iPi Soft

Motion Capture for the Masses

newsletter share-facebook share-twitter

Archive for the ‘Contest’ Category

Renderosity 2022 Animation Halloween Contest

Posted on: October 27th, 2022

A great opportunity to win a perpetual license of iPi Motion Capture – just send your animation to Renderosity Animation Halloween Contest. Submission deadline is Oct 31st.

1st prize is Pro, 2nd prize is Basic, and 3rd prize is Express edition. A lot of other sponsors give away their software licenses as well.

Good luck in the competition!

https://www.renderosity.com/contests/1594/2022-animation-halloween-contest

Renderosity-Halloween-2022

Get To Know iPi Mocap Artist…Raul Ruiz

Posted on: December 20th, 2020

Get To Know iPi Mocap Artist…Raul Ruiz

From time to time, we like to take a closer look at the artists that are using iPi Soft technology in interesting and innovative ways. This time we are shining a spotlight on  Raul Miguel Ruiz Esquer, a Mexico-based, self-professed creative jack-of-all-trades working as an audiovisual producer and 3D animation artist. Currently, his one-man studio is focused on the realization of 3D cinematics.

Raul came to our attention in September with his submission to our mocap contest. His elegant 3D dancer piece, “Big Bang Portal” was the winning entry due to its originality and the incredible detail he was able to portray using iPi Mocap along with Autodesk Maya and Epic Games’ Unreal Engine: https://vimeo.com/446939597

We spoke with Raul from his studio in Tijuana, Mexico

Q. How did you first hear about iPi Mocap and how did you use the software in your winning entry?

RR: first time I started using iPi Mocap was around 2012 when I was a student learning 3D and downloading all kinds of software and experimenting. The idea of an affordable way to make 3D motion capture was compelling since the mocap technology at that time was expensive and not accessible to the broader audiences.I started using iPi Mocap again this year for my winning piece “Big Bang Portal” as I noticed iPi Soft had made several improvements to the software. This video captured in the piece was created using iPi Recorder and iPi Mocap Studio. It is a work in progress for a short film I am currently producing.

Q. What benefits does the software bring to your content creation workflow?

RR: Since I was young, I have always wanted to create my own 3D animated movies. I have been studying the spectrum of 3D software applications with the goal of being able to create as a solo artist. When I first heard about iPi Mocap I knew it was a perfect match for me. As a one-man studio I need to make ongoing technical and budgetary decisions to support the artistic vision. The main advantage of iPi Mocap is being able to capture high quality animation instead of making it by hand and trying to recreate the illusion of life for my characters. It was very daunting at first because just to make one shot used to require a team, but with iPi Mocap the animation can be achieved accurately without sensors with one person or a small team of individuals. This is huge because it improves the productivity from a cost-effective perspective, but also allows an independent artist to direct a creative vision instead of wrangling a production. I can prototype fast and spend more time working on the creative, fun side of the project.

Q. What hardware are you using with iPi Mocap?

RR: My studio setup is nothing extraordinary, but it delivers results: Intel Core i7-3820 (4 core 3.6 ghz) with P9X79 LE  Motherboard and 16 gb ram; Nvidia 1080 GTX; 2 Kinect Xbox One; 2 SIIG JU-P20612-S1 – Adapter PCIe 2 port USB 3.0.

Q. Can you tell us how you have already used iPi Mocap and your plans for using the software with the Unreal Engine?

RR: My plan is to produce films and series. Right now I’m continuing to experiment creatively using the iPi Mocap pro license on a personal project that I’m hoping to release soon. My plan is to acquire two additional Kinects to make a four Kinect setup to capture additional recording of acrobatic action sequences and different dancing styles.

Looking to the future I would also like to try using the software with the Azure Kinect to raise the quality of my captures.

The use of the Unreal engine was a choice made with the solo team structure in mind. It is just so much simpler to direct, assemble and render sequences using the Unreal editor. As a director, having more control of the output using the real-time pipeline provides additional creative flexibility.

