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While it would be nice to have head tracking, I have to say that in finishing my first short film using iPi DMC, animating the character heads was fairly trivial.
Previously I mentioned setting up an Aim Constraint using Motion Builder but I think most other 3D programs have the equivalent of this function. In other 3D programs it may call it Point At, Target, or something like that, and it's usually a simple matter of selecting your head or neck bone and having it 'point' at another object. This object can be another character, the camera, or some other object you want your character to look at. By moving the object that's being looked at, the head will follow it automatically. In many cases, this can be preferable to using captured head motions because the 'baked in' motion will most not likely follow anything in particular in your 3D scene, making the character appear disconnected from its surroundings.
That said, there are some instances where I wish I had a little tracked motion. For example, when we were working on 'Pooper', the performer moved his head to the beat of music track. Because iPi did not track the head bobbing, it had to be added in post. Not a big deal really since the keyframed bobbing was mostly 'looped' but having it baked might sped up the process a little.
Anyway, just wanted to put the 'importance' of head tracking in perspective here. This is just my opinion but I would find a batch queue more useful, and I think iPi users (who don't have Motion Builder, Jimmy|Rig, or Maya,) may find having basic editing tools very useful. (Like the keyframeable head target described above?)
BTW, if you choose to use some form of 'pointing' to animate the head, here's a small tip: I found that using a aim constraint by itself tends to look too smooth compared to the captured body motion. To make the head motion look 'natural' (i.e., like it was captured by iPi DMC,) I added some 'wiggle' to my target object. The 'wiggle' can be based on motion from another body part, generated procedurally, or keyframed. (For Happy Box, I think I just copied and looped motion from a body part.) I suggest applying the 'wiggle' to a target object's parent so that it can be tweaked independently of the overall 'pointing' animation. (Actually, there are many ways to do this--experiment and use what works best for the situation.) Once you establish a good 'wiggle' motion, you can use it over and over again.
@warmanimations: I don't think Brekel supports head tracking does it? Just curious. If so, I'm very interested in seeing examples you've done with it.
G.
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