Greenlaw wrote:
PS3 Eye is a good system if you have the space and suitable lighting for it.
In general, you need at least 13 x 13 ft and larger if you want full coverage with more cameras. I used to record in a garage that was about 16 x 20 ft, which was just large enough with my lighting setup and recording about 270 degrees.
The lighting should be non-directional so that dark shadows do not fall on the performer. If you decide to shoot outdoors, you want to shoot on cloudy days, very early in the morning, or late in the day to avoid harsh shadows. The reason you want to avoid hard shadows is that the tracker may read this as motion and get confused.
You also need appropriate clothing. A bright colored long sleeve shirt with a black short sleeve T-shirt works well. The the color sleeves helps the tracker distinguish the arms from the torso, and the black T-shirt hides the shadows cast by the arms. The clothes should be reasonably close fitting because the tracker expects to see a clear human form.
Four cameras will give you ok mocap data; better if you can perform to one-side. If you want the highest quality with more freedom of movement, you'll want 6 or more cameras. Just bear in mind that adding more cameras means you may need a larger space.
I haven't recorded for a while but these days I typically use dual Kinect 2 sensors. This is about the equivalent of using 4 PS3 Eye sensors but allows you to record in a much smaller space. (With Kinect sensors, I can record motion capture data in our small-ish living room.) Kinect capture also doesn't require special clothing or lighting since the RGB video data isn't used for motion capture.
The RGB data can be used for calibration when you use the 'Maglite' method but if you're only using two Kinect sensors, you can use the depth data capture to calibrate and not bother with RGB video at all.
The 'downside' with Kinect 2 capture is that you need a separate computer for each sensor. Note that with recent releases of Mocap Studio, it's possible to work around this 'MS imposed' restriction but I haven't had much luck with that. This multi-computer restriction does not exist for XBox Kinects but the data quality isn't as good either.
Regardless of which system you use, you'll want a decent graphics card in your computer to track the data.
Overall, yes, iPi Mocap Studio's data is suitable for games. Years ago, I used it for feature film VFX with success.
Hope this helps.
Thank you for your review! Can you tell me what level of quality you get with the three Playstation 3 Eye cameras? Assuming even lighting and bright clothing.
