A interesting product is available as optical motion capture (reflective) http://www.naturalpoint.com/optitrack/ A very intesting suggestion is create a python script for SDK optitrack software or a update from e-frontier for have a Poser Mocap version of Poser 6 or later http://www.naturalpoint.com/optitrack/products/flex/flex-sdk.html ;-) Andygraph

I've been monitoring this. The only down side is that three cameras cost $600. Not an unreasonable cost for what they are but probably outside the scope of the average Poser user.

Current versions of Photoshop, Vue Infinite, and Carrara Pro are around that price. Alot of people have all (or at least some) of these not to mention they've also purchased Poser (possibly several times) so it might not be (or seem) so expensive at all ? However, I'd say if you're using DAZ Studio because you cannot afford Poser than there would be fare more potential for it to be out of your budget. :lol:

one may need six cameras to account for marker occlusion during movement. that's the downside. it might be possible to download all this software someplace, but there's no way to for a casual hobbyist to download 6 infra-red cams.

There's a guy here on the forums that is currently working on software that will work with these cameras. He's got a thread going on the subject:

http://market.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2650601

You should check it out.

His project, for the record, will not be Mac friendly. Don't forget you need the space for all 3 (to 6) cameras and the actor and the director and the person monitoring the software as it records it's input.

True enough, but I tend to look at it as having access to a portable optical mocap system for around $2,000 when all is said and done; one that will fit into a medium suitcase and laptop shoulderbag. Even the most minimal Gypsy frame starts considerably higher. A two car garage would give you probably a 20'x20' workable acting zone...and being portable (oh, throw in a couple of halogen spots to boost the IR reflectivity of the markers), you could take it to a dojo for recording katas, or a dance studio for dance motions. And if you are lucky enough to have an active collegiate or local acting community, you could also find interested beginners who would like to add that they have acted in a mocap rig to their resume. Yohsi's program may be Windows only.....but the BVH files that it outputs are not. Frankly, it would be next to insane to try and lug your main system around for this purpose; a laptop or small desktop that is the dedicated control unit for the cams would be the simplest answer. With a little geekiness, you could strip all the internet crap and other useless (for this purpose) apps out, and reciver some processing power for the application to use. Probably not worth the investment if you only want a couple of specific motions, but for those who have delusions of longer animations in the several minutes range, this is beyond cheap....

The idea behind it certainly is wonderful - and God only knows the time I could save if I owned it. One thing I have heard though is that you still have to spend time cleaning up the motion. That's still probably better than animating from scratch.

There's -always- cleanup to do with mocap. Have you checked out the latest video at yoshi-mocap's site? It shows clean up capability in the app itself. You can select a registered marker, hit one of the buttons, and you get an set of 3 graph windows for X-Y-Z plotting. A simple frame step lets you see where glitches occurred, and I would assume you could either drag and drop the proper graphed frame marker, or change the decimal value if you were more comfortable with numbers. Having access to all three axis' in a graph format will really speed up the tweaking needed for marker errors (something that Poser could use; an animation tab that brings up a work area with customizable graphs and dope sheet, to let an animator set there workflow to suit. Of course I want P7 to have some form of softbody dynamics, too...

Sounds cool. by the time I can afford another computer probably all Macs will be able to play Windoows software, so maybe I should keep track of Yoshi's software...