Motion Capture Mocap: Sambit Kumar Sahoo B080322CS

Motion Capture MOCAP
Sambit kumar Sahoo B080322CS
Right from the beginning, one finds that talking about motion capture can be difficult. Deciding on which term to employ is one of the challenges, since so many exist:
the term itself, 'motion capture', typically is abbreviated as 'mocap' another popular term is 'performance animation,' taking the emphasis off the capturing of data, which is seen as just one part of the entire performance animation process performance capture, a variation on both of the above terms also heard are 'virtual theater', 'digital puppetry', and 'real-time animation
The Question of Artistry

As Richard Cray, founding director of the Performance Animation Society, notes, "very often animators rehearse their character's moves themselves prior to keyframing or hand positioning the various elements. They can be seen dancing about, crawling on the floor and performing other acts of physical movement in their workspaces in the process of designing their character's motion. All Motion Capture does is add the capability of tracking these rehearsals if an animator chooses to do them and helps package their performance in a digital format for them to use and reference as they see fit."
Types Of Motion Capture

Mechanical
performer wears a human-shaped set of straight metal pieces (like a very basic skeleton) that is hooked onto the performer's back; as the performer moves, this exoskeleton is forced to move as well and sensors in each joint feel the rotations other types of mechanical motion capture involve gloves, mechanical arms, or articnlated models(like Monkey), which are used for 'key framing' pro: no interference from light or magnetic fields con: a) the technology has no awareness of ground, so there can be no jumping, plus feet data tends to slide, b) equipment must be calibrated often. c) unless there is some other type of sensor in place, it does not know which way the performer's body is pointing, d) absolute positions are not known but are calculated from the rotations
Optical
performer wears reflective dots that are followed by several cameras and the information is triangulated between them markers are either reflective, such as a system manufactured by Vicon or Motion Analysis, or infra-red emitting, many of which have been developed for musical applications (such as conducting) developed primarily for biomedical applications (sports injuries, analysis of athletic performance, etc.) pro: a) performer feels free to move due to no cables connecting body to the equipment, b) larger volumes possible, c) more performers are possible, d) very clean, detailed data con: a) it is prone to light interference, b) reflective dots can be blocked by performers or other structures, causing loss of data, or occlusion-this can be compensated for with software which estimates the position of a missing dot, c) rotations of body parts must be solved for and are not absolute
Types of Optical Capture
Passive markers Passive optical system use markers coated with a retroreflective material to reflect light that is generated near the cameras lens. The camera's threshold can be adjusted so only the bright reflective markers will be sampled, ignoring skin and fabric.
Active marker Active optical systems triangulate positions by illuminating one LED at a time very quickly or multiple LEDs with software to identify them by their relative positions, somewhat akin to celestial navigation.
Time modulated active marker Active marker systems can further be refined by strobing one marker on at a time, or tracking multiple markers over time and modulating the amplitude or pulse width to provide marker ID.
Semi-passive imperceptible marker One can reverse the traditional approach based on high speed cameras. Systems such as Prakash use inexpensive multi-LED high speed projectors. The specially built multi-LED IR projectors optically encode the space.
Electromagnetic (magnetic)
performer wears an array of magnetic receivers which track location with respect to a static magnetic transmitter one of the first uses was for the military, to track head movements of pilots often this type of motion capture is layered with animation from other input devices the two main manufacturers of this type of motion capture equipment are Polhemus and Ascension pro: a) positions are absolute, rotations are measure absolutely; orientation in space can be determined, which is very useful, b) can be real-time, which allows immediate broadcast as well as the opportunity for performers to puppeteer themselves with instantaneous feedback con: a) magnetic distortion occurs as distance increases, b) data can be noisy - it's not as good as optical, c) prone to interference from magnetic fields - cement floors usually contain metal, so stages must be built
Advantages
More rapid, even real time results can be obtained. In entertainment applications this can reduce the costs of keyframe-based animation. For example: Hand Over. The amount of work does not vary with the complexity or length of the performance to the same degree as when using traditional techniques. This allows many tests to be done with different styles or deliveries. Complex movement and realistic physical interactions such as secondary motions, weight and exchange of forces can be easily recreated in a physically accurate manner. The amount of animation data that can be produced within a given time is extremely large when compared to traditional animation techniques. This contributes to both cost effectiveness and meeting production deadlines. Potential for free software and third party solutions reducing its costs.
Disadvantages
Specific hardware and special programs are required to obtain and process the data. The cost of the software, equipment and personnel required can potentially be prohibitive for small productions. The capture system may have specific requirements for the space it is operated in, depending on camera field of view or magnetic distortion. When problems occur, it is easier to reshoot the scene rather than trying to manipulate the data. Only a few systems allow real time viewing of the data to decide if the take needs to be redone. The initial results are limited to what can be performed within the capture volume without extra editing of the data. Movement that does not follow the laws of physics generally cannot be captured.
Real Life Deployment
Video games often use motion capture to animate athletes, martial artists, and other in-game characters. This has been done since the Atari Jaguar CD-based game Highlander: The Last of the MacLeods, released in 1995. During the filming of James Cameron's Avatar all of the scenes involving this process were directed in realtime using a screen which converted the actor setup with the motion costume into what they would look like in the movie. Gait analysis is the major application of motion capture in clinical medicine. Techniques allow clinicians to evaluate human motion across several biometric factors, often while streaming this information live into analytical software.
Future Goals
enhancement of performance conditions through lack of tethering and simplification of performance apparel increased speed of the technology increased 'volume' or area in which performances can be captured lower cost, so that consumers and independent artists can have access and experiment/expand the technology increased accuracy of the results, including improved physical abilities, so that characters can touch each other and feet meet solidly on the ground
References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_capture
http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/papers/furniss.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxZ6aa1rhMI&fe

Motion Capture Mocap: Sambit Kumar Sahoo B080322CS

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Motion Capture MOCAP

Sambit kumar Sahoo B080322CS

The Question of Artistry

Types Of Motion Capture

Types of Optical Capture

Real Life Deployment

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