Performance Capture Studios (One month)
Introduction
In this method high-end motion cameras are used which have high speed capture which doesn’t allow motion blur, as there is no motion blur the actors action is seen clearly and the markers gets tracked perfectly. A special suit is fitted with several markers which gets captured in these motion capture cameras. This data is captured in analog form which gets in a device and gets converted to digital data for 3d software. Very large stage/studio is used to capture motion capture. Several cameras are fitted on this stage surrounding the center and focusing the center.
Equipment’s used
Several Motion cameras, Calibration wand, Calibration markers, Motion Capture suit, Reflective markers, Vicon system to convert recorded data to digital data, Adobe creative suit, Actors.
Capture Stage
A large area is used to shoot motion capture for this method, the reason why large area is used because of the camera setup.
Pre-Capture
In Pre capture actors get dress in the motion capture suit with markers. Calibration is done for all the actors acting, stage and cameras are also calibrated in pre session. Systems gets ready to capture. In facial motion capture head gear is also calibrated. Calibration is done before every session.
Performance Capture
All the motion is captured in this session and sent to cortex software where the data is converted in C3D file. This C3D file format is readable in motion builder. The file will get imported as small blue cube markers in the software. These markers will then get attached to actor which is a default character in motion builder, this actor will drive the rigged character which is exported from Maya. And then thrown back to Maya with animation. The rig which is exported from Motion builder is in form of .fbx. This file contains all the format which is readable in Maya. Motion builder’s exports animation which is baked on all the key frames. This rig can be attached to any character which has same joint structure.
Retweeting is next step where all the unwanted movement and jerks are removed. We can put new animation on top of current animation. Downloaded a script which removes unwanted key frames and makes our work easy.
Final step is to render.
Performance Capture Studio Production Process