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!