Motion Capture for the Masses
Great coverage of the use of iPi Motion Capture on the Russian blockbuster “Stalingrad” in Digital Media World —
http://www.digitalmedia-world.com/Animation/main-road-post-animates-stalingrad-s-crowds-with-ipi-motion-capture.html#
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By Ko Maruyama
LOS ANGELES, CA April 4, 2014 – In late March, Digital Media Artists of Los Angeles (DMALA) hosted their monthly user group meeting, which focused solely on the iPi Soft and its markerless motion capture software solution iPi Motion Capture and its use in film, television and personal projects. Moderated by myself, the panel featured professional animators David (D-Lew) Lewandowski, Don L. McCoy, Anthony Hoit, and LA Siggraph’s Mike Amron. Each spoke to the audience about how the adoption of iPi Motion Capture has changed the way they approached animation and production.
If there was one overarching theme to event it was how the landscape of motion graphics and motion design has changed quickly in the past few years thanks to a combination of accessible software and hardware that has allowed digital media artists to create new and innovative animations.
That combination includes the availability of affordable markerless motion capture that has changed the way smaller studios, individuals and students consider their approach to character animation. Specifically, iPi Soft software — in concert with over-the-counter video cameras — is letting digital artists from many disciplines incorporate motion capture into their creative pipeline.
Hoit, Lewandowski and McCoy each noted that they were encouraged by the ease and ready supply of support hardware. Motion capture requires cameras, and although iPi Motion Capture can work with several types of cameras, the panel found success using a simple Microsoft Kinect camera setup.
Case in point was Hoit’s work on the new Night of the Living Dead: 3D Origins – a completely 3D animated reboot of the horror classic set for release later this year — that used iPi Motion Capture with just 1 Kinect camera (it supports up to 3) on all of the film’s middle and background action. Hoit also offered attendees a preview of some select scenes in the film.
Following the Q&A, attendees were able to sample iPi Motion Capture’s ease of use first-hand thanks to three separate demo mocap workstations. The casual setting with professional users was the perfect way for attendees to see how easy it was to setup and capture data. The user group setting was a perfect place to showcase the ease of use and the calculation workflow.
For Ron Magrid, noted technology writer who attended the event, said that the event was different than he expected, which was more of a manufacturer driven show and tell.
“Instead, it was an insightful presentation from people who worked with motion capture for a living and used it to create some impressive effects,” Magrid said. “I loved the stories and the know-how they offered, and how freely they shared it. My guest and I, up and coming filmmaker Richard Gale, were stunned at how relatively easy to use and inexpensive iPi Motion Capture is.”
Given the interest in markerless motion capture I’ve seen among creative professionals and students in my classroom at Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA, coupled with the advancements iPi Soft has made to iPi Motion Capture, it’s clear that markerless motion capture will grow as a creative force to be reckoned with among filmmakers, videogame developers and animators for years to come.
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Adriene Hurst’s story in Digital Media World on Rodeo FX’s use of iPi Motion Capture on “Now You See Me”. Read article>>
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iPi Mocap was used to create crowd motions in Russia’s most commercially successful film, war epic “Stalingrad”. This is the story of love and heroism in the middle of the World War II greatest battle. The film was created in IMAX 3D, and includes 230 shots with visual effects. Many of them are quite long, taking approximately 30 minutes of overall screen time.
“I put the Kinect near my workstation, and played out the movements I needed, immediately transferring them to the soldiers.“ Alexander Lipilin, Animation Supervisor of the Main Road|Post, explains. “It was convenient. Guys at iPi Soft made the program, which was a unique solution for markerless mocap of the body with the use of Kinect. There is no equivalent of this technology yet.“
Here you can find detailed description of how VFX had been created, and what challenges VFX artists met during production:
http://www.cgsociety.org/index.php/CGSFeatures/CGSFeatureSpecial/16324
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iPi Soft, the developers of the markerless motion capture solution iPi Motion Capture, is pleased to announce that Anthony Hoit, Systems Lead at The Graphic Film Company, Los Angeles, CA, will be speaking about the role the software played in film previsualization at the World Animation & VFX Summit, November 3 – 6, 2013 at the California Yacht Club, Marina Del Rey, Calif. Now in its second year, the Summit connects studio executives, producers, agents, distributors with high-level animation and visual effects professionals for three days of panels, screenings and networking. |
Introduced in 2009, iPi Motion Capture has been gaining momentum as a professional and reliable alternative for capturing animation data without the need for expensive greenscreen stages, clumsy sensor suits with reflective markers or a team of technicians. The software uses sophisticated image processing and computer vision algorithms to recognize and track the human body. The digitally captured movement is then applied to a 3D character and rendered as part of a video game or a computer generated movie.
