Which Motion Capture System to Buy?
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I want to invest in a motion capture system. Not more than 5k. I don't really know what these things cost or what to expect. What products should I be looking at? Can I get something usable for a commercial game at that price range?
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http://satellitereign.com/page/2/
The software used is ipi mocap studio.
Now that's what I call innovation
You can get around this by stetting up a second sensor and it helps fill in the shadow area where the single sensor just can't see. It makes it possible to turn around without having it lose track of your arms or your leg.
It also takes a while to calibrate, record and process the video and it doesn't always work the first time around but the more you work with it the better you get at working around its quirks.
It has some minor clean up and retargeting features but you really should use Motion Builder to get the ipisoft motion onto your rig.
If you have Maya I suggest taking advantage of HumanIK's re-targeting systems, it's like motion builder stuffed into Maya. It's good for cleaning up mocap but not so great to use as an animation rig.
If you have 3dsmax, biped and CAT make dumping animation onto your rig fairly painless and both have some pretty decent mocap clean up tools. But if you aren't using those two
For facial motion capture I REALLY like Faceshift. Their stand alone app is great but as stand alone apps go you're exporting and importing out of your actual animation package which is a bit of a pain.
Luckily their Maya plug-in rocks and gives you all of the advantages of the stand alone app right inside of Maya. The beauty is that it's markerless, uses a kinect or kinect like sensor (go with primsense's camera) and you can use any kind of rig, bones, blendshapes, a convoluted system of controllers it doesn't really matter. It has a series of shapes that it expects your rig to make and you tell it what controls what to make those shapes.
From what I have heard, OptiTrack lacks in technical specs compared to other systems, but are an more affordable choice. But then again, those are only rumors.
I wouldn't waste my moneys on markerless system. Believe me, even the one with markers got enough to do with cleaning the mocap data. Depends on the complexity of the movements, number of actors and interactions with props - ofc.
These are just my thoughts. I don't know if this helps you or not, I just thought that I'd share some experiences about it. Excuse my poor english.
Thank you. This is helpful
Is it possible to tell me what game and char's you used Qualsys on? And do you know which camera's you were using. It seems like the camera's are about the most expensive component of the system, and Qualsys is offering a bunch of options.
Obviously was one of the more budget priced setups.. 8 cameras, all the neccesary hardware, and the software for both face and body mocap....I think everything we needed, including a suit and face markers...was somewhere between 10 - 13 grand.
For that specific setup, cameras are fairly low res, so the capture space ends up not being super large...something like 10ft x 10ft...would need more, or better cameras to open the space up. Also, if you have less than 12 cameras, you are limited to only 1 acter at a time.
Was pretty easy to learn...Having had no prior experience with mocap, me and 2 other people got the thing set up and were doing body captures by the end of the first day we got it.
That link in the second post demonstrates how good ps3 eye is and the results are good but I wonder if the ps4 cameras are meant for motion capture or would even give good results.
I like where this technology is going. Very soon, we would be using motion capture in our very rooms and it would be cost-efficient.
If they ever release the Kinect2 for PC then you will see people start to use it but no one is going to run out and by a xbox one just for the kinect2 sensor. Especially when there are other 3D/depth sensor cameras that are much better and cheaper.
Could u recommend any brand u know of that would give very good results?I did gather that Microsoft intends to release Kinect 2.0 for PC next year but if there are way more powerful and cheaper sensors out there currently, thats awesome.
PrimeSense (the Israeli company that made the kinect for MS) kept developing sensors after they sold the kinect to MS. They have two cameras that trump both the kinect and Kinect2. One is for close range and the other is for longer ranges.
But since Apple recently bought them I don't think you can get them directly from them anymore? Still probably available elsewhere.
ASUS also has a decent 3D sensor "Xtion" and it's just as cheap as the kinect and also fully powered through USB, the kinect is not, it requires a separate power source, which is annoying.
A lot of work is being done right now to make 3D sensors mobile, which is probably why Apple bought PrimeSense, either that or to take a crutch out from under MS.
I just goggled PrimeSense and it turns out they have ceased order for the sensors like u said. Gah...not fair.I am just hoping there are some pc stores that may have some in stock.
I will look into the xtion sensors as well.
I recall that Kinect could not track fingers and heads so I am wondering if the PrimeSense or Xtion can also track fingers and head movements?I wanted to ask if u have tried the two and which one gives better results or they are about the same?
By the way,does anyone know how much motionbuilder 2014 is?There isn't a price on autodesk website.
http://ipisoft.com/
As for buying motion builder, you can't buy directly from Autodesk you have to find a reseller near you and find out what they charge.
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/searchform?id=1088201&siteID=123112&productID=MOBPRO
http://www.primesense.com/solutions/nite-middleware/
Its free too.I am wondering if it does the same as IpiSoft Mocap Studio.I also recall Microsoft's kinect 2.0 can track fingers and head movements but its kinda shaky.
I just checked Motionbuilder's price.Its about $3000 plus.That is kinda steep!!
I might have to look into using Blender for mocap stuff.Maya Lt looks cool but u can't set driven keys,does not support bvh files.Does Maya Lt support vertex animation without blendshapes?
iPisoft is budget-ware and it's markerless, so it does a "decent" job of capturing but can't really be used for clean up or blending, the tools just aren't there like they are in motion builder. But for budget-ware that is markerless, iPisoft probably the best out there. That doesn't mean its the best mocap system ever, its just the best if you're on a budget and want to shoot without markers.
Check out Kickstarter Project PERCEPTION NEURON :thumbup: