Cheap MoCap ?

Hi guys this is quick Test for Cheap MoCap!

Step 1 :

Model and Rig your 3D model in Maya/Max or similar software.
In my case i've modeled woman face in Maya.
I've used 24 bones  those were a bit more... but nah.. just testing :)

Step 2:

Place the marker on your face like follows :

1. My rig has 24 bones, so i should place 24 markers at the same position like my rig.
2. Be sure to pick a good color so when you track the motion in MatchMover the tracking curve stays green! / In my case the pink once were not the best choice /
3. Set up your Cam coder on Tripod. The Cam coder must stay still when you are filming.
4. Your head must stay still. If your head moves a lot you will get a "jiggle" effect in your animation / like in mine /. Each movement of your head is breaking up the tracking so stay still!

5. If you move a lot with your head this can be fixed in After Effect with stabilization.

One trick that you can use is wear a helmet. Like this guy !

The red dots can be easily tracked and by tracking them in AE you can stabilized your movement. In this case the "jiggle" effect on your 3D animation will be fixed.

6. After Tracking your head speaking/movement. You can use Autodesk MatchMover to track the markers placed on your face and then export the data to Autodesk Maya.

7. There you should Constrain -> Parent  the tracked locators to your bones.

8. For better effect and clean up you should play with the Graph Editor or use the Animation Layers to make clean up animations on top of the tracked one.

My experiment is just to try out that this method is working! With a bit cleaning it can get really close to the real MoCap techniques.

So YES! You could do really good Cheap MoCap with Actor/ Cam Coder/ MatchMover and Maya.

For any questions of the process contact me and i'll explain in details !

Xs-Software ®