Motion Capture

Semester 1 2024

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Making Of Video 5/6/24

MakingOfVideoFinal.mp4

This is my final making of video

Final Render With Edits 5/6/24

Render4Final.mp4

This is my completely finished motion capture film. I edited the speed at the start and added music, title image and credits. I also edited the brightness and contrast and colour balance to make it darker and more ominous. I'm happy with how it turned out.

Final Render 1/6/24

Render_Test_1__1.mp4

This is my final render. I think if I had more time I would do a few more to make it perfect but it looks much better than the other ones and I think I'm pretty happy with it.

Render Tests 23/5/24

I ended up with three failed renders unfortunately. Mostly due to the n-cloth. After doing my playblast I started a render straight away. After that render finished I realised there was lots wrong with it, there was a point where the character's arm got stuck on a wire for a while and it was very noticeable. It didn't look like that in my playblast so I couldn't understand why it was messed up. In the next class I realised it was because of the caching and that the n-cloth changes everytime if it is not cached. I had to do lots of messing around with my n-cloth to make sure it wouldn't get caught. Every time I fixed one thing another would break, it was a very long and stressful process. I cached it and tried another render which also failed again, this time it got stuck in another position, the wires somehow got stuck together despite them never having done so before. I had to do even more adjustments to fix it. I changed some of the animation on my character so the arms wouldn't go through the wires and, moved the wires further away from the body to help with the collisions. I rendered that one and it turned out better than the others with no collisions or wires being stuck together, but due to changing the animation one of the wires look like it has seperated from the hand because I didn't cache it again, since the cache was saved I could see in the playback that the wires were connected but in my render it is seperated. I think it is because I made the adjustments on one computer and then rendered on another with a higher cpu and I don't think the cache transferred for some reason. So for my fourth and last render I made the adjustments, cached and rendered on the same computer.

Render1.mp4

RenderTest2.mp4

RenderTest3.mp4

Playblast 17/5/24

SettingGoodClear.avi

This is the first playblast I did when I thought everything was ready and I would be able to render. The ncloth looked good and everything was going smoothly.

Camera Set up 16/5/24

For my film I decided to use one camera and have it float around a lot. I started off just animating the movements of the camera but it seemed to rotate a lot by itself when moving positions. I tried using camera and aim and had the aim point on my person but it didn't move how I wanted it to either so I just went back to moving it manually and had to adjust the rotation a lot between each movement. Some of the rotation looked cool so I kept it in but there were points when the camera would completely flip so I would have to adjust it.

Ncloth Success 12/5/24

After many trial and errors I was finally able to make my Ncloth work. I followed the same porcedure I did with my first fail but I changed the spring setting in the attribute editor to weld and that fixed all the problems. I watched many Youtube tutorials and nothing told me what to do so I'm proud of myself that I managed to figure it out.

Ncloth Fails 12/5/24

This is one of my Ncloth attempts where it turned out very badly and the wired got completely destroyed when my character moved. In this attempt I just did the standard Ncloth procedure and did the point to surface constraints.

This was another attempt that didn't work I thought that the first attempt wasn't working because the wire was connected to a big mesh so I made a cube inside my character and parented it to her and then connected my wire to the cube. My wire started warping as soon as my character moved.

MASH testing 8/5/24

I played around with different MASH settings. I thought using the trails would look cool on my character but it turned out a bit messy and just wasn't really the look I was going for. I also plan to use Ncloth and I think it would just look weird having these trails and Ncloth together.

MASH Particles 8/5/24

In Maya after finishing all the animation adjustments I created a gold mask for my character to wear and parented it to her head joints. I also created particles with Mash and added that to her body and hid her mesh so it looks like she is made out of particles. I decided to go with the colours of the middle image because I thought the gold particles hid the mask too much and the dark grey particles were too grey and didn't stand out enough.

Hand Animation 2/5/24

I did hand animation in Maya after importing my retargeted motion builder files. I really like how it looks with the hand animation added, it makes it look more natural and having the hand in fists adds to the movement and shows a bit more expression.

