The motion capture business projected to be a $266 million industry by 2025, according to the Global Forecast on Research and Markets. Motion capture is the technique of collecting and digitizing motion from performers doing live performances using technological suites specially designed for data capture or via an optical system that utilizes a camera/light to record motion.
The use of mocap allows animation motions in video games and movies to be more dynamic, fluid, and lifelike. It is essential to clean the mocap data once it has been captured in order to utilize it.
- In addition to optical motion capture systems, data capture suites that use wifi or bluetooth are available.
- There are numerous types of mocap systems, ranging from open source to costly suites utilized in large-scale productions by epic studios. Motion capture requires a reasonably big area of approximately 20m2, although the technology works effectively even in a small space.
- The primary component of motion capture is software, which takes time to learn and requires specialized technicalities in data import/export and data cleaning.
- Furthermore, there is now facial motion tracking, which is a kind of data capture to generate facial emotions, expressions are recorded via head-mounted devices or simply through smart phones such as Emojis in the chat environment.
When capturing motion data, the optical cameras will constantly fire red beams; the motion tracking units are outfitted with numerous reflecting spots that turn on red light; and the optical cameras will capture and store as raw data. mocap data before processing.
These tracking locations are often referred to as markers, and at least three markers are used per position to assist the system in recording coordinates in 3D space as the actor moves. The optical system will be heavily influenced by the number of cameras in an area; the more cameras there are, the more precise the reception.
If you want to learn how to get started with motion capture for free, you can try using the free and open-source CG software Blender and the Rokoko Blender Plug-in (also free). These software will help you in quickly import and re-target various animations on your rigged characters. That way you will become more familiar with motion capture even with small or no budget.
–
Animost – Vietnam 3D Animation Studio
hello@animost.com
–
Image Credit: Google Search Image
Reference Sources:
- Animation World Network: https://www.awn.com/
- Cartoon Brew – Technology: https://www.cartoonbrew.com/tech
- Befores & Afters – Visual effects and animation journalist: https://beforesandafters.com/
- Bloomberg News: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/
- Insider: https://www.insider.com/
- Inverse: https://www.inverse.com/