Motion Capture
 

 

1. What did you use motion capture for (to show a story, to use it to demonstrate a set of motions, etc.)

 

Content and Story

 

the title: "The Last Individual"
 
theme: society causing individuals to conform and "execute" their identity due to pressure in order to fall in line with the majority and lose their identity in the process."
 
story: the last individual alive is being tortured and observed in a cube like room, padded like an asylum. other characters (which all look identical to each other and are wearing signs with the symbol of "infinity" on it) are observing the character through windows in these walls. within the padded room are the main character and a shotgun. signs are posted on the walls reading "obey, conform, follow." a voice is playing over the loud speaker repeating these same words. breaking under pressure, the main character moves towards the shotgun and puts it in his mouth. he pulls the trigger thereby executing his indivuality and killing himself. he reappers outside of the cube environment as another faceless observer... with no indivual identity.
 
animation style: realistic movement with motion capture
 
art direction influences: stanley kubrick "Full Metal Jacket", alan lee (lead concept artist on LOTR), the film "One Flew Over the Cucku's Nest", the video "Stinkfist" from the band Tool.
 
This is an adult piece for mature audiences with graphic violence, visual mental torture, and suicide.
 
things to be textured:
 
1) main character- reference images will be provided. the creature has the aesthetic and look and feel of a cave troll from lord of the rings. wings will be attached to him and he has the ability to fly. opportunity to texture the wings similar to a dragon "nazgul" from LOTR.
 
2) 4 walls of the exact same texture- the walls are padded similar to an asylum except each wall has a long window in it.
 
3) one wall with blood splattered on it (a lot of blood, think the suicide shot from "full metal jacket"). this wall will replace one of the "clean walls" in a cut shot.
 
4) a shotgun
 
5) background characters which will be indiviual image planes, this should take an hour at most, once i show you what i want it to look like. they are 2d graphic images.
 
6) 3 signs with stylized these words (conform, obey, follow)- i will show you the aesthetic of what i want the words to look like, they will be of the same style as the background characters
 
7) a floor (which should look sterile)- grid pattern
 
and a ceiling (which should look sterile as well)- grid pattern
 
- the environment is basically a cube with the main character in it and the background characters staring at him through the windows.

 

models for project

main character with rigtest
shotgun
space

2. Why was motion capture useful for this? Could it have been better attempted through 3D or 2D animation?

 

Mocap was needed because the extreme amount of movement and character needed for this piece would be difficult to keyframe. It was helpful to listen to a certain genre of music to help get into character. It was also helpful to use the props (chair, mats) needed to simulate the motion.

3. Comparison and contrast of Maya Trax Editor vx. Motionbuilder for blending motions.

In regards to blending, the use of motion builder is much easier. However, in order to alter motion, it is much easier to alter keys in the trax editor. I am personally more comfortable with keying in Maya as opposed to motion builder, so that was more efficient. The trax editor can act funny at times and not do exactly what you want to do. The motions in maya are more set in stone, as opposed to dealing with the raw c3d file, so that makes it more difficult to play with. It is noted though that in order to achieve the effects of this piece, keying was done on top of the trax editor clip.

4. Show the completed movie(s).

movie

5. Short Explanation of what went right and what went wrong. What would you have done differently if doing it again?

I was pleased with absolutely everything.. except for the flying sequence of about ten seconds. That is the only thing that went wrong with this project. That might be due more to an inexperience to keying in motion builder as opposed to the capture. It just gives the illussion that the character is jumping up on a box as opposed to actually flying in mid air.

6. What did you learn from this course?

The reason why i took this course was to learn more about the software motion builder. That definately happened. Now i feel comfortable enough to not only do motion cpature, but actually clean it and alter keys in motion builder.