changes and may not be that good at the time. An active system is also pretty good too because the lighting on the suits can be adjusted by doing them up and down in brightness, They can also be switched off if they're not actually needed.
Markerless Capture:
Markerless is not necessarily classed as a separate category but otherwise, it is pretty different from active and passive. Markerless systems don't use any sort of tracking device. Instead, it relies on finding a specific part of the body or seeing specific clothing and it uses that to track instead. So this is a lot more common for consumers in connects and on Snapchat and even on Instagram. Those sorts of things are markerless tracking because there are no markers on your face or anything like that.
What is used in Movies and Video Games?
Motion capture isn't usually the only thing that is used in movies. Nowadays it is usually just used in pre-visualization and for video games But when it comes to modern movies, they usually use performance capture, which actually includes motion capture. But, it also adds on the motion capturing of the face as well as eye movements and things like that. Also, it captures voice at the same time too. So the motion capture of facial features is done by a camera that is right in front of the actors' faces pretty much the whole time.
If you look at behind-the-scenes videos and you see that kind of camera in front of the face, that's what it's doing. The results of that performance capture could be seen in real-time but by the director. So if something didn't look good on the virtual actor they could redo it or just make whatever changes are needed. Although this virtual character was only rough it wasn't the final character by any stretch, the imagination and start to be like and added to it they only made sure to be further refined so it's not a final product or anything but it is something that the director can look out and see if it's coming out good or not. Yep that's how motion capture and performance capture works.
Motion Capture Softwares:
These are the some of the best motion capture software s or motion capture equipment s
- Adobe After Effects
- 3DS max by Autodesk
- MotionBuilder by Autodesk
- Corel VideoStudio
- CyberLink Power Detector
That's all about motion capture system/motion capture technology.
What we covered/referenced:
motion capture technology
motion capture system
motion capture
motion capture camera
motion capture software
latest motion capture equipment
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