HIGH FIDELITY CHARACTER ANIMATION

For full frame character animation there is no substitute - motion capture is now a routine technique for creating believable full size characters on set and on screen. Mocap used to be the technology for the background characters - those days are over. Foreground characters are now routinely animated using Vicon motion capture systems.

 

FIRST UNIT CAPABLE OF

Live action, green screen, 25 people on set and optical motion capture. Prior to Vicon, those things would never have been possible simultaneously. Now they are - and routinely. With "on the fly" calibration and intelligent cameras coupled with studio integration tools like SMTPE, Genlock and remote triggering.

 

CAPTURE MULTIPLE ACTORS SIMULTANEOUSLY

Vicon makes capturing multiple actor shots easy. Whether in big volumes or not, because of the high resolution T-Series cameras, you get super high detail. Users routinely capture 8 actors simultaneously.

 

REAL-TIME

Real data on real CG characters in real-time. Allow your talent and your director to see the motion applied to CG right there at the time of capture - ensuring that the right performance comes through.

 

HIGH QUALITY. HIGH ACCURACY

The system delivers the cleanest data. Pure, high quality, high accuracy. Vicon does this because in every step of the capture process from the design of the marker to the design of the export software, the focus is on preserving the fidelity of the move. This quality focus means you get the most believable animations available.

 

PERFORMANCE CAPTURE

Never before have both face and body data been captured during the same performance with enough fidelity to make it to the big screen. Vicon erases this limitation. Face, full body, and hand captures are now possible all on the same actor on the same stage at the same time. The Vicon T160 camera, with 16 megapixels processing 256 shades of grayscale in every frame make it possible.

 

POWER TOOLS

Powerful tools to finish even the jobs that go horribly wrong – the ability to can a shot that was not perfect. Vicon's Blade software is easy to setup and use with a well-designed workflow allowing for fast turnaround of previz and final shots needing fewer people than other motion capture systems. On the motion capture stage, shots are being delivered in minutes on the mocap studio floor. This was thanks to the automated pipelines that learn your specific and unique processes and way of working and then automates it in a savable pipeline process file.

 

PRODUCTION READY

Vicon has been designed with production in mind. This is why the system offers full master and slave timecode support and genlock abilities, including the ability to uplock from broadcast and film frame rates (24/25/30 fps) to the higher rates of motion capture (up to 1000 fps). It even makes shooting Pick-ups easy because it is straightforward to unpack the system, set it up and shoot.

 

The Motion capture area coexists with our green screen cyclorama, giving options of combine use with Previzion virtual set. With its capture volume of 16m x 9m x 5m it allows capture of multiple actors or animals with enough space to allow full freedom of motion. Depending on the requirements of the project we can re-arrange the positions of the cameras so they form any shape or cover different area of the soundstage.

Our setup uses the latest generation of Vicon mocap cameras – the T160s. They provide 16 megapixels of resolution and up to 2000 fps frame-rate giving smooth result even when very fast movements are recorded. The cameras are qualified to work inside and outside making capture sessions done outdoors possible.

 

Technical specs

• 120 FPS Full Frame
• Electronic Freeze Frame Shutter
• VICON Avalon16 Sensor
• Remote Lens Control
• VICON Lens

 

The T160 motion capture cameras are the highest resolution possible for a mocap system (16 Mpix) which allows facial capture of tracking markers on actors face. Beside that method we offer head mounted cameras for "emotion" capture, during full body motion capture sessions.

 

Cinemotion has built “Director’s camera” rig with real time fully rendered preview and instant playback allowing any kind of camera motions, done by moving real handheld rig or putting it on a crane or dolly.

While using the system the director sees fully rendered photo-real images created in realtime (up to 120fps) with Unreal engine. There are options for other photo-real production proven renders for final image like VRay Chaos, Octane Brigade and others.

Because it shares the same studio space with virtual production system, real actors can interact with CG creatures and pre-visualized in real time inside any virtual environment.

The optional post-processing services applied on the motion captured data are powered, by our award winning 3d animation department proven in numerous VFX projects done by Cinemotion through the years. To get a better idea about their skills, please check our film reels section of this website.

We provide custom tools build to make the integration of the raw process data with animators’ rigs even easier, like the 3d point data to blendshapes plugin for Maya and many other tools and additions.

For each session Cinemotion provides a custom avatar built and rigged to represent in the best possible way the movements of the captured actor.