Sixx
Proton
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- Jul 28, 2016
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As part of my Games Design degree I've been getting involved with Mocap and character animations. Thought it'd be interesting to share my experience here.
First day, 9AM, show up to a room with myself and two other students in it. This was an opportunity to get our animations done early with a contemporary dancer as our actor as opposed to someone else from our course, but it was a 9AM on a Monday, so I guess everyone else just valued their lie-in.
First thing we needed to do was set up the mocap suit and the facility using light reflective markers we had out on loan. We had to follow a strict set up guideline (part of which I've 'acquired' from my Uni site and you can find below) and set everything up as instructed. Took a couple hours to calibrate everything and ensure the markers were hooked up to the program, Vicon Blade.
I explained to the actor (Mattie was her name, French woman, very friendly) that I was looking for a sophisticated sort of walk. Arms out, chest out, slow walk. She recreated what she thought the movement was supposed to look like and I was satisfied, we did some more takes, but for now I'm just gonna go through it part by part.
Once this is done, I can export it and slap it into a program like Unity to test it out as an engine-ready asset.
All good. Obviously the model doesn't really fit the animation, but this is just a test.
I'll likely post more stuff like this as the year progresses and I become more learned in different aspects of video games. Hope you enjoyed!
First day, 9AM, show up to a room with myself and two other students in it. This was an opportunity to get our animations done early with a contemporary dancer as our actor as opposed to someone else from our course, but it was a 9AM on a Monday, so I guess everyone else just valued their lie-in.
First thing we needed to do was set up the mocap suit and the facility using light reflective markers we had out on loan. We had to follow a strict set up guideline (part of which I've 'acquired' from my Uni site and you can find below) and set everything up as instructed. Took a couple hours to calibrate everything and ensure the markers were hooked up to the program, Vicon Blade.
I explained to the actor (Mattie was her name, French woman, very friendly) that I was looking for a sophisticated sort of walk. Arms out, chest out, slow walk. She recreated what she thought the movement was supposed to look like and I was satisfied, we did some more takes, but for now I'm just gonna go through it part by part.
Post capture day, back at my PC, we compiled a database with all of our recordings from the day, which I import into Vicon Blade and select the walk cycle. After pressing the reconstruction button, the markers appear and I'm able to scrub the timeline to check the markers check out. All good.
Next I label the markers one by one, there is an "automatic" way to do it but as part of the course we learn to do it manually. It's a pain and takes hours.
After labelling, I scrub the timeline and- oh no! Some of the markers disappear from time to time. If I were to export this into Motion Builder it'd have some unintended hilarious results, but I won't because it's boring enough as it is.
Now, how to fix this?
Next I label the markers one by one, there is an "automatic" way to do it but as part of the course we learn to do it manually. It's a pain and takes hours.
After labelling, I scrub the timeline and- oh no! Some of the markers disappear from time to time. If I were to export this into Motion Builder it'd have some unintended hilarious results, but I won't because it's boring enough as it is.
Now, how to fix this?
Opening a separate window reveals the data health, as well as the respective X, Y, Z graphs for trajectory movement across all markers. We can see there's clear gaps in the data health.
To start on fixing these, I need to find "bad keys" and cut them from the movements. Doing this is a very simple process; I select all the nodes, find the bad keys, remove them. (There's lots.)
In order to fill gaps, I can use one of three methods which have very similar results but go about them different ways; I can use interpolation which interprets the movement of surrounding keys, or I can set every bone to be "rigid", or I can set constraints (this one is tough to do). Interpolation is the easiest and quickest to do, so I'll go with that.
Lovely. Time to solve.
To start on fixing these, I need to find "bad keys" and cut them from the movements. Doing this is a very simple process; I select all the nodes, find the bad keys, remove them. (There's lots.)
In order to fill gaps, I can use one of three methods which have very similar results but go about them different ways; I can use interpolation which interprets the movement of surrounding keys, or I can set every bone to be "rigid", or I can set constraints (this one is tough to do). Interpolation is the easiest and quickest to do, so I'll go with that.
Lovely. Time to solve.
Going into the solving tab, from here I can create a "solving setup" with which I can define a bone structure for the animation. This is helped tremendously by the fact my labels are accurate.
Once the solving process is done, I can see a bone structure within the labels. This will make porting it over to Motion Builder as an FBX file much much easier.
Once exported, I put it into Motion Builder and scrub the timeline. Animation successfully ported. Time to rig it.
Once the solving process is done, I can see a bone structure within the labels. This will make porting it over to Motion Builder as an FBX file much much easier.
Once exported, I put it into Motion Builder and scrub the timeline. Animation successfully ported. Time to rig it.
This process is also fairly easy, so I won't screenshot anything, but it's essentially a case of "characterising" the bones defined by the solving process done earlier. Once this is done, the bones can be manipulated individually, allowing for animations to be put onto them, or allowing the animation to be put onto other meshes, which is what I'm doing.
(The bones are sticking out due to the size of the model not matching the skeleton; this can be fixed just by downsizing the skeleton.)
(The bones are sticking out due to the size of the model not matching the skeleton; this can be fixed just by downsizing the skeleton.)
Once this is done, I can export it and slap it into a program like Unity to test it out as an engine-ready asset.
All good. Obviously the model doesn't really fit the animation, but this is just a test.
I'll likely post more stuff like this as the year progresses and I become more learned in different aspects of video games. Hope you enjoyed!
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