Presentation slides and notes

This is long overdue. I got really bogged down with other coursework which is no excuse.

Slide 1
As written my Aim is to explore methods of retargeting motion capture data to non human characters in the hopes of discovering a more efficient pipeline than those currently available.

Slide2

This slide shows an example of the main thing i'm hoping to avoid. Especially when it comes to biped characters a real problem is getting them to move as if they aren't just a guy in a suit at a theme park.

Slide 3

This is the first of the existing examples i found. It's taken from a short called "40 Years" and the stills on screen are taken from a breakdown video they made. While it's very nice to see it visually I haven't been able to find any documentation on what processes they needed to go through to get to this point

Slide 4

The other example is Ted, They had Seth Macfarlane on set in the motion capture suit (the one that uses sensors rather than markers which eliminates the problem of occlusion and marker swapping as they resonate at different frequencies) As you can tell by the image there's a problem with proportions when its first captured which then needs to be fixed in cleanup.

Slide5
So as a result of the research (that i have really badly documented on this blog, but i'll get better!) I have four methods i can look into to try and improve the pipeline a little. I think that it would be best if i focused on this four alone to narrow the scope of the project but at the same time if i find something interesting that's relevant and worthwhile Its better that i follow that.

Slide 6

This is an example of how props can be used. I won't be able to do something as grand as these but I would be able to get the actor to hold weights to help shift their own weight. The obvious problems that come from using props to adapt a performance are listed in the bullet points. The center of gravity might appear wrong for the character if it's a quadruped but also marker occlusion/shifting and confidence. If you're in one of those rigs i'm not sure how confidently you'd be able to move.

Slide7

so a big chunk of my research currently has been looking at the procedural methods of animation found in spore. The animators had a massive task of having to produce animation for creatures they'd never seen so it's an interesting if not very wordy read

Slide 8

Tasks that i'd need to do to complete things

Slide9

A thankful hippo

Comments

The main comment i got after presenting was that it seemed like my scope was too big for the time we have. I think this was because my slides didn't really express that i only wanted to find ways of improving it slightly using techniques i found rather than fixing it entirely. Because of this i should probably look at revising my aim and objectives to reflect that more clearly.