Differing results

So now we have this BVH file. I decided to try this file with a couple of softwares to see how they translated. I have 3DSMax 2012, Daz Studio 4 and access to Maya 2012.

Max is available for a trial period, or purchasable for £3,442 (woah, pricey) or free (I think) for a student version from here http://store.autodesk.co.uk/store/adsk/en_GB/DisplayHomePage

Maya is also an Autodesk product so you'll be able to find it in the same place.

Daz is currently free at http://www.daz3d.com/i/3d/free-3d-software-overview?home_f_btn=start for a limited time. So is Bryce and Hexagon. Just add them to your basket, along with any other free stuff you can find on the site, make an account, (No credit card details needed) and 'purchase'. Then you are ready to go.

Here is my iPi mocap. See how at the end of the motion, during the big swing, his arms and leg gets lost in the video so iPi made up the action.

Opening up 3Ds max, I created a Biped an imported the BVH onto the Biped. If I play the animation now, you'll see it works pretty well apart from the bit at the end where the data messed up.

From another angle, we can see the extent of the damage

It's not too bad. I can edit that so it's useable.

DAZ on the other hand. That is a whole new kettle of fish. Daz rigs have a crazy number of control points. The whole body is rigged pretty close to a real human. I imported the BVH onto a quickly made default 'Genesis' character and laughed myself silly.

And from the other angle, it's still just as funny

Yeah. The limited rig of iPi is NOT suited for Daz. Not yet.

I'm testing this at home so I have to access to Maya. When I get back to Uni, I'll post my Maya results. As I am at the start of my project, the other members haven't progressed in their modeling enough for me to use their models to rig. Instead, I'll just record my bits I need for the project... A bunch of people milling around and talking, throwing feed out of a basket for chickens and a child running about (I'll get my sister to do that bit for me)

iPi Studio (oh the problems)

If you're here, it means you got the recording done and are ready to move on.

Either read this, which contains info about errors you may encounter, or watch this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyyUXZzKYr4 Which doesn't.
This isn't me (I'm female!) but I learnt from this video.


Thanks for sticking around :D

Lets open up iPi Studio and get acquainted with it. It'll change in a bit too, so let's move quickly.

1. These are your standard File/Edit menus but THERE IS NO ABILITY TO CTRL+Z OR UNDO. Remember this because it's a pain if you mess up some how
2. This handsome man is your actor and skeletal tracking rig.
3. Up on this ribbon, you have 'Skin' and a slider. Click Skin if you just want the skeletal rig or use the slider to make him more or less opaque.
4. These tabs contain all you need to get this running, but right now, we'll ignore them.
5. Your play/pause controls. You're not stupid.
6. Your timeline. It's currently empty but you'll need it later

Now we got that out the way, click 'Open' and locate your Kinect recording and open it.


THIS IS WHERE SOME OF YOU WILL ENCOUNTER ERRORS.


Namely "Attempted to read or write protected memory. This is often an indication that memory is corrupt." I had his error for a day before the problem was fixed. If you can play the video in VLC, it's not a corrupt video. 


Try to follow the official fixes here: http://wiki.ipisoft.com/index.php?title=Troubleshooting#Video_codec_problems


But in the end, mine was fixed with installing the Combined Community Codec Pack from http://www.cccp-project.net/
Follow the installation and agree to everything. Hopefully that fixed it.

Now nearly everything has changed.

1. is still the same
2. you actor is now a green man, you have a video and depth map in the background
3. now has "Video" and "Depth" buttons and sliders
4. is now actually useful
5. are still the same
6. now has 2 grey bars in them named "Region of Interest" and "Take 1"

The movement controls are as follows:
Scroll Wheel button (Mouse 3) pans you about the scene
Right click rotates you
Left click selects stuff

The software will have processed the background as you imported the video. This whole this is a little cluttered for me so I clicked "Video" and this hit the video track, leaving me with the depth and the actor.

Grab the slider at the timeline and drag it over until you see your actor get in the "T" position. Find a section just before the actor stops the "T" position. Grab the left end of the "Region of interest" bar and drag it to where your slider is. This stops the software trying to compute the actor before that point. Do the same for the end. Drag the "Region of interest" bar when the acting stops. Copy this with the "Take 1" Bar too.