Moderated by David Cohen, Senior Features Editor, Variety, Hoit will join panelists to discuss the growing importance of previsualization and the opportunity it affords filmmakers to explore visual sequences, VFX shots, stunts, technical solutions and more, using 3D animation and virtual environments. Further session details are available here
The Graphic Film Company is a full service post-production visual effects house and film production studio founded in partnership with Simon West Productions (Con Air, Lara Croft :Tomb Raider, The General’s Daughter, When a Stranger Calls). Hoit, who is responsible for the company’s motion and facial capture technology, has relied on the iPi Motion Capture for several years. Most recently, the software was an integral part of the previs pipeline on Night of the Living Dead: Origins 3D, scheduled for release in early 2014. GFC has also relied on iPi Motion Capture for the upcoming Thunder Run, a war drama to be released in 2015, as well as the epic opening sequence of Expendables 2, released in 2012.
At the World Animation and VFX Summit, Hoit will show a video clip demonstrating the iPi Motion Capture rig and its role in improving the speed and efficiency of its previs pipeline on Night of the Living Dead: Origins 3D and other feature film projects.
“Previsualization has become such an important aspect of our digital filmmaking pipeline,” says Hoit. “Having access to tools like iPi Mocap gives us the flexability to multi-person tracking that helps us easily and quickly generate an expanded range of unique motions to incorporate into our animations and live action sequences. I’m looking forward to sharing our previz experiences with the Animation & VFX Summit attendees.”
The World Animation and VFX Summit takes place as follows:
Conference session times and agenda are available here
Hoit will be onsite at the Summit on November 5 from 10:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m., and available for one-on-one briefings except from 2:15 pm — 3:15 pm during his presentation.
Please contact Vicky Gray-Clark, Ambient Public Relations, , (408) 318-1980 to schedule an appointment.
Alternate briefing opportunities are available to those not attending the conference by phone/Skype.)
Additional information on iPi Soft is available as follows:
Website: http://tst.ipisoft.com
Facebook: Motion Capture Software from iPi Soft
Twitter: https://twitter.com/iPiSoft
All trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.
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Michael Nikonov and Ko Maruyama have been interviewed by Wanda Meloni on Gaming Business Review’s “Tech Trends”. They talked about innovations in markerless motion capture.
Michael is iPi Soft’s founder and chief architect. Ko is a veteran animator, technology writer and video producer. For the past ten years, he has been an instructor at the Art Center College of Design in the motion design and 3D animation graphics department. He is setting up an iPi Motion Capture studio for the first time and was excited to talk about the creative benefits that iPi Mocap will bring to his students. Ko also runs popular Ninja Crayon blog.
Wanda Meloni recently launched the live ‘Tech Trend’ video interviews (airing on Spreecast) on her lauded Gaming Business Review site.
Interview recording is available here: http://www.spreecast.com/events/gbr-trends-in-markerless-mocap
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Sebastien Francoeur, Senior CG Artist of RodeoFX, talked on the Digital Production BuZZ last week. One of the topics was how they used iPi Motion Capture in the hit film “Now You See Me”.
| The link to the interview recording: |  |
According to IMDB, earlier this month, “Now You See Me” has cemented its status as one of the summer’s biggest box office success stories, crossing the $200 million mark at the international box office…” http://www.imdb.com/news/ni56159587/
The show airs live tomorrow, Sept 19th, at 6:00 p.m. Pacific and is archived afterwards.
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Sergio Rosa, staff writer for Renderosity.com, reviewed iPi Motion Capture for the website last year. He’s now working as an indie game developer on a horror game titled “Enola” and is using the software for character animation. “For a game like Enola, where characters play such an important role, we had the option to either spend many months keyframe-animating all the characters, or using motion capture. However, the problem with most motion capture systems is price, and this is where an application like iPi Desktop Motion Capture fits the indie way perfectly.”
Read here about Sergio’s iPi Motion Capture game dev workflow in his article,“iPi Desktop Motion Capture: Indies Got Moves” —
http://www.renderosity.com/
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The POST Magazine feature story on Previs in the March issue includes comments from the Graphics Film Company on how they’ve been using iPi Motion Capture on feature films, including the upcoming Thunder Run with Matthew McConaughey, Gerard Butler and Sam Worthington.
Read full text: http://digital.copcomm.com/issue/115625/2
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FX Guide focuses on The Sequence Group’s reliance on iPi Soft’s markerless iPi Motion Capture software in “Halo 4”. The software was used in conjunction with CINEMA 4D. Read the full article>
“You set up two Kinects and you calibrate your room, and you can get a bone structure that you can plug into Cinema4D. It’s pretty phenomenal that you can do this home made motion capture solution.”, – says Sequence president Ian Kirby.
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