I have studied and prepared myself to be able to execute my creative vision.

I’m happy that iPi Soft granted me a license and thanks to the contest, I feel closer to achieving my artistic aspirations.

To see more of Raul’s work visit his Instagram and Facebook pages.

BigBangPortal-Collage-1

iPi Soft Again Sponsoring Renderosity 2020 Halloween Animation Contest

Posted on: October 1st, 2020

iPi Soft Again Sponsoring Renderosity 2020 Halloween Animation Contest

Just like a ghost, iPi Soft keeps coming back…as a sponsor of the Renderosity Magazine Halloween Animation Contest that is.

This year’s theme is “Costumes, Cauldrons & Concoctions,” and iPi Soft is again giving away a free iPi Mocap Pro Perpetual license to the Grand Prize winner.

With zero preparation time – no markers, no sensor suits – coupled with our recent addition of real-time tracking and live-streaming capabilities into popular game engines such as Unity and Unreal, the iPi Mocap solution gives users the tools to help ignite scare-worthy content in minutes.

Submissions are being accepted now and will end on October 8th, when community voting begins. Voting closes on October 31 and winners will be announced that day.

For all the details go here. Good luck from everyone at iPi Soft. We look forward to watching your submissions (with the lights on of course).

Renderosity Halloween Animation Contest

Posted on: September 27th, 2019

Renderosifty Halloween Animation Contest

Scare Tactics:

With Halloween a little over a month away, now is the time for some scary movies. With that in mind iPi Soft is partnering with Renderosity Magazine to give away a free iPi Mocap Pro Perpetual license to the winner of their 2019 Halloween contest, animation category, with the theme “Ever Watching Eyes.”

To enter the contest go here for details on creating scare-worthy content about the creature that is spying on you or one of your characters with their ever-watching eyes. Submissions began on September 10th and will end at 10 am (CT) on October 10th. From there, community voting will begin on October 10th at 10 am (CT) and will close at 10 am (CT) on October 25th.

Good luck from everyone at iPi Soft. We look forward to watching your submissions (with the lights on of course).

renderosity-ever-watching-eye-1

Sony Animation Made Available Zombie Rig

Posted on: October 29th, 2014

Sony Animation Made Available Zombie Rig from Hotel Transylvania

At iPi Soft we pride ourselves on creating technology that is accessible to all users, not just professionals, but here’s something we came across that might appeal more to our advanced users.

Just in time for Halloween, Sony Animation has made a zombie rig from their hit animated film “Hotel Transylvania” available for download (on a very restricted basis of course).

We checked it out and it’s very complex, but we’d love to see what our users can do with it. Send us your best use of the rig and we’ll post on our Facebook page, and put it in the running for our monthly mocap contest with a chance to win an iPI Motion Capture software license.

Here’s a link to download the rig: https://secure.sonypictures.com/animation/hotelt/zombierig/videosubmissions/

zombie-right-full

June Mocap Contest – Two Winners!

Posted on: July 15th, 2014

June contest is over. It was so tough that we decided that we will have a main prize and a special prize this month. And the winners are… Cornelio Natividad II with “Redfox” (Standard license) and FloresBrothersFilms with “Robby and the Giant” (Basic license). Congratulations!

The main prize:

Description from the author:

Almost all of the action animation were done using iPi soft motion capture and 6 Playstation cameras in my living room and backyard.

Behind The Scenes:

The special prize:

Description from the author:

95% of motion was captured with iPi Soft free trial.

March Contest Winner

Posted on: April 1st, 2014

We had a lot of discussions in our team regarding which is the best of submitted videos. Finally, we decided that the winner is Mikołaj Jagodziński with “Virtuo” piece!
Mikołaj has increased his chances by sending the “Behind the Scenes” accompanying video.
Congratulations!


Description from the author:
All character animations were created in iPi Motion Capture (except for the running sequence, animation of the head, wrist and fingers). I used four PS Eye cameras.