Working in Motion Builder 11/4/24

I imported the cleaned data into motion builder

This is when I added the plain character to the data to see how everything looks and moves on a human shape

I then made a character in Autodesk Character Generator. didn't want any hair or skin texture so it looks plain. I merged it with the motionbuilder file and baked it against the actor.

Cortex Data Cleanup 10/4/24

I started my cortex data cleanup. There was lots of gaps in the data where points disappeared for long amounts of time. I think it's because I had lots of big movements in my shots. There was a section where the neck point disappeared and was replaced with another point so I had to go through the list and move around lots of points to their right spot before I fixed the neck. I spent a long time cleaning up the data, it took longer because I had multiple shots to clean up instead of one long shot.

Motion Capture Studio Session 4/4/24

Today we filmed in the motion capture studio. Originally I wanted to act out my scene myself but since we could only have one person in the suit, Evelyn acted mine out since she was acting out Hannah's and Izzy's too. Before we filmed I ran Evelyn through the movements and showed her where to stand and where to run too. We had to do separate takes for the running shot because the space wasn't big enough for how long I wanted the running to go so we used the treadmill for the running.

Shot list 21/3/24

This is my shot list that I will use when filming in the motion capture studio.

Maya N-Cloth test 19/3/24

I practiced in Maya with N-Cloth and connected ropes to a wall and a person, I used an old motion capture animation from last year of me walking and was able to see how the rope moves and stretches when the person walks around.

Storyboard 14/3/24

This is my storyboard for my motion capture project showing the different shots and the way the camera will move.

Moodboards 7/3/24

Research for visualising motion 29/2/24

CCTV Documentary (Directors Cut)

This video is a somewhat literal example of visualising movements, the performers leave a trail behind them of all the movements they've performed displayed through different materials, like fabric flowing behind them. I like how the movements are left visible after the performer has moved but I don't really like how visible the performers are, and how the materials don't seem to be apart of them but just trailing behind them. I do also like the metal material used in the first clip, I think it shows the movements in an interesting way, it is also similar to one of the later examples I list.

Reference

KORB (2014) 'CCTV Documentary (Directors Cut)' Available at: https://vimeo.com/69948148

Dancing With Particles

I quite like this example of visualing movement. The particles appear to float and dance around the person a bit like a wave flowing with their movements. In this example I like how the person is visible because it looks like they have a connection with the particles and almost like the particles are a part of the human as they include similar colours. In my project I really want the particles to have a connection with the performer and have them be a part of each other.

Reference

Jean-Yves Lemoigne, 'Dancing With Particles' (2021) https://barbarapicci.com/2021/11/18/fotografia-jean-yves-lemoigne/jean-yves-lemoigne-5-2/

Kung Fu Motion Visualisation

The first variation in this film is a very technological example of visualing motion. The performer is not visible at all but the movements are visible in an interesting way. With the use of particles that look like fabric or metal, they move in a way that copies the movements of the performer and creates an interesting sculpture-like result as it moves along. I really like this example because despite not being able to see the person we can see how they were moving. I really love the smoothness of the movements and how it doesn't have a defined shape, you can't see the shape of the human performing the movements but just the strokes made.

Reference

Tobias Gremmler (2016) 'Kung Fu Motion Visualisation' Available at https://vimeo.com/163153865

Abstract Dancers

This abstract photograph is another good example of visualising motion. The dancer is visible in this photograph and you are able to see all the movements taken despite it being a still image. This photo is a less technological example compared to some of the others as movement is shown with the use of a slow shutter speed camera. It makes the photo appear more natural as there is no use of digital particles.

Reference

Giles Revell 'Abstract Dancers Red 7' (2019) https://cranekalmanbrighton.com/artists/giles-revell-biography/

Māori Poi Dance

The Māori Poi dance is a very traditional example of visualising motion. For hundreds of years the Poi dance was used by women to tell stories accompanied by singing. The Poi and the Piupiu skirt help emphasise the somewhat simplistic movements done by the dancers as they move in response to the dancers.

Reference:

Alice Silbanuz (19th November 2013) 'Maori Poi Dance' Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GXAapbacBc

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