Has anyone taken a look at Brekel's upcoming "Pro Body" mocap software which is now in beta? Looking at the interface there are already some things that Ipisoft could benefit from.

http://www.brekel.com/?page_id=1048

-2 person tracking

-Hand tracking

-Better visibility of your skeleton/rig when also viewing the depth cloud. I like how the joints draw ON TOP of the cloud.

-Point cloud colored with rgb data from camera.

-Audio support for better synching and choreography

I'm applying to be a beta test so will report back my findings if and when I am able to try it out.

Thanks,
Mitch

On a quick glance the UI does look nice but possibly just because I like black UI's!

I have applied for beta but will have to pick up a Kinect to use it. I love the fact I can use 4 ps eyes with Ipi, its a cheap replace if anything goes wrong and it always gives me good results. If anything this Brekel beta will make me pick up a Kinect or 2 but I will probably end up using it with IPi at the moment.

But hey, I'm willing to give anything a try!

Looks like there's a bit of healthy Dutch competition in town!

Has Ipi added an audio guide option into Ipi Recorder yet?
It was a long time ago that I suggested it, and I'm 'shooting blind' with my syncing at the moment without it.

Quick tip: I just clap my hands to a brief audio countdown for audio sync--this give me a visual cue in either the RGB video or motion data. It's how we've been syncing the performances to music in our current production. We used to do this way back when we 'roto-captured' our data by hand and it works fine even in this modern age. :)

When we did Happy Box, we just performed to the voice track--it was loose but close enough to get it in sync easily in our animation package. Keeping detailed script notes during the shoot certainly helped.

G.

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

Watch a one minute excerpt on Vimeo now!

I do see your logic Greenlaw, and I think we've been here before on this subject. But the project I'm working on (that I can't describe too much unfortunately) uses other dialogue footage as well that is used alongside the mocaps.

I'd save myself hours of work if I could have an audio waveform from Ipi.

I'm using Final Cut Pro with the Pluraleyes plug-in. You line up your multiclips, and let Pluraleyes sync it all for you - it matches and syncs the waveforms.

I guess I'll have to go the hand clap way, until this option is introduced.

Moan over

Seems like an old thread, but how much more accurate iPi Soft is vs Brekel Pro Body ?

I watched YouTube videos last night and it seems like the jitter is horrible with Brekel. As if it was never meant to use Brekel for anything but fooling around with mocap tests.

I haven't used Brekel for body capture but I know it relies on the MS Kinect SDK, so it's probably prone to the same jitter issues faced by other Kinect based capture system. Some users feel there is an advantage in capturing directly within other programs like Maya and Motion Builder in realtime. Once captured, the second program might be used to correct the motion and remove jitter.

Mocap Studio takes a different approach. Instead of relying on the MS Kinect SDK and trying to capture motion in realtime, Mocap Studio separates the capture process into two dedicated stages:

1.) Use iPi Recorder to capture raw motion data files first using multiple cameras or Kinects.

2.) Use iPi Mocap Studio to track a skeleton by processing the capture data with physical dynamics and the full power of the computer's cpu/gpu. This second stage is partially automated but you'll want to supervise it for best results. After applying the configurable Jitter Removal, you should have a reasonably clean mocap file ready for retargeting. You can retarget within iPi Mocap Studio or do your retargeting and further editing in another program like Motion Builder or Ikinema Webanimate.

As with Brekel, Kinect 2 support is also coming to iPi Mocap Studio. I'm not sure if either Brekel or Mocap Studio will support multiple Kinect 2 yet, but Mocap Studio currently supports up to three Kinect for Windows which practically eliminates occlusion issues for more accurate results. AFAIK, Mocap Studio is the only system that currently does this. Another advantage with Mocap Studio is that it can simultaneously capture data for the head and hands (wrist rotations) using multiple PS Move controllers. (We successfully use three PS Move contollers here.)

Hope this helps. I've been using iPi Mocap Studio since its early beta days. So far I've completed one short film with it, working on a second one (a music video,) and have used the system on a couple of feature films for digital stunt doubles and background 'actors'. As I said, I haven't used Brekel for body capture but for accuracy my personal feeling is that iPi Software offers the best 'low cost' mocap system currently available.

G.

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

Watch a one minute excerpt on Vimeo now!

Fair enough. I just saw Brekel's FAQ, and he states that iPi is more accurate.