Hi folks:

I've started a new Yahoo group for people wanting to design and develop their own motion capture systems.

Here's the address:

http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/motioncapture/

I'm in the process of building my own motion capture system, and would like to share info with others on the process. I use 3DS Max and Poser myself, and have tons of Renderosity marketplace purchases ;), so I figured I'd post here.

Cheers,

Michael Miles

so is this going to be like all the rest when it's done, and cost like a million dollars? LOL j/k are you talking a hardware type mocap system, or software?

I'm not building a mocap system for sale; I'm just facilitating information exchange between people who build their own. I imagine it's even possible to build a mocap Junkyard Wars version that uses junk hardware. All depends on how handy you are... Michael

To add an example, I'm building an optical system. I use DV camcorders,and the models I've recently bought run about $350 each new. I believe the OptiTrack cameras are in the same price ballpark. You need at least 2 cameras to do 3D, and 3 cameras to use Dr. Svoboda's camera calibration software. You can write the image processing routines in Java (free) on your computer (not free - uusally). So, there's hope someone will develop a really cheap setup, and in fact, there's one in the Renderosity Marketplace store, but it doesn't do automatic marker recognition. That means that you have to hand identify every marker in every frame. I own the software, and will use it for small pick up work, but it's too tedious for longer animations. Cheers, Michael

The product here is called VisualMarker. Michael

Thanks for the info, Michael.. I'll check out your group at yahoo.. I purchased VisualMarker as well, but..ermm no comment here :)

Attached Link: http://istore.mikrotec.com/philc/index1.html?page=catalog&trackerid=1251118913&category=a&vid=20802

thanks for the tip, JJ..looks interesting :) and yes..guilty as charged..I wasn't even aware of this suff he had :) Michael, you are looking at almost a grand for those cameras. Doing that is putting you right back up there with the other "pricey" projects. I am wondering if it would work just using analog type cams, and coverting them via a video capture program..that might keep the cost down for most of us poverty stricken movie makers..LOL but I agree, I would love to see somebody create something for mocap that was affordable, and they also backed it up with good support..once again..no comment :P

The market has changed a lot since I first started looking at it a few years ago when mocap rigs started at about $100,000. There are several systems out there now that start at about $10,000 with $15,000 being a good starting point for a complete SIMPLE hw/sw system. That's till too much for me. Luckily, I'm both a mathematician and a programmer, so I can build my own. I figured other mathematician programmers who were into 3D animation could do the same too, and I could share what I've learned with them (and learn more myself). My system is based on slightly older and more expensive technology. I just bought 4 camcorders for less than I paid for my first DV camcorder. The latest thing is using web cams which are much cheaper (like with Visual Marker). I'm sure you could do the same with older analog camcorders (with beta and Hi8 being preferred for their resolution). Regards, Michael

Question. I brought it up before... Why not find someone who will make a poseable "model" where you move the model and that generates pose information to the computer? Then you could use keyframing to generate movement. I know it's not quite the same theory but it would make doing initial poses so much easier!

Attached Link: http://www.inition.co.uk/inition/product.php?URL_=product_mocaptrack_digitalimage_monkey&SubCatID_=

-jjsemp

ok. how much? I remember this from awhile ago but it was on a Japanese only site and no one really knew anything about it. I want one.

20k and they "think" they are still shipping. there goes that idea. Even if I had the money I would want the company to KNOW if they are shipping or not.