Hello,

Just wondering if anyone had any tips for the ideal way to capture a guitar performance.

Should I attach some PS Move controllers to the guitar and some to the hands (via gloves)?

...

What capture device, Kinect 2 or PS Eyes?

Kinect sensors in my experience will most likely have issues with a prop like an actual guitar, better with either devices to just use something basic (with small visual imprint on data) to hold of the same general length for use just for maintaining hand positioning in general, layer adjustments will need to be done later in another editor anyway for best final results.

Connecting a Move controller to a prop isn't necessary, that can be done later using constraints in a 3D editor, being a guitar would be a rigid object mesh.

You can do a hand pose library in iPi, but it is a bit tedious for fingering motions, does work for basic hand poses though, then can be better adjusted and more precise fingering animations added in an external 3D editor of your choice.

...

I don't think this will be especially helpful but, FWIW, I've been using dual Kinect with Move controllers to capture a simulated guitar performance in our music video. (Image in the banner below.)

When I recorded the motions, I used a Nerf Sword as a prop, which is about the size of a guitar but 'thin' enough that its volume doesn't interfere with tracking. Then, while listening to the audio track, I basically mimed what our musician friend 2ch did when we recorded the actual guitar performance for the soundtrack. (Ukulele actually, but whatever.) We recorded the real-live music performance on video specifically for visual reference to help me to practice my 'fake' performance.

I couldn't record fingers of course but the character (Toullie) doesn't really have any fingers, so I wasn't too concerned about that. I did want the general hand positions, arm and body motions though. Mocap Studio did a decent job with the arm and wrist motions.

This all went okay--a little better than I was expecting actually--but I still needed to guide the position of Toullie's paws to credibly 'stick' to his cg instrument. The adjustment was made in Motion Builder (more or less as described by Snapz) but this could be done in almost any 3D animation program, including iPi Mocap Studio.

Note: The example described above had been recorded using dual XBox 360 Kinect (v1.0); nowadays we're using dual Kinect 2, which is smoother and a bit more accurate. (I am not re-doing our original captures/animations though!) :)

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

Watch a one minute excerpt on Vimeo now!

Thanks for the tips guys.

I just finally got the setup working. I am using dual kinects and currently have two PSMoves for the hands.

I didn't know you could add hand poses - that sounds very useful.

...

You can tape, or cross wrap an Ace bandage around the Move controllers to the top of hands to free up fingers for holding things, but you will most likely need some type of soft riser under them, if you need full back articulation of the wrists.

I basically made my own glove now just using the circuit board and battery out of the Move and attached it to the back of a light weight glove, but not everyone wants to or needs to do that, was just a better way for me. (Images of it in the General index under Move Controller Glove).

I am not sure how well you can see the fingering positioning from the video with Kinects to do the gestures, but the wrist tracking should be really close if you position the hand correctly with the video and Move before applying the data, may take you a bit to get used to how this works best.

Another tip: The added gestures can be made to come in and out faster or slower by hovering over the added hand key, then dragging the "white double arrow icon" NOT the black one! (the black arrow will move the whole key positioning), and you can get more precise movement by holding the shift key while dragging, as well as if needed you can zoom the timeline into a more specific area of the ROI, this would be useful for faster finger transitioning like guitar use, that you can't really see when ROI is at full length view.

Will probably be hard anyway without the actual guitar mesh added to get precise, but just some ideas.

...