Future of Mocap

From my research i have learned by conducting basic searches and by watching many videos on Youtube that Motion capture has a future of being more realistic and more accurate. There will be more sensors and advance technology to make the person look real and carry all the realism of a proper person such as wrinkles and any dimples. The people already look realistic however the technology will drive to improve reality. I also found that the next mission for people who control this technology want to make the surroundings of Mo cap more realistic such as the place that a shot is being taken place. They also want to increase the number of people that are able to be in one shot. Next they want to increase the speed of the technology as they don't want to get to a point when the technology can not get better.

Motion Capture

After conducting extensive research into Mo Cap (motion capture) i have learned that this technology is used in many fields, gaming, films (Avatar is a good example of MoCap), Computer animations. In basic terms Motion Capture technology is like acting, everything in the game, film or animation is acted out in a technical environment. The person who is acting the scene or game out will have many dots all over their body and they act as sensors, these will get computerise the actions that are acted out by the actor.



This picture is is a person in a MoCap suit, as you can see that he has the sensors all over him, everyone who is acting out has to wear this special suit.



This is Avatar, this film is completely based on Mo cap, as you can see this is Mo cap taken to its full potential, all this equipment had to be tested many times before this film could be shot. The equipment used for this amazing film is all valued at million of dollars. The had a budget of $300 million dollars, and also it could be viewed in 3D.

Advantages and disadvantages of MoCap....

Advantages

Motion capture offers several advantages over traditional computer animation of a 3D model:

• More rapid, even real time results can be obtained. In entertainment applications this can reduce the costs of keyframe-based animation. For example: Hand Over.

• The amount of work does not vary with the complexity or length of the performance to the same degree as when using traditional techniques. This allows many tests to be done with different styles or deliveries.

• Complex movement and realistic physical interactions such as secondary motions, weight and exchange of forces can be easily recreated in a physically accurate manner.

• The amount of animation data that can be produced within a given time is extremely large when compared to traditional animation techniques. This contributes to both cost effectiveness and meeting production deadlines.

• Potential for free software and third party solutions reducing its costs.

Disadvantages

• The cost of the software, equipment and personnel required can potentially be prohibitive for small productions.

• The capture system may have specific requirements for the space it is operated in, depending on camera field of view or magnetic distortion.

• When problems occur, it is easier to reshoot the scene rather than trying to manipulate the data. Only a few systems allow real time viewing of the data to decide if the take needs to be redone.

• The initial results are limited to what can be performed within the capture volume without extra editing of the data.

• Movement that does not follow the laws of physics generally cannot be captured.

• Traditional animation techniques, such as added emphasis on anticipation and follow through, secondary motion or manipulating the shape of the character, as with squash and stretch animation techniques, must be added later.

• If the computer model has different proportions from the capture subject, artifacts may occur. For example, if a cartoon character has large, over-sized hands, these may intersect the character's body if the human performer is not careful with their physical motion.

PS3 Move Tiger Woods 11 Hands On

This video shows how golf works on the PS3 Move

PS3 Racket Sports Squash + Platinum Trophy

This is another game that you can get on PS3 move

Sports Champions Volleyball PS3 Move Hands On

This video shows how the technology works in PS3 move

Research: Playstation Move Ping Pong

This video shows the Ping Pong game that is available on PS3 Move

PlayStation Move

This shows how PS3 Move works

Avatar: Motion Capture

This video shows that you can make whole films using Mo Cap (Motion Capture) this shows how this technology can be used to its fullest.

Motion Capture

This video shows how Motion Capture works and it demonstrates the realism that the technology can achieve

Lighting Principles

Main Light
Main light is the strongest. It is set up first, 45 degrees away from the camera. The rest of the flash lights are subject to the main light.

The main light defines:

1. size and shape of an object
2. color or mode (black and white photo) 3
3. persistence of shadows which play an important role in creating an impression of a dimension
4. shape and size of the bright surfaces
5. contrast of the shadows (strong, medium or soft shadow)

The right exposure is defined according to the main light.

