Reference recording day - any interest?

rustybroomhandle

Even though motion capture is something that pretty much anyone can do these days, it's still very useful to have animation reference videos. There are bunches available online, for example:



and



But I haven't found anything particularly comprehensive. So I have a suggestion. How about we set up a makeshift studio, treadmill, plain backdrops, cameras etc... and we get together for a day to record people doing stuff. Tall people, short people, male, female, walking, talking, sitting, being bored, running, sneaking, crawling, smoking, shooting, bouncing, punching, smiling, frowning, etc, etc, etc.

And then we post all of it in a single place. Youtube channel plus an accompanying site to help sort and categorise.

Would anyone be interested?

Tuism

That sounds awesome! True crowdsourcing! :D

rustybroomhandle

Will take that as a no :P

I guess there aren't too many folks here who do games requiring realistic humanoid animation maybe?

SkinnyBoy

I guess you need more than 16 cameras in a 4 dimensional space 4 cameras each side, that a very basic animation that will not make accurate points.

Price 16 x R5999(cheap HD camera) = R93000+-

I think a software like poser will save you lot of money and you don't have to deal with real people "stress--"

Elyaradine

Actually, this sounds like a lot of fun, as well as being useful. :) I know our animators would totally be on board for it.

dislekcia

SkinnyBoy said:

I guess you need more than 16 cameras in a 4 dimensional space 4 cameras each side, that a very basic animation that will not make accurate points.

Price 16 x R5999(cheap HD camera) = R93000+-

I think a software like poser will save you lot of money and you don't have to deal with real people "stress--"

*boggle* Where's the 4th axis? Cameras already incorporate time... Have dimensions changed? ;)

This isn't about mocap, the original idea was for useful reference material. You only need 1 camera for that, the whole point is to maintain constant distance.

Elyaradine

Yeah. You miiiight want to shoot using two cameras, so that your references for front and side views sync up for comparing them, but I don't know how much more useful that is. (I'm not really much of an animator.)

dislekcia

Also, reference material is for exactly what poser can't give you: All the little ways that human bodies move and jiggle and rotate and settle and take up space. Poser's not very good at secondary motion.

WelshPixie

There are some martial artists among us, aren't there? Might be fun to record some moves too for anyone who might want to animate fighting into their game :) (Also, just fun. ;p)