*spin-off* Motion Capture and Animation in Games

[Laa-Yosh]

Cleanup isn't performed on the same day as the recording, makes no sense. No studio can support a crew large enough for that.

Recording session lengths vary based on content. We can usually get all the stuff for a 1-3 minute game intro in a day (it's worth rehearsing before you go to the studio) and this sometimes includes crowd stuff like in the Darksiders intro.
Obviously 30-120 minutes of engine movies, or feature film VFX shots are going to take several days.

Processing is done afterwards, as it does not require the sytem, only a PC with the proper software. For us it usually takes a few weeks to get all the data from the studio, and several man months to complete all the retargeting and animation, but that includes VFX and vehicles and faces and whatever else there is to do.

 

[patsu]

Yeah, I didn't mean to use session as a single sitting. I should have used "job" instead of "session". If it's a single day, Ninja Theory would not have clean up issues with their mo-cap data.

 

[AlNom]

Mod Note: Spin-off from Heavy Rain thread.


And uhm... after [strike]much thought[/strike] forgetting... now open.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Thanks

Here's an interesting video, demonstrating the results of more then a year of R&D on facial capture:
http://media.fxguide.com/fxguidetv/fxguidetv-ep030.mov

Image Metrics uses a proprietary system that does not rely on motion capture, it's just a single video feed and their software. It's still not entirely convincing, despite all the detail and effort.


All the lightbulb and cage stuff you see in the video is not related to the capture of the animation, it's measuring irradiance for the face to replicate the skin shader. Google Debevec for more info on related research. I actually doubt that it'll be used that much for games though (beyond EA Sports capturing celebrities) because the equipment is pretty expensive. And I still don't really believe in purely measurement based methods, it still needs some artistic touch to come alive...

 

[mister slim]

Interesting. Does anyone know if Quantic Dream is licensing technology for Heavy Rain. I know Cage has talked about building some of their tech in-house, but they don't appear to be that big a studio.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Image Metrics does a lot of facial capture for game developers. There are various stories about lackluster quality as well, though... I can't decide as we don't have any experience with them.

To elaborate a bit, the above video uses several different technologies combined for the result. The capture itself is the proprietary software that uses a single video feed; then there's a deformation rig in Maya that's driven by the animation data. It also has several additional displacement maps for skin wrinkles that are only activated for specific expressions.
Then there is shading with SSS and digital compositing to integrate the CG animation into the live action background (only the girl's face is CG).

So Quantic may be using IM's services for facial capture; it is capable of driving any kind of deformation rig (blendshape or bone based, or even more complex stuff). Or they can do it all themselves if they have a Vicon motion capture system.