Front Light or Fill light
Front light is set on the opposite side of the main light. It controls a shadow density. To reduce the strength of the shadows we use light reflectors. Advisable is to make sure that the main and the fill light do not have the same intensity because in that case the object on the photograph will not have any shadows. Generally, that's not the desirable effect. Contralight It's used to accentuate hair. It also separates the model from its background and the object itself gets more of a volume to it.

Background Lighting
Sometimes it's necessary to light up the area behind the object. To do so we use a background light. If the object of interest and the background are the same color, background light can help highlight the shape of the object itself. When setting up any kind of lighting (photo or video) it’s important to follow a few specific steps.

First, set up the main light, then the fill light, and at the end, the background light. It’s done this way because if we would turn on all the lights at the same time, we would not be able to recognize which light is dropping which shadow. An affect like that is called a "stadium" effect.

When setting up the lights make sure to place them behind the camera to avoid its shadow falling on to the object of interest. The further the light is the weaker it gets and its strength falls each square distance so the exposure needs to be longer. That means: If for one meter distance the exposure needs to be one second long then for twice longer distance the exposure should be four times longer, for three times longer distance the exposure should be nine times longer and so on…

Production Log on lighting....

Today we went out with Andy and he demonstrated to us how we should use lighting outdoors to enhance our image to make them look like a proffessional stadard. The camera we used was a Cannon also we used one light with a reflector. we learned that our light is coming from one side and to light the other side of the face we could use a reflector to bounce back the light. We also were taking shots to use the natural light to our advantage.

These are some of the shots we had taken.....

Camera Settings

In this session we went through the basic camera principles, if you get these basic settings right in all of your shots then you will deffinatly get your desired effect that you are hoping to get. The main few settings are ISO, Shutter speed, Apperture and finally Focus i will be going into these in more detail.

What is ISO?

ISO is the amount the camera is sensitive to light, the setting of ISO should be down to the enviroment that you are shooting at, this could be a dark or bright enviroment. if you have a 100 ISO then your camera is less sensitive to light however if you have a 3200 ISO your camera will be very sensitive to light, that is how people use light to draw a picture as this will make your shutter speed long aswell.

This image has been taken to demonstrate ISO, the left one has been taken at 100 ISO you can see that it is a much darker image as it is at a low ISO, However the other image on the right is of a much higher ISO 3200 to be exact and it is a much sharper and brighter image, however if you look closer the image goes a little bit grainy. so you should be careful when you are shooting to get a specific effect as something such as a grainy picture may ruin your shot, before setting your camera to get a desiredd shot you must have a rough idea of what type of image you will get out of that particular setting.

What is Shutter speed?

Shutter speed is the amount of time the shutter of the camera is open, if your shutter speed is open for "1s" this is 1 second then the shutter is open for 1 second while that shutter is open light passes through the lense, the longer the shutter is open the more light passes through the camera, the quiker the shutter speed the less light that passes through. These are some of the shutter speeds.

1/1000 s

1/500 s

1/250 s

1/125 s

1/60 s

1/30 s

1/15 s

1/8 s

1/4 s

1/2 s

1 s

These are some of the effects you can achive by playing with the shutter speed of your camera.

 

As well as to make light drawings using a longer shutter speed also is frequantly used in motorsport, the reason it is used in this is because it puts speed and motion into the shot, this goes to show that just because it is an image doesn't mean you can't have motion init.

What is Apperture?

Apperture is depth of feild, the lower the F number as Apperture is mesured in F numbers/F stop the lower the value of F stop the more light let into the camera, and the higher the F stop value the less light let in. Once you master apperture you can achieve many proffessional effects. If you keep you apperture high depending on evviroment and you subject fairly close to the camera you can achieve a blurey background effect, this is good when you have a sandy and sea background.

As you can see from these two pictures you can achieve some great proffessional effects by using thiss setting to its full potentional, with mastering this you can get really creative and let your imagination use this with in your own work.

What is Manual/Auto Focus?

Manual/Auto Focus basically is a simple function on a camera which if you have on the auto focus mode, it will focus automatically, however you can choose to focus your self manually. Most of the time Auto Focus does all the work, however if you are doing portraits, working in low light enviroment, shooting out of glass or shooting action you should use manual focus. By getting the focus right you make sure the camera always gets the subject and it makes sure it is in detail. 

