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Measurand Motion Capture Process

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click on the image to see the movie file.
 

Below you will find the steps we followed to create the Christmas greeting movie file.

It gives you an overview of how a simple motion capture pipeline works.

 

1) Planning and Staging

In chatting about Christmas, we got the idea of making a small 3D motion capture shot to wish our customers a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

We discussed our approach, the message we wanted to use, selected the animated character to use for the shot, selected our actor to wear the motion capture suit, and scheduled a time to record the data.

2) The Motion Capture Recording

Our actor performed the motion several times and we discussed what we liked and did not like, and agreed on a final action.

Then we recorded it in our ShapeWrap II motion capture software called ShapeRecorder

Screenshot of the acting

 

While the actor is performing the motion, our ShapeRecorder software displays the motion in real-time.

The image below shows the data as it is being captured and shown in our ShapeRecorder software.

Screenshot of raw data in ShapeRecorder

 

4) Export to BVH

 

In ShapeRecorder, we then exported the data to a BVH file format which can be imported into MotionBuilder.

BVH data is a format that stores the data in a skeleton structure.

Screenshot of BVH Data in MotionBuilder

 

5) Character in SoftimageXSI

We had previously modelled a 3D character and a background in SOFTIMAGE|XSI.

XSI is a 3D animation software package that allows you to model and texture 3D characters.

We exported the character file to an fbx file format. This file was then imported into MotionBuilder.

Screenshot in SoftimageXSI

 

6) Character in MotionBuilder with data on it

With the 3D character imported into MotionBuilder, we then brought the data from the BVH file onto our 3D character.

 

Motionbuilder has a lot of excellent features to edit the data, but in this case we did not require any clean up of the data so we used raw BVH files. We then saved the scene and imported it back into XSI.

Screenshot in Motionbuilder

 

7) Character in SOFTIMAGE|XSI and Post-Production.

Now with the data on our character in SOFTIMAGE|XSI, we reviewed the movie, and while doing this, recorded audio that provided the Christmas greeting.

It took several takes to get the audio that we wanted.We then added some facial animation that our animator had key framed in 10 minutes and then rendered this out to a movie file.

Then we downloaded free sound effects for the applause, background and opening audio.

We used Adobe Premier, an video editing software, to add these sound effects and our voice that we had recorded, and exported the audio and video to the final movie file.

Screenshot in XSI

Screenshot in Adobe Premiere

 

Links to other Motion Capture Processes

Valerie de Palma, Motion Capture Specialist

 

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