Lets pretend for a moment that the year is 1998 and you’re sat trying to get a 3d model made on the computer. However the computer is struggling to redraw or move the model because the model is well beyond the capability of the computers power. In that moment you dream of working on a system that has limitless power. Knowing that one day the power would happen, I became interested in computer input devices, controller software and hardware. Fast forward 20 years…
I’m sat working on a high detail model 600,000 facets very complex geometry. I have the realisation, My dream has come true. Motion capture for a long time was seen as the best way for putting action into computer game FMV “Full Motion Video”. This video is for “Cut Sequences”, when a player achieves an outcome. For a long time motion capture was mainly for the game industry, but as the computers / graphics technology got faster the possibility for use in films became a reality.
Before motion capture came of age, Rotoscoping and tracing movement in footage was the main way to achieve similar visual effects. Green or Blue screen Matte backgrounds can only do so much and it’s hard to match lighting when mixing different sources. To achieve better results was hard and time consuming. However now virtual production is a thing.
The modern film age, something almost like the “Holodeck” from Startrek is what was needed and now sets can have the next best thing. Giant screens to display backgrounds and effects giving better matched lighting for the filming subject. The positive light emission that screens and projectors offer help keep the look consistent.
Those positive light screens, projectors and displays can use the same HDRI images used to light and create the 3d assets. This consistency between practical filming and 3d has raised the bar. This control of the filming environment and better matching 3d effects has made already convincing effects even more seamless. The resolution and motion control systems have had to improve and evolve to meet this massive step forward. If the visual quality improves the inaccuracies of the motion capture show up more. Editing and adjusting the 3d motion capture even with current technology needs to be refined and edited. Sure you can use the raw capture and you might be ok.
3d Motion capture doesn’t always go to plan, we call it “stutter or ghost in the shell, or a glitch”. Most of the time nothing goes wrong, but after the capture date creative changes might need to be made or movement corrections might need to be edited.
This Blog is about the up’s and downs in what we do. When we say that, we really do mean the up’s and downs! We are also including how we keep an eye on the technology developments in the industry and how we got started!