Research Structure - Early research

Limitations within motion capture

Develop, Will Freeman, 2013http://www.develop-online.net/tools-and-tech/motion-capture-moving-with-the-times/0117523
Markers - Limit movement possible
Motion Builder only allows for retargetting between characters with the same amount of bones. The video a little further down shows that this doesn't need to be the case.

constraints highlighted by Michael Gleicher at 1998 siggraph

"We motivate our approach with an example: retargetting motion capture data of an actress walking up to, picking up, and carrying away a box. During pre-processing, we augment the motion data by specifying constraints that are essential to the action: the hands must grab the box in the middle frame, the hands must remain the correct distance apart while carrying the box, and the feet must be planted and not skid when they are on the ground."

NOTE: Consider the affect props have on the capture data. 

Expand

Examples of Non-Human Biped Characters

 (and possible free rigs and meshes i might use during testing)

Could be characters with counter weights like wings, tails or asymmetrical features

Could be characters with legs set up more like a birds

Different centers of gravity

Proportions - Look at Ted and how they applied real motion to the short limbs of the bear

Human Rig for comparison

How to Judge success

How well the data applies to the new hierarchy without any adaptation?

consider how long the adaptation would take? 

Is the method efficient enough to improve existing pipelines?

Existing Work

Havok Engine retargetting research: 2009 

What I'd like to produceWould like to produce something like the above video for final report. Demonstrating the same motion capture data retargeted to different biped creatures. Hopefully looking a little less stiff than the examples in this video. There should probably be at least an example of a walk cycle and also maybe an interaction with an object.

Things to look intoSomething something.. methods of creating additive animation used to help find a balance between mocapped data and whats needed for the motion to be believable for the character

Chain Maps? (retargetting between different character resolutions. arms, legs, spine.) Important at all?