This video shows the importance of getting the focus right....

Finished 3D animation

This is my finished 3D animation, i uploaded it on Youtube then posted it on my blog, if i was to do my 3D animation again i would defiantly make sure i take my time and make the subject move much slower and aim stick to the 25 frames per second, the reason i would do that is because it would make my animation look more professional, another thing i would try to do is make my animation much longer as this is like a 18 second animation.

3D animation Production Log

Today i put together my 3D animation, i got all the images off Matts hard drive, i then copied them onto my desktop, i then opened up Final Cut Pro. i copied all the images into final cut followed my selecting all the images and dragging them into the timeline,

images i used in my 3D animation

 

These are some of the images that i used in my 3D animation, i had a few little animations going on. The first one is of the dog chasing a twig then he gives it to his owner, the oner then throws the twig in the river, this makes the dog sad and stressed, the dog then finally has a cigarette. 

Sound for 3D animation

I am at home today and I was thinking about my 3D animation, from home I started to look into possible sound that I could download that I can have in my animation, the sound that I downloaded was the song 'who let the dogs out' the reason i chose this sound was because that song is relevant to the animation seen as it is about a dog. 

3D Animation Production Log

Today before I came to college I read the tutor site which instructed us to bring a 3D Toy/Action figure, this was because we were doing 3D animation now, the toy that I chose was a dog, it was on wheels and had a string so it could be pulled along, the reason I chose this toy was because it would have been easier to do animations with as it had wheels making it easier to move for my animation.  When I got to college we went out into the wash lands to shoot our 3D animations, I worked in a pair with Steven, all we had was my Dog so we were limited to what we could use in our animation, in the end we did one animation of the dog chasing a twig, the owner supposedly being Steven taking the twig off the dog and throwing it in the river, at this point I was already thinking about the sound that I was going to use, I was thinking when the dog sees the twig go in the river I would have a sad whimpering sound to add to the effect. Another animation I did was a smoking dog; this was my idea just to make my animation funny. After I finished shooting my 3D animation I went back to the class and uploaded the images on to my memory stick ready for me to edit and construct my animation.

Analysing other 3D animation

This is another 3D animation, the reason i watched this video is because this is a more amateur animation, it would be more of the standard that i will be creating, the background music in this video is really a cartoon talking however i would want some music as i will be using a toy dog and you don't have talking dogs.

Analysing other 3D animation

I am looking at other peoples work on Youtube, this will give me a feel for the quality that you can produce when working in 3D animation, this particular animation is done to a very high standard, i will make sure that i try to make my images for my 3D animation as slow as possible by moving my subject very slowly. I don't think i will be able to have 25 frames per second however i will try to make it look as if it is flowing as much as possible.

Burton bollard

This is my completed Burton Bollard 2D animation with sound. if i was to do this project again i would make sure there was to be more shots to make my animation flow more also i would make my animation longer as i had taken about 40 pictures and only got an 8 second animation so now i understand if i wanted a 2-3 minute animation i would need upto a 1000 shots to make a good flowing animation.

Downloading sound for my 2D animation

At this point i needed sound to add into my animation, from watching other peoples work on Youtube i learned that all the did was add a soundtrack into the back, however the more advanced animation that were done professionally had proper sound, this meant the sound would flow with the animation. i didn't want to just add a soundtrack in i wanted the sound to flow with the animation, the reason i chose to do this was because it would ake my animation look more interesting and professional, and for this reason i downloaded sounds of buses, cars, and car cashes. this was all downloaded of youtube and in a MP3 format as this is the most common sound format and i knew it would be compatible to most editing softwares.

Uploading and Putting my Animation together

Today i uploaded all of my images that i had taken to do my 2D animation. The equipment that we used to take the pictures was a Cannon 1000D, with a Tripod, this made sure that i got the background in every shot as the camera was mounted in one position at all times, to make sure that my background didn't move around i taped down the edges of the background that i used.

