Motion capture is the process by which a device is used to record the movements of a subject. In our case, we use optical cameras to track the movement of reflective markers placed on our actors. Motion capture has been used in making video games, movies, music videos, and medical and sports analysis.

Motion capture works by tracking and calculating the location of every reflective marker in the camera’s view at each frame. Once the set of 3D points is acquired, they are used to determine joint rotations and bone lengths. At this stage, the motion can be applied to any 3D character that is driven by a skeleton – such as Biped in Character Studio. After capturing, it is also possible to retarget the data to a character that has different proportions than the original actor.

Motion capture is used to achieve very accurate and realistic results in a short amount of time. Countless hours of tedious hand animation can be saved with a few seconds of capturing. For example, to create a running jump by hand may take an animator a few days to create and tune. With motion capture, it could be shot and processed in less than 10 minutes. Plus the animation you end up with will look much better. So the question should be, why not use motion capture?