>> Just look at Beowulf, which had a whole top end studio and millions in budget, and still doesn't look particularly 'very real' Was panned by critics and the audience too. If they couldn't so it with all that skill and money, what chance does the average 3d movies by a regular poser/3d guy have ?

BEOWULF was also a product of Robert Zemekis, who couldnt give us anything but Children of the Undead in POLAR EXPRESS. By the same token, if you look at FINAL FANTASY: SPIRITS WITHIN or MONSTER HOUSE, you can see far better applications of mocap than BEOWULF. FF was certainly all about the hair, but the mocap work was way underrated, IMHO. And MONSTER HOUSE was the first time facial mocap was used in tandem with body motion, and you can definitely see the impact it makes.

But mocap is just a tool, like everything else. Even the big studios have to tweak between the mocap and the final film. At the same time, it can be an enormous time saver.

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