A nightmare if it’s set up on FK arms, but a simple Anim Layer fix on IK.

Say you just need to move the character’s hand slightly to the left - same performance, just relocated slightly. If I was animating them I’d always want to have FK arms unless there was a specific reason not to, but with mocap that’s not the case. For mocap, I like to have IK hands and feet always. Here’s how I set it up.įirst I set all the character rigs to have specific default settings for mocap. I needed a pipeline to keep everything in check, though. I went through the first pass of the film, noting down all the bespoke motions that I thought would allow me to tell the story better. It arrived about a week later, by which time I’d settled upon the changes I wanted to make to the film. So, happy enough with the results I was getting in terms of data quality, I ordered a replacement for the foot.

After a bit of a stock take, I realised it had a broken part (the left foot). With lockdown lifted, I was able to collect it from storage and give it a test run. I plugged the suit in and found it difficult to calibrate, and not having any immediate use for it, put it on the shelf. By the time the campaign was over and the suit arrived it was a year later, and I’d realised what folly the Batman project was. So I invested in Noitom’s Perception Neuron Kickstarter (I was also exploring FaceShift at the time, for facial mocap). There’d just be too much, it would need to be motion-captured.

Years ago, back when I wanted to make a feature-length Batman fan-film by myself (sigh), it was obvious to me that I wouldn’t be able to animate much of it, if any. Rough animation only gets you so far, and even that is too time-consuming at this stage.īut I actually had a mocap suit. It’s a very important step in the process. Several times in the weeks prior, I had wished I’d had a mocap suit, so I could quickly record the actions I had in my head and try them out. The response was positive and I got some useful notes, too. I also sent it to a few choice contacts for feedback. That was the weekend lockdown was lifted, and I was able to present it on the big TV to my fiancée and visiting parents.

I finished the first pass of the film the weekend of July 4th - eight weeks since I had the idea.

Mixamo maya