Motion Capture Technology:

Battle of Miridem

Posted on: November 6th, 2013

Modern 3D technologies allow you to create “Star Wars” at your desktop. “The Battle of Miridem” trailer, the winner of our October mocap competition is a solid confirmation for this.


Description from the author:

I’m using two Kinect cameras along with the standard edition of iPi software. I calibrated the two cameras with a flat rectangular plywood. Scenes in this trailer that includes animations that are standing still, walking and running is all done with recorded motion capture with iPiSoft. Some scenes are keyframed when it comes to certain delicate movements with hands and weapons. Scenes are rendered in 3ds Max and composed in After Effects.

 

Timothy W. Leeds — June winner of the iPi Soft Filmmaking Competition

Posted on: September 4th, 2013

Comments On Using iPi Mocap from June Competition Winner

Blending a simple story with complex animation, the winner of iPi Soft’s June filmmaking competition — “Shadow Boxing” – falls just short of a minute and a half. But in that small amount of time, director Timothy W. Leeds shows how much iPi Soft’s iPi Motion Capture markerless mocap solution can achieve in depicting a cinematic battle between a man and his super-powered shadow.

According to Leeds, a freelance artist and owner of the company Inviizion By Viizro, the creative spark behind the film was simply to test iPi Motion Capture with inexpensive Kinect sensors to see how it could be incorporated with his own animation. Exploring the exercise of shadowboxing, Leeds used the trial version of the software and a green screen, to record himself without a shadow and then CG one into the footage. The smoothness of the animated shadow character next to his live action footage led him to create “Shadow Boxing.”

“iPi Motion Capture allowed me to create this video in half the time it would have taken me to animate the shadow myself,” Leeds says, “and it gave the shadow character more natural movement.”

Leeds said that the biggest challenges he faced centered on the scenes in which he had to interact or physically fight with the shadow. He used iPi Soft to play back the shadowboxing portions of the video next to his green screen human self, and married the two elements seamlessly using Blender3D for all of the modeling and fire simulation, and Adobe After Effects to fine-tune the final look.

Leeds adds, “It took many takes and my arms and legs still ache from punching and kicking the air, but iPi Motion Capture helped me capture the natural movements of a human body”

For more on Leeds’ iPi Motion Capture workflow, visit www.inviizion.com.

May Contest Winner Shares His Opinion on iPi Mocap

Posted on: August 16th, 2013

May Contest Winner Shares His Opinion on iPi Mocap

Well-written dialogue and an intriguing use of the POV camera style help make “Craiglist Horror,” directed by Russell August Anderson, so memorable. The May winner of the iPi Soft-sponsored  monthly filmmaking competition has the intense feel of the opening to some popular crime procedurals like CSI or Law & Order, or perhaps a gritty indie film.

The three-minute piece begins with a man filming a woman sleeping inside a car while he comically debates the ethics of what he’s doing. We quickly learn they’ve accompanied the man’s actor brother to a remote film shoot in the desert. Shot POV style throughout, things take a suddenly real and violent turn, ending on a cliff-hanger that leaves viewers ready for the next scene.

A professional editor in commercials and film in Los Angeles, Anderson says “Craigslist Horror” came about as both a test of iPi Motion Capture software, and with the Source Filmmaker package from Valve that features the mocap software.

‘Craiglist Horror’ served as a proof-of-concept that the technology is getting to the point where filmmakers who aren’t insanely tech savvy can pre-visualize their ideas and use motion capture easily to get a feel for the visual flow of their story before shooting it,” Anderson says. “The script was a short film a friend of mine wrote and set aside because he was unsure whether or not it worked, so it seemed like the perfect candidate for a test run. The project helped me gain mocap experience that I’ll apply to my next pre-visualization project — a short film we’re shooting this month.

Anderson adds, “With iPi Soft I was able to act everything out beforehand and easily drop the mocap data into Source Filmmaker with DMX files. This was my first time using the software and the one Kinect setup was a breeze.