Once i uploaded the images i opened up the editing software that i was going to use, Final Cut Pro. i added all of my images onto the timeline and i was trying to work out how i could change the duration of the images down so i could get the animated effect. after playing around with many features n the software i realized that i had to do every image one by one. this took a while however was worth it in the end.

Developing 2D Animation idea....

Today i am going to put everything together for my 2D animation, i am going to make my background by layering images on top of each other to create a background, some images i have to set the backgrounds transparent so they look good when they are layered on top of each other. After i finished layering my background to how i want it i made 2 print outs in A3 size, one with the background, and the other of all the moving images on a plain white background ready for me to cut out.
I realised at this point because i am going to have my bollard ringing up and down multiple times i am going to need to have many multiple cut outs of my bollard in different sizes, so to resolve this issue i made a slit in the road on my background and fed the bollard through the hole to make my life easier. By doing this it would mean all i would have to do is print one bollard out and i can rise it and make it smaller just by feeding it up or down the slit that i had made in the paper.

2D Animation images and Idea...

THE BIG IDEA....

The idea that i came up with when thinking about what to base my animation on was Burton bollards, i came up with this idea by thinking about something that is local to us in Burton and something that involves movement, straight away i came up with this idea. The reason i chose to continue developing his idea rather than choosing another one was because it is funny and everyone would recognize where i got inspired. 

IMAGES....

These are some of the images that i have selected to use in my 2D animations, the reasons i have chose these images because i want to recreate the Burton bollards in 2D animation, i will have the rising bollard allowing the bus past however it will hit the car following the bus, all these images i will make sure that the backgrounds are transparent. i will have 2 copies ones of the background, and another of the vehicles and bollards cut out as these will be the parts of my animation that will have movement involved. 

Research summary & Ideas

All these videos below are videos that i have been looking into and researching into, this will enable me to get inspired and will make me think creatively about what i could do my 2D animated video on. from watch these videos i have learned that i can do near enough anything for my own animation, By looking at other peoples work i have picked up that you can get as creative as you want as 2D animation can be about anything with movement. By looking up on animation on Google i found that the trick is t make the objects move by millimetres literally and take loads of shots of the object moving bit by bit, the principle that i need to try to work at is 25 frames per second, this means for every second there should be 25 images, this will mean if i have a 10second animation i should have 250 images. These figures may sound crazy for a 10 second animation however that is how you will get a smooth flow and a consistent animation. By doing basic research i mastered the basics of animation and i have the knowledge to embark on my own project with confidence.

Ideas for 2D animation 

Stick boxing match

cup arrangement 

drawing something on paper and having a step by step animation

Burton bollard animation with a crash

football animation with someone taking a penalty

doing an animation with something to do with playing cards

something to do with a cup of coffee or tea this i can draw

The Animated Movie

This video has some amateur animations in, these are the types of animation that i will be creating as i am a starter in this field. In this video there was no story or no flow, and to be honest it is quite disappointing, the reason i say it is disappointing is because the sound has no relation to any of the animations, the animations are stick people so i don't think it can be very hard to make a good flowing animation by using stick people. When i create my animation i will try to avoid using stick people as i wouldn't want to keep drawing stick people i would like to just move objects around as it would make my life easier and it would give me the control of how much i would like to move certain elements of my animation as when shooting i may want to change my mind of how far i want to move for example a car or a leg of a person, if i draw out my animation multiple times then i would have to just shoot, by cutting things out i will have the freedom to improvise at the time of the shoot. 

T-SHIRT WAR!! (stop-motion music video)

This video is aimed to advertise and to entertain people at the same time, this T-shirt war is a very good example of what i am doing in my course, in the course i am studying animation, 2D animation to be exact. This has inspired me to use my creativity on my own animation, at first i thought it would be really hard to create something unique however after watching many videos like this one i have the confidence to come up with something unique funny and entertaining at the same time. From this video i have learned that it takes time to come up with a good flowing animation, they state in the video how many t-shirts they used, so if i was going to create something similar i would have to make sure the objects/subject will have to be cheap or affordable or even possibly free. if this video could be improved in anyway i would make the sound more related to the animation, the current background sound isn't bad however there could be actual sounds that relate to the animation to make it look more realistic.