At over 78,000 dollars to own your own , I was wondering if anyone knew of a business where you could "rent" full motion video capture equipment instead of having to go out and buy it ? also.. and this may be pushing it.. Is there anyone on the market that sells animation clips ? For example the way people make dolls , clothes , and poses for sale here , is there a person or business that sells video motion sequences that you can add to your doll, so it performs the movement automatic ? This could save me and everyone else ALOT of money..

Yes, you can "rent" equipment or studios to do full motion video capture. They are not inexpensive either, I'm afraid. Yes, you'll find motion captures all over the place for 3D - usually in the form of BVH files. There are some for sale here, over at Daz3D, all over the place. There is an area of Carnegie-Mellon University's site that has dozens of free motion files (but you'll need to get a converter as they are not in BVH format). CMU Motion Capture

GREAT ! Bro you just saved me some serious cash ! Thanks !

Another solution (not cheap) is the Gypsy mocap suit... Gypsy Suit There's also a low-end solution, which is to buy two video cameras with tripods (or rent them) and use Visual Marker to make your own "cost-effective" motion files for Poser... Visual Marker

The problem with these low-end solutions is the amount of clean up or use of what effectively turns out to be rotoscoping to get the motion. If you can't find a commercial or free motion capture file for the motion, you can always do front/side video cameras with/wo markers and do the work of keyframing (rotoscoping) yourself. This is probably the most cost-effective approach. The Visual Marker software is very similar to photogrammetric applications in that you have to correlate points on each and every frame and then it creates the motion file. I guess this is an inexpensive stop-gap solution, but still requires tons of work. I've found that rotoscoping video in Poser into keyframes can be a much quicker workflow that only creates keyframes as needed for interpolation and not on a sampling basis. But that's me. ;)

Mocap isn't animation. Invest time in learning to keyframe. -_-

"Invest time in learning to keyframe"

Uhm, you need to know how to do at least basic keyframing in order to even consider using mocap. 99% of motion capture data will require extensive "cleaning" by hand.

"Mocap isn't animation."

Poser isn't art. LOL. ;-P

Message edited on: 07/08/2005 23:36

Also, take a close look at the Gypsy site. They offer an hourly rate for an actor to perform in the frame (limited to what the frame can actually do; no gymnastics, as you would most likely impale the sod wearing the thing). So that is an option as well.

Attached Link: http://www.credo-interactive.com

Attached Link: http://www.naturalpoint.com/optitrack/

Mocap is pupeteering. :p which is fine but it isn't animation. :D

Actually, by the very definition of the word "animation", it is indeed animation. animation Pronunciation Key (n-mshn) n. 1. The act, process, or result of imparting life, interest, spirit, motion, or activity. Maybe it's not traditional animation, but if were going to be purists about it...

Either way... if you believe the process is or is not true animation, certainly the resulting product is. That's what counts anyway... the impact your art produces on it's audience. These days, mocap is used heavily in real productions, and is always combined with hand keyframing. I suspect hand-keying an animation will decrease even more in the future as new technology introduces more accurate and easily obtained automated motion development. It will never completely go away, but fully dynamic motion production is on the rise more than ever.

"Motion capture" has always been a cornerstone of film animation since the very beginning. The first form of motion capture was "rotoscoping" (hand-drawn copying of live action film) which was invented by the Fleischer Brothers for their silent "Out of the Inkwell" series featuring Koko the Clown in the 1920's. They also used it occasionally during the early sound era in Popeye and Betty Boop cartoons. Check out Betty Boop dancing the hula in "Betty Boop's Bamboo Isle" (1932). And the Fleischers used rotoscoping to great effect in their incredible Superman cartoons of the thirties, which inspired the whole recent Bruce Timm superhero cartoon style at Warners Animation (i.e. "Superman," "Batman" and "Justice League")

One of the great myths about Disney animation is that they never used rotoscoping. In fact, they did repeatedly, always shooting live action, so-called "reference footage" of actors as a guide to for their animators. Much (if not all) of that footage still exists today in their archives.

The first fully motion-captured animated TV series was "Jay Jay the Jet Plane" on PBS, which exclusively used motion capture throughout the entire production process, with no key-framing whatsoever. Full 11 minute cartoons were produced in about 1 month - a fraction of the normal 9 month TV animation production cycle - which also reduced cost considerably. The series has been a big success for PBS and has run both nationally and in syndication continuously for the last eight years or so, with new episodes currently in production.

There's nothing sacred about key-framing. Animating is about movement, period.

-jjsemp

Message edited on: 07/09/2005 13:16

Heh You should hear some of the expletives that Milt Kahl (One of the great old Disney animatotrs and mentor to Brad Bird) had to say about the rotoscoping used in some early Disney films. Mocap for Live action VFX work, or games. is totally appropriate, However... I personally think that when used extensively in animated films Mocap can feel like watching a cheap Live action movie. An extremely good example of this is the recent Film adaptation of Masamune Shirow's Appleseed. While the mocap worked pretty good in the action sequences (like the opening sequence which kicks ass) The more intimate dramatic parts really feel like a low budget Japanese live action film. a few scenes work, but it is dissapointing to watch. The best shots in the movie are by far the landmate action shots, and they were keyframed. I won't even bother bashing FFTSWI as that's like kicking a dead horse. Anyway This is all just my opinion and I apologize for being provocative in my previous posts, I was having a bad day. :)

How do I convert files to BVH?

Good question