Motion capture is recording the actions of someone using sensors. The actors or actresses are put into an outfit with several retroreflective markers which bounce infer red light which is then picked up by a series of cameras placed around the area. The cameras then send the information to the computer which then makes a 3D image of the person move.
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| The T pose start position I had to do for 15 minutes, because I accidently broke everything. |
I arrived there forty minutes early with my friend and since Starbucks is across the street, we decided to have some coffee, which I consider to be the best but also the worst decision I made that day. Firstly I love Starbucks and this leads me to buy expensive beverages filled with caffeine, which I strongly approve of...besides the really expensive part. The only problem I had was that some of my family once worked at the museum, and I was trying to tone down the weirdness. Weirdness is good, but I don't think that explaining why Alan Wake would have been even more scarier with squirrels instead of birds would have been classed as sane at the museum and I slightly feared that they would end up carrying me out on a handmade stretcher, similar to how they transport the Egyptian mummies through the departments.
We entered the museum twenty minutes before the session and decided to go and see the Rosetta stone. Doing work experience here had a benefit, not only is it one of the most gorgeous museums in London. I mean just look at this view, I had to pass this every day:
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| Well I'm bored just looking at it. This is the right side of the Great Court at the British Museum, I took this photo from the balcony. |
The session began with the instructors going through the basics of motion capture and they explained that they used it for films such as AVATAR and Beowolf, and video games like Uncharted, before showing us the the suit. The suit that the actor wore consisted of a hat, jacket, and trousers all with the little reflected markers which were connected with Velcro and easily detachable. The area itself was no bigger then a few metres but there was markers on the ground so you know how far you could go. There were eight cameras in the room in fixed points on the ceiling. If you are camera shy, being in the suit and having your motions captured probably wouldn't have been easy, all the cameras pointed at you and there were two huge screens showing what you're currently doing and during my session there were photographs being taken. Normally I am, but I really wanted to do the motion capturing. One screen had a 3D person walking around on a grid, whereas the other showed the character, that would be the final product.
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| I'm not sure if he's punching the creature or pointing...Nevertheless it was a pretty cool talk. |
We were placed into groups of two and threes, and sent out of the room after choosing from four different characters and backgrounds we wanted. We then had to come up with a two minute story which our character star in. One group did a romantic story, another did a horror story, and I was filled with caffeine... Starbucks was perhaps my worst decision of the day. Me and my friend decided that the knight (which was the character we had chosen) after returning from battle would do a victory dance, and understandably we received very strange looks from the group that was trying to do the horror story. I then lost a bet with my friend and had to be placed into the tight mo-cap suit, I didn't mind all that much to be honest. Before recording, we had to show that we were ready, to a complete stranger, so I had to dance...for two minutes without a break.
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| I was also wearing a t-shirt that had an angry cupcake on it saying "Cupcake of Doom, recoil in fear from my evil butter cream centered filling." that combined with the coffee pretty much ended my goal to appear sane. |
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| It was also an incredibly fiddly suit, it had gloves to go over the hands. I had difficulty just with the hat let alone the entire suit. Plus my hair had to be placed in a bun because it would cover some of the sensors otherwise. |
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| This was the area where I did the motion capturing. The photograph was during the 35 minutes where I broke everything. Although it wasn't so bad because I got to watch the little 3D character which was pretty awesome. I believe this was near the end when I decided that the best way to get the computer to recognize me was to act like a zombie...I actually wish I was kidding. |
When we were able to record, the coffee kicked back in and the character ended up exploding randomly at the end since I accidently stepped outside of the lines. The screen of the final product with the 2D character didn't interest me as much as the one on the right. On the right was a huge monitor which was operated by two computers, that screen showed exactly my actions on a 3D model which was awesome but also kind of off putting when you're doing the recording.
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| My little 3D character on the screen. It's not showing my actions as clearly as it was when I was moving around since this was near the start when the limbs decided to migrate to opposite corners of the screen, but I have my hands on my hips. The levitating cubes on the screen are the cameras located in the room. |
Thanks to everyone at the Samsung Digital Discovery Center for doing the session, I had a really awesome time, and it was a topic that I had an interest in for a while but I didn't really have a chance to do motion capture before this. So thank you for setting up the cameras and being really awesome.
Here's a photo of me:
DID YOU KNOW? For the movements of Lara Croft alone they had to bring in three different people to do the movements. Chrissy Weathersby Ball, Heidi Moneymaker and Dana Reed
THE MOTION CAPTURE SESSION IMAGES ARE FROM:
The British Museum: Samsung Digital Discovery Center Flickr
Taken by Daniel McKenzie-Cossou
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