When you're ready, move your slider to the beginning of your "Region of interest" bar. Click on the "Actor" tab on the right. Here you will see a height slider. Get your skeleton rig to the right height and position. Use "Move" and "IK" up on the ribbon. Don't be too precise. The software will do it for us.

Click on the "Tracking Tab" on the right. In this menu, make sure "Enable foot tracking" is ticked. Then click "Refit Pose". Watch your rig do a little dance. When it's finished, click "Track forward" and sit back and wait. The software will now track your actor through your selected "Region of interest".

MORE ISSUES
Mine works fine but my boyfriends doesn't actually track it. It just does nothing. Still working on fixing that

When it's finished, hide the depth the same way as you hid the video, ramp up the actor skin and press play. My animation was a little juddery, so I clicked smooth until I was happy.

When I was happy, I clicked File and exported it for a 3DMax Biped, which exports as a .BVH

Onwards!

Getting familiar with iPi Recorder and recording your motions

The most important thing here is knowing what you want to achieve. At the moment, I am looking at action-based mocap, NOT facial capture. (I'll do face capture later). I am not modeling or rigging right now (I'll get to rigging for myself later too).

So to start this, you'll need:
- A Kinect (I'm using a XBOX 360 version with the USB and Power cable. I have no knowledge of the MS one)
- iPi Recorder (Available free)
- iPi Studio (Available free for 30 days)
- About 10 foot of space
- And a PC (Duh.)

iPi is available here -> http://www.ipisoft.com/downloads_index.php

- Go ahead and install the recorder, the studio, all the extra drivers you need (don't bother with the PS Eye thing if you don't want) and update to the newest version (just close the programs and open them again)

Plug your Kinect into your PC and lets the drivers install.

Open the iPi Recorder and a popup will.... well, popup asking you to define the camera you want to use. Select the MS Kinect one.

If you have a webcam, that'll show up too

You'll then see this awesome colour screen showing you the depth it's picking up. Play around in-front of the camera. Everyone does :D

Let's investigate this Recorder.

1. This lets you select which motor to move. As I'm only using 1 Kinect and this only has 1 motor, I'm restricted to 1
2. This is the tilt slider. Move this left and right and it'll move the Kinect up and down (So much fun btw)
3. This button changes the picture from psychedelic depth to boring real image. I keep this on Depth.
4. Is what your Kinect is seeing
5. This changes the location for the output file. Mine just dumps straight into 'Documents' but you can change yours by pressing that button with 3 full-stops on it.
6. Most of this is just info you don't need to keep an eye on EXCEPT the bottom line "Dropped frames per minute" If this goes red and says (intolerable), the file you output will be choppy. Bad video makes for bad mocap.
7. The Kinect only captures in 30 frames per second and in a 640x480 resolution. So these can't be changed
8. The start/stop button. Yay!

Ok, so position the Kinect so it can fit all of you or your mocap actor into the scene. If you want to capture walking, ensure they won't leave the scene during the performance unless it's intentional. Try to keep all limbs in the scene.

When you're ready, clear the scene and press record. You want to record a second or so of just background as the iPi studio uses this to determine the character. Walk into the scene and pose in the standard "T" position for a second or so.

Say 'Hi' to my mocap actor, Elliot!

Then act! When you've finished, click Stop and it'll save to the directory


If you want to check the file to make sure you got it right, you might be a bit surprised when you open the file.

Watch it anyway to make sure you got it right.

When you're happy, move on!

Hello there!

I am in University studying Design for Games and for my second year, I have a subject called "Personal Project". It's a veritable free for all, as long as I document it. I have decided to do motion capture for an advert for a game some friends are making. I do the mocap, music and talking, they do the modeling.

The entire journey of learning how to mocap is an interesting one and one with not a lot of helpful tutorials attached to it, so I thought I'd share my experiences with everyone so this kind of work can be replicated. It may also help with any problems you may encounter along the way.

I'll go into detail if I feel it's needed, but generally I'll keep it simple. I do use some pricey software, but perhaps you can access it elsewhere? School? Free-trials? Or the other sources you probably know about?

I'm not particularly skilled in these bits of software, so these tutorials are good for beginners. I'm updating my results as they happen.