Motion Capture Week 5 - Recording in MoCap Lab

Last week in our Motion Capture lecture we learnt about the concept of the 'Uncanny Valley', and how it could impact the overall appearance of a character that looks like it's trying to be a human but certain features look unnatural, so the character becomes unsettlingly creepy.

During the week, my group and I had the opportunity of recording in the Motion Capture Lab with the Mo-Cap technician. Our group member Jasmine put on the Mo-Cap suit with the reflective markers and performed the actions from our shot list. She started each recording in a T-pose in order for all the markers to be identified by the cameras before she began moving. The filming took about an hour and we got 28 shots done including many alternative walk and run cycles. I was in charge of video documentary of each shot, so we can look back on them to see how we need to animate the fingers, and will help to assist with the data cleanup visualization.

Next week we will need to edit/clean up the recorded data in a software called Cortex. Some of the data will need more cleaning up than others because in certain poses, parts of Jasmine's body were covering the reflective markers on her suit, so the marker becomes undetected. At the time it seemed like that the majority of our poses were not too complex and didn't block the markers from the cameras too much, however there were some exceptions such as crouching behind the counter.

Here are some shots of us filming in the Mo-Cap Lab (permission has been given by my group members to upload these images):