This would be really helpful for some pipelines. For instance I may already have voice over work done that I now need to animate to. Or I may already have facial mocap through FaceShift. So the ability to load in a guide track INTO Recorder would be great.

Hi,

I'm curious to hear how this will help.

We generally capture performances to pre-recorded audio on set so the motions are already in sync when they are tracked in iPi Mocap Studio. iPi Mocap Studio doesn't allow you change or edit the timing of your motions so I'm not sure audio playback will be very useful in the program. When there is a issue that calls for retiming of the motion, I correct that in an animation program after the raw data is exported from iPi Mocap Studio. That, or I just record another take synced to the audio track on set.

That said, since the Recorder software can record audio with the mocap file, I guess Mocap Studio should also be able to play it back. (Doesn't it? Sorry, I haven't checked this yet.) But I'm guessing you probably want to import a separate audio track to play back in Mocap Studio. :)

G.

_________________
Greenlaw
Artist/Partner - Little Green Dog | My Demo Reels (2013,) (2015,) (2017,) and (2019)

Watch a one minute excerpt on Vimeo now!

Hi G,
To clarify, this would be a request for the ability to PLAY an audio file WHILE ipi Record is CAPTURING. So if you're basically miming to a prerecorded track ipi could play that back for you as your actor does their mocap performance. As it is now, one has to trigger a separate device or piece of software running concurrently in order to perform to a pre-recorded track. I could picture the Recorder software having a nice little interface to load an audio file and even add an accurate offset, so you hit record and it plays in 10 seconds with possibly even a countdown beep so the actor knows the audio is about to begin and can leave their T-pose. Or even simpler, one could add that extra time to the audio file. But still something in this area of audio integration could be very handy.

-D

Thanks for explanation. Yes, I see how that could be handy if you use the countdown feature.

FYI, the way I do it now is I play the audio looping on set, rehearse a few times, and then I press the Start Record button on the PS Move when I'm ready to perform for real. When I"m done with the performance, I press the button again. The device vibrates to let you know when it started and stopped recording. If I need another take, I wait for the audio to come around again and press the button again. Recorder, of course, names and saves the files automatically. This works best when the shots are fairly short but if the audio loop is long, it can get a little boring waiting for it to loop around to the starting point again. :p

G.

_________________
Greenlaw
Artist/Partner - Little Green Dog | My Demo Reels (2013,) (2015,) (2017,) and (2019)

Watch a one minute excerpt on Vimeo now!

The "nice little interface to load an audio file" could also include a loop feature to satisfy both of you. But what would be even more useful would be the ability to export sync data, either in a text file, so you know exactly how the two elements line up, or not, with the offset listed. Or one could simultaneously record the audio and one could clap (like the good old days) and then export the recorded audio to help with sync in LightWave & FCP.

I dont think this has anything to do with iPi recording and motion capture.
This is something the mocap artist need to provide for the actor, the same as you provide other props and direction before/during the shoot.

Hi Night, you must not be understanding the wish list, it would absolutely be a useful feature for iPi Motion Capture. Animators use audio references for the actual performance captures all the time, it helps ground the animation to the action for post-processing and animation tweaking, and to just keep things synced in general.

But even if you record it you wouldnt use the audio in the Ipi Studio? So you would need to export it to some audio track. Maybe then it would be easier to just press record on windows sound recorder or another external application?

Yes that's what I'm (and others I assume) are doing, recording the audio takes in a separate application. But if Ipi implimented a very simple recorder it could keep the audio synced to the takes. So imagine you're happy with take 3, you export it and you also get a trimmed audio clip that starts at exactly the same frame as the take, perfectly in sync, which you can then take into 3DS Max or whatever and have synced sound while your work on the take. Then you can even use the take later for ADR (dialog replacement).

So they both need to implement support for it in the iPi recorder , and then iPi studio so that you can export it to 3dsmax where you will finally use it. As a programmer I can tell you that is a lot of work , and the only winning is that you dont need to trim your sound files accordingly to your takes. Hmm, well... atleast i'm sure they have much higher priority items to implement that actually have to do with improving the mocap quality and experience until then.