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Adventures in Motion Capture


fae_alba

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Over a year and a half ago I sponsored on Kickstarter the Perception Neuron motion capture campaign. Didn't really expect they would meet their goal since they were looking for over $300k and were only $75k at the time. Much to my surprise (and my wallet) they did meet the goal and I had "bought" a $175 motion capture suit. It took them much longer than they expected to get the development done, but finally, last week, I got mine in the mail.

 

It's a neat rig to be sure. I finally got it set up, though there are a few glitches that I suspect are more on my part, but I did capture a simple get up and walk sequence and now need to see how it will translate in A:M. The suit supports bvh file formats so hopefully there won't be too many issues.

 

I attached a few snapshots to give you a slight idea of what this thing is. One is of the actual sensors (neurons) used to capture the motion data. Others are of the rig setup and a screen grab of the software.

 

Neurons

0809151236.jpg

 

Rig setup

0809151237.jpg

 

Communications Hub

0809151239.jpg

 

Screen grab of the Axis software

Capture.PNG

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Paul,

 

I also know a guy who invested in this system and it seems revolutionary. For smaller shops with small budgets,

this delivers abilities that ony major feature studios had only a short time back. I think it is also possible to run several

people at one time. Please let us know how it works AND how you use A:M with it if you go that route.

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right now I only have 11 neurons. That's enough to do the lower body and one arm, or both hands. I'll need to invest in at least 6 more to do the whole body minus hands, or find some way of layering bvh data for the lower body in one pass and the upper body in another.

 

According to their website, new orders won't ship until somewhen in October, so I've got a bit of time to experiment and make sure everything works ok.

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  • 1 month later...

Well I've been putzing around with the bvh files from the perception neuron setup. Ran into a couple of challenges. The biggest one is the scaling of the skeleton from the bvh file to my model. Papa Bear has a long torso, and short stubby legs. The bvh file skeleton in no way comes close to matching Papa Bears. I've experimented with just constraining (translate to and orient like) and seeing if the offsets will do a sufficient job of matching things up. It doesn't.

 

Also, the test bvh file I created starts with a sit down pose, stand up, walk a few paces turn around and sit down again. I presume that I need to pose Pappa Bear up starting in a sit down pose, but not sure.

 

I'll try and post something, but what I have now is pretty ugly, so I'll refrain on posting that just yet.

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