I have posted some 4-camera mocap samples here:

http://lightdogfilms.com/mocap

Videos are rendered with xvid codec.

Comments and questions are welcome.

[EDIT: new link posted above]

Awesome I'll download the later and check them out ! thanks !

cool stuff :)

noticed one thing, on the video, video_05_09_24_xvid_v01b.zip
when running towards the camera, it seems to skip some footsteps, is this intentional/ purpously edited/erased movements?

erikals

The mocap for video_05_09_24_xvid_v01b.zip was not edited in this case, but shows the "raw" output. It could possibly be improved with the "refit pose" option in certain frames. What I was testing here was how accurately DMC automatically processed fast movement of an actor.

Whenever there is significant motion blur (and any video captured by webcams can have a high degree of motion blur, especially in low-light environments), this can lead to mocap inaccuracies in the automatic processing.

In this case here, you can see obvious motion blur due to the high-speed movement of the actor.

Thank you for posting your samples.
Couple questions. It looks like it doesn't do hand motion at all. Is this the case?
It doesn't seem to track feet very well. In the last 2 videos the model was sliding all over the place to keep up with the actor. Is there a way to fix that?
How subtle of motions can it track? Like a model bending over a child a kissing it good night. Or pulling a cell phone out of your pocket and dialing it. Or is only good for big fast motions?
I see on one of the videos you have four cameras in a semi circle. Do you find that gives better coverage and data than having them at 90 degrees to each other? Surrounding the actor.
Have you created any usable motions for your projects or has it all just been play so far?
Last question. Have you bought this software or or you still in demo mode?

thanks,

Donny

Donny,

If by "hand motion" you mean rotation at the wrist, no, I don't think DMC resolves to that level of detail currently. I have not seen that detail in my tests so far (check with iPi Soft on this).

About the foot-sliding issue: are you referring to the clips where the actor stands on a moving board? The feet actually track very well and the feet are supposed to slide around relative to the ground but stay locked to the actor - that was the point of the test.

iPi DMC captures subtle motions with accuracy. Will it pick up an actor breathing? I'm not sure of this, but in our tests simple subtle moves tracked nicely. I'll post some samples of this when I get a chance. Capturing with lower-quality cameras might limit the ability of DMC to pick up detailed motions.

As for our camera arrangement, one of the main reasons we arranged the cameras the way we did is because we were shooting against a white stage, which did not cover a full 360-degree field, and we wanted to provide DMC with as clean a background as possible (not a requirement for DMC, but something we wanted to test). We were also limited by the length of our USB cables! So, our next tests will cover the actor in a 360 degree field of view.

We were able to capture continuous motion (which contained slow and fast actor movement) for a project we are preparing, so yes, usable motions are feasible. We are still working on skinning the character (using Cinema4d) and setting up the 3D environments. I suppose it is up to the individual users to determine if the captured motions are of sufficient quality for their particular needs.

Hi there.

Well, as the majority of motions I'm going to need to be doing will be 'high speed', I'm not sure what to take away from these samples. Some of the motions look really good, but as was pointed out, there does seem to be a lot of missed footsteps. That video of the actor running from corner to corner and touching the floor really seems to miss a lot of the footwork.

I'm really curious to see how a tumble and fall motion would be captured.

So far I get a PC lockup anytime I press the record button on the iprecorder (just one camera so far). I plan on a four camera system at 90deg angles. I think 6 cameras would be much better but don't think the software supports it (yet?). I'll post a DXDIAG file tonight so that the admins can see if it's my system or not. It's a slightly older Toshibia 1.8gig laptop.

What cameras are you using? I have the recommended logitech 9000. Did you install the camera's drivers, or just use the default Windows camera drivers?

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DavidWinter,

About the video of the actor running corner to corner: As you can see from the source footage, there is some amount of motion blur present, and this could account for some of the missed footsteps. There are also options in the current DMC version that allow you to refit poses, so that's something that might need to be applied to a greater extent to this clip.

As for what to take away from these samples: these examples do not necessarily represent the best that iPi DMC has to offer - they are for the most part our own "works-in-progress" that haven't been refined a great deal at this point. Think of them as baselines that help point out some strengths and weaknesses of the whole mocap process using iPi DMC - for example, if your cameras record with a high degree of motion blur, this will limit the accuracy of the mocap. So you'll need to make sure your cameras don't capture with much motion blur.

I have posted info on the cameras I am using in the camera section of this forum.

I posted two clips of an actor bouncing a ball. One clip is a view lined up to camera, another view is offset to better see the source footage and the 3D character.

Direct link here:

http://lightdogfilms.com/mocap/DMC/ipi_ ... tings.html

Clips:

"video_05_03_50_xvid_v01a.zip"
and
"video_05_03_50_xvid_v01b.zip"

The ball does not appear to influence the mocap at all. Very little manual intervention performed. At the beginning of the clip we had to do a little bit of adjustment to the hands - the arms needed to be rotated correctly so that the palms would face inwards.

Nice Videos LightDog,

Can you show some wire frames or the bones themselves moving inside that character?

Thanks for posting these