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3 Dimensional Chat / Motion Capture

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vorconan
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Posted: 5th Jul 2007 16:28
Does anyone know the best way to get hold of motion capture equipment? Obviously within the smallest budget possible, most of the companies I found are way too advanced.

Thanks

vorconan
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Posted: 6th Jul 2007 02:23
Reality Forgotten
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Posted: 6th Jul 2007 03:35
Dude, You can do it yourself by using a digital camera and a friend. I know it would be a long drawn out process but it will get the job done.


Cheers,
Dave


vorconan
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Posted: 6th Jul 2007 14:48
What, you mean still frames and animate the bones to the images?

Agent Dink
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Posted: 6th Jul 2007 15:57
That's probably what he means. I've heard of it being done before.

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Manic
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Posted: 6th Jul 2007 16:02
well, firstly, we need to know what you're using, some 3d programs like 3ds max have video tracking tools.

if you have some software that's capable of video tracking, then you can do it as easily as sticking a load of ping pong balls to a mate and filming him doing some actions.

having said this, I've never tried doing human motion capture, so i don't know how you'd go about linking that data to bones.

I don't have a sig, live with it.
vorconan
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Posted: 6th Jul 2007 17:36
I do have 3ds max 9, I'll have to read up on that video tracking, sticking ping pong balls to someone sounds very simplistic but It might just work, thanks for the help.

Deagle
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Posted: 6th Jul 2007 21:54
If you can do it,can teach me how you did it

Deagle aka D-Eagle
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Posted: 6th Jul 2007 22:44
Make sure you have the person where a subdued outfit. You do not want the tracker to pick up on any other color. I would assume that the video tracking will act based on a color. so if the person is wearing all black and the balls are white it will allow the program to pick up on the white very easily. Frame by frame would take a while but not a bad method for those of us who are not familiar with video tracking. I think blender has video tracking as well. I watched a tutorial that seemed to hint about it. Good luck!


Cheers,
Dave


vorconan
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Posted: 7th Jul 2007 01:52
Quote: "If you can do it,can teach me how you did it"


I'll write a tutorial on it, I'm sure it will be helpful to many people

@RF

Good point, plus the background would have to be black too. I think I'll need that luck aswell

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Posted: 7th Jul 2007 02:05
You may want to capture the motion in a slow motion type of flow. as it will be easier to spot deformities at a slower speed than at actual walking speed.


vorconan
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Posted: 7th Jul 2007 02:42
Yeah, or I can just adjust the speed of the animation with 3ds max, either way is good.

Just to let everyone know, I searched on google for a while trying to find this answer, I found out that it was camera tracking, not video tracking, also it came to me that I should just look in 3ds max's help files first, and I found a help file explaining the buttons and values etc. So I should be getting this camera tracking working soon (fingers crossed).

Manic
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Posted: 7th Jul 2007 14:47
good luck on this one, be careful you don't confuse camera matching with motion capture.

camera matching is the process where by you create a camera in your 3d scene and then using information from the video, you update the camera's position and orientation. This is how animators mix live footage with rendered objects.

also, a quick tip that took me ages to work out, when you make your tracker points, make the inner box as small as possible, so it just fits around the tracked object, with maybe a pixels width around the sides, then make the outer box as big as the greatest distance the point will be between any two frames. So if a ping pong ball moves by say 50 pixels between frame one and two, you'll need the outer box to be big enough to spot it. It's here you have a trade off, the wider the outer box is, the wider the tracker's search area is, and the longer it will take to process.

If you have a camera with the option, film at as many frames per second as you can, in the example i've given above, it would take ages to process a search box that wide, so by having more FPS, it should mean the difference between frames is less.

Ignore what reality forgotten said above, it won't look right. Think about it, you walk very differently if you try to walk in "slow motion" to how you walk in real life. If you simply speed it up, it'll look bizarre, also by doing it slow motion, it'll only mean more frames, and more work for yourself.


Manic

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Posted: 7th Jul 2007 15:43
A slow motion type of feel, that is anything other than regular walking speed or speed walking mate. slowing down you step a little is not going to through the natural rhythm off. As long as the actor doesn't try to over play the role.


vorconan
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Posted: 7th Jul 2007 23:19
Thanks for the tips manic, good points well taken in. I'm working on just a rendered video of a cube moving in 3ds max at the moment. Once I get that right i'll move onto the camera tracking.

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