Syndicate are proud owners of a Rokoko MoCap suit. This gives us the possiblity to add that extra nerve to our animation. Things that would take months to animate can be acted out and directed in real time. The cool thing with Inertial Motion Capture is that it can be done in pretty much any location and during a normal shoot. The suit can even be used underneath regular clothes to capture the actors movements, while they also are being filmed.
What is Inertial Motion Capture?
Inertial Motion Capture[17] technology is based on miniature inertial sensors, biomechanical models and sensor fusion algorithms. The motion data of the inertial sensors (inertial guidance system) is often transmitted wirelessly to a computer, where the motion is recorded or viewed. Most inertial systems use inertial measurement units (IMUs) containing a combination of gyroscope, magnetometer, and accelerometer, to measure rotational rates. These rotations are translated to a skeleton in the software. Much like optical markers, the more IMU sensors the more natural the data. No external cameras, emitters or markers are needed for relative motions, although they are required to give the absolute position of the user if desired. Inertial motion capture systems capture the full six degrees of freedom body motion of a human in real-time and can give limited direction information if they include a magnetic bearing sensor, although these are much lower resolution and susceptible to electromagnetic noise. Benefits of using Inertial systems include: capturing in a variety of environments including tight spaces, no solving, portability, and large capture areas. Disadvantages include lower positional accuracy and positional drift which can compound over time. These systems are similar to the Wii controllers but are more sensitive and have greater resolution and update rates. They can accurately measure the direction to the ground to within a degree. The popularity of inertial systems is rising amongst independent game developers, mainly because of the quick and easy set up resulting in a fast pipeline.
Smartsuit Studio keyboard shortcuts.
Left Shift + drag timeline – create a new region
Left Shift + hover region – access region options (rename, remove).
Left Shift + drag region edges – resize region
Left Shift + F8 – toggle debug options in Smartsuit control panel
Space – start/pause playback
F5 – start a new recording. If currently recording, it stops it.
A – move camera left
S – move camera backward
D – move camera right
W – move camera forward
Arrow left – move camera left
Arrow down – move camera backward
Arrow right – move camera right
Arrow up – move camera forward
E – move camera up
Q – move camera down
Shift + Right Mouse Button + Drag in 3D view – rotate camera around the characters.
M – toggle mirroring in 3D view
Alt + Enter (Windows only) – enter/exit fullscreen.
Command + F (OSX only) – enter/exit fullscreen
Alt + F4 (Windows only) – close Smartsuit Studio
Command + Q (OSX only) – close Smartsuit Studio