Low Budget Motion Capture Revolution, or not?

[Anonymous]

Hi there, we’re two grad students working on a project involving budget motion capture solutions. Mocap has been a costly undertaking for the past few decades, and we’re researching the possibility to make mocap more accessible to a wider audience. Or perhaps it is the ideal tool for doing previz.

We’ve been looking at solutions like Brekel Kinect, iPi Studio and iClone(with mocap plugin), each of them utilizing either an Xbox 360 Kinect or a small array of consumer grade webcams like the Sony PlayStation Eye. Results vary. Any realtime solution with the Kinect is not going to cut it. However, software like iPi Studio which takes time to analyze the shot footage afterwards seems to come up with some promising results. This guy actually made quite the preview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiSYCD6fUD0

Now, for comparison to a professional optical solution like a Vicon or Optitrack system:
Pros:
– relatively cheap, hardware ~$200 software $595.
– no markersuit needed
– ability to do mocap in-house
– easily operable
Cons:
– Not as accurate as a Vicon system
– Therefore more cleanup needed
– No realtime feedback
– Full-body mocap only (no object tracking yet, nor face capture)

Now we’re asking if you’d like to help us out a bit by answering the following questions:

1. Job title & field of expertise: [e.g.rigging/animation/allround] & [Student/Professional]
2. Would you consider using a simple budget motion capture system for creating animation?
3. What price range would do for hardware + software, and what price level is a dealbreaker for you?
4. In what type of working area would you be seeing yourself using such a solution?

Also, we’re blogging our progress at: http://bipedbargain.tumblr.com/

[Anonymous]

My Name is Joseph McPeek I am an Industry professional in the expertise of Animation.

I use a low budget markerless mocap system all the time. I wouldnt use anything else.

Do not pay more than 500.00 for everything. One or 2 kinect or asus sensors.

iPi and or NuiCapture. for the depth recording. THe depth recording should always be free.

This tyoe of sensor recording for not just bones animations will be popular and used in almost every industry such as..

Sports
Dance
Science
Research
Medical
Defense
and many more…

Visit [URL=”http://www.freemocap.com”%5Dhttp://www.freemocap.com [/URL]where they process bones for you free of charge.

The best answer is usng iPi V2 for now until NuiCapture comes out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jpm3OJvNuC4&feature=relmfu

NuiCapture will be the best in a bout 2 weeks.https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=UUDsZWfELx-oE3C-qfqD4SbQ&v=cJ7KOaExmjk&feature=player_embedded

[Anonymous]

Wow, NuiCaupture does look promising. Didn’t know yet there was support in either NITE or OpenNI frameworks for multiple Kinect support. Downside will still be that it captures at 30 fps, with a capture area of ~2 metres square right?

[Author]

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