Ideas

Studio II began yesterday with professor Joe Pasquale. Today I’m working in the studio finding a ’sweet spot’ for the hand motion capture animation. In other words I need to find a spot in which all the markers on my hands can be seen by the cameras with minimal flickering.

To test for an ideal spot I first held out my hands and walked around the boundary box slowly to see which area could see all my fingers as I moved. Then I made a second round where I wiggled my fingers like I was playing a piano.

Hands

Gloves

It appears that the best corner is by cameras #4 and #5. At this corner I’m getting readings from cameras 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11 and 12. That’s 9/12 cameras.

Spot by #4 and #5

The second potential spot is directly between cameras #2 and #3. At this location there are actually 11/12 cameras seeing parts of my hands but the number of cams that can see the entire hand is lower. The cameras that can see the hands straight on are critical.

Spot by #2 and #3

A third spot would be directly in front of camera #8. At this spot there are 9/12 cameras that can see my hands.

Spot by #8

I have a capture session scheduled for Thursday at 5pm. I will try all three spots at this time. I also will be playing Fur Elise and Mary Had a Little Lamb for test songs and potentially to replace the song Mad World that I had originally planned to use. I also have a DVX100 camera checked out for this session so that if the capture is successful then I will be able to do a breakdown.

As a secondary idea for when this project is finished, I would like to try more full body captures including the three finger gloves. I’ve contacted an animation major I know to try to get in contact with others that would be interested in sharing their modeled biped characters for me to add motion capture to. If I did this then they would be able to showcase their model while I can have a previously modeled character to animate.

Mocap Studio

Mocap Studio

This week I’ve been re-rigging the Alien. She has a modified Mia skeleton out of MotionBuilder. I worked with finishing off the dance motion capture and am close to a final product. Below is the image of the skinned alien.

Rigged Alien

This is the dancing alien. She is rigged with the modified Mia skeleton and had a 3 fingered capture attached to her that was captured in ViconiQ.

Alien with motion capture of me doing the twist added to it.

I have been designing an outfit for the piano playing character. I was debating on a necklace that looks like a galaxy or planets, as well as some sort of modern styled dress.

The following picture is one that I referenced for my design. There are also several pictures of necklaces that would fit with the project’s theme.

For the dress, it will incorporate the style of the top of this outfit, but will be a rubber type material. It will also be a halter, have a shorter neck and no coat tails. The bottom will be a flowing full length skirt.

I plan to create this outfit using ncloth, perhaps in my Digital Visual Effects II class as my final project.  I will be consulting both teachers within the next week.

Modern Dress

Orbital Necklace

Orbital Necklace Detail

Idea to incorporate into the Orbital Necklace

Lighting Test

I spent the weekend organizing my plan for the project. Now that I have the majority of the modeling covered I’m going to be working on the space scenes until I get those models.  At that point I will texture the models and continue on with the space scenes.  I will be working on making planet textures for the next few days.

In my other class we are learning Maya particles.  I am working on a particle star field rather than using a matte painting as I did in a test in my lighting class.  A galaxy made of particles is also in progress.

Galaxy of particles

End Shot Example

For my Studio I project I’m working on a piece involving motion capture. The goal is to have an alien-like character playing Gary Jules’ version of Mad World on the piano. The project goes from the character playing the piano on stage to the viewer seeing what this creature is imagining while playing. The piano turns from a real piano to keys moving and floating in space, to music notes, to planets. We travel through the planets and eventually back to Earth where hands appear holding the Earth up.

Mad World by Gary Jules

My current plan is to have the project be as long as Gary Jules’ song, but that is up to how much I can get done in two quarters. I plan on this being my project through Studio I and II.

For the piano playing I am teaching myself a version of the song so that I may record it myself, but at least be doing the piano playing for the motion capture.

Josh Walton will be modeling the alien character and Kyle Blair will be modeling the piano. I will be doing the texturing, lighting, motion capture and animation.

The project will be done using Maya 2008, Vicon and Motionbuilder.