So I have a garage that is 28 x 18 and I'm wondering if this would be enough to run 6 ps3 cams? It is mostly empty but the two motorcycles, which I could put between cameras and cover with cloths. The garage is unfinished so would I need to hang drop cloths to try and make it uniform? I'm hoping to get a full circle with the cams on light stands. Thanks for any help and advice...

Hi there :)

Some of our forum members use their garage for mocap. As a matter of fact, a regular contributor on here, Greenlaw, uses his garage. I'm probably going to move my 6 cam setup to the garage as well now that it's cooling off. I know that Greenlaw uses Green Screen material to cover his walls, but I don't think this is as absolute necessity. However if you did want to go that rout, you can get green screen material fairly cheap on Ebay. The major thing you will want is lighting. Get yourself some good Full Spectrum fluorescent lights to cover the "volume" so that it's evenly lit. I recommend full spectrum because they give an accurate color reading to the cameras and because fluorescent bulbs burn cool, therefor it wont get hot in the garage. If you are to put 6 cameras in a full circle in a garage, that should give you (roughly) an 8 foot square area in which to record. If you put them in a semi circle, it will actually give you a lot more recording space and you can still do 180o turns. Since you have 6 cameras, try to have at least 3 of them high up as to record shoulder movement; this helps with turns.

Actually, I just read you message again. You say it's 28 x 18? Its longer than it is wide - sooooo - you MAY have enough room. Where you are going to run into problems is placing the cameras on the side, unless those are the cameras you place high up looking down. None the less, this will cut your "volume" down from the initial measurements I gave you. Instead of 8 foot square, you may have something like 7 feet x 5 feet. Either way you have enough room. Can you move the motorcycles out while you're capping? Any extra space is handy.

Here's are twp ideas for placement, although it's not a "standard" full circle.
1) Place one camera in each corner at about 8 feet.
2) Place on camera directly in front of you at about 5 feet.
3) Place the last camera a few feet below the front camera (about 3 feet)

I would be hesitant to place cameras on the sides because it will cut down your performance space tremendously.

Option Two: Semi Circle

1) Pick a corner that you will be performing in.
2) In the corner opposite of you, place a camera approximately 8 feet high.
3) In the corner to your left and right, place a camera 8 feet high.
4) To the left and right of the camera opposite of you (#2) place a camera approximately 5 feet high.
5) You're last camera place just below the camera in front of you at about 3 feet.

This last scenario will give you a little more capping space than option one. But the main thing with this setup, is that it's able to more accurately record your sides than the first scenario. Either way, as I said, you should have enough room.

Let us know how it goes! :)

Pat

What Pat said is all good!

A few notes about my setup: We have a green screen in our garage but as Pat noted, it's not necessary for good capture. We have a green screen because we also do a lot of chroma-keying in the garage. That said, the screen does cover a bit of wall 'clutter' that might otherwise interfere with iPi Studio tracking, and the green color contrasts well with the red, black and blue clothing used for PS3 Eye recording.

For a long time, my setup was four PS3 Eye cameras arranged in a semi-circle and this worked very well for most motions. I added two more cameras but I found that my space was too small for a full 360 circle arrangement. I now have five cameras in a semi-circle which improves my capture resolution, and a sixth camera high-up in the rear which does help fill in what used to get occluded with my old four camera setup.

For our current project, we're doing everything using only the Kinect, but this project was designed to work within the limitations of the Kinect. Our next project, RVJ, has a continuous 1 minute performance by one of the characters, so it will be captured both ways (Kinect and PS3 Eye.) Naturally, the better of the two versions will be used in the film but I'm mainly doing the two version because I'm interested in comparing the results. After that, we'll get back to finishing 'Pooper', which was already mostly shot using the four camera setup, but we still have a lot shots to complete.

Anyway, to keep this post on topic, all three projects have been or will be shot in a smaller garage space or in our living room.

G.

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Greenlaw
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Hey G,

How high up do you have that 6th camera? I'm thinking about doing what you're doing. My front room in my house is 18ft x 13 ft. I can easily get 5 cameras in a semi circle at the far end of the room, but will that 6th in the rear cause spacial issues in the "volume"? Am I making any sense? lol I'm also thinking about haging green screen for contrast reasons. The paint on the wall closely matches my skin tone and I have wood floors, so I'm a little worried about shadows.

Pat