Monday 29 October 2007

Lights, Camera - Action! (Motion Capture)

Are we always in the need for top quality gaming? Is it true that we are all so demanding? Yes and YES!! Here we have a nice kit of technology which has pushed the gaming industry forward so much in realism when it comes to movement in living creatures including our selves! This is called Motion Capture, for short Mo-Cap.

Now you’re wondering since when, well I can say definitely since Acclaims PC title Alien Trilogy and then in a higher profile game which you may recognise was Turok: Dinosaur Hunter. This technology was mainly used in movies and animation before then; Acclaim brought it into the world of Sports gaming with their NFL Quarterback Club 96 on the N64. And the sports gaming industry has never looked back, now almost all sports video games are made with motion capture to give it the more realistic look.

I have to tell you that this kind of operation isn’t cheap either, it may cost around £30K-£70K depending on the scale of the project. For a successful mo-cap session you need a determined team, with a leader to conduct rigorous planning, as the company is paying so much money u need to take use of all the time you have. If there are celebrities involved it can get tricky as they can easily get bored and de-motivated, you want to get the most out of them! The money isn’t too important anymore, when the industry’s revenue is at equal amount to a movie industry then developers can afford such luxuries, unless you’re a small time company working in a garage – then you have no hope to compete against their quality. So you can imagine the pressures on the directors or producers for the mo-cap sessions. All this aside it can become a joyful experience for the people involved, think about it you get to meet celebrities and some eye candy computer effects at the end of it.

The technology varies from studio to studio, but they all have the same concept which is recognition of movement of light attached to a skeleton or graphical figure. This is reproduced in real time so you can see the effects as you do the motion takes (this process is called Post-Production). It is especially very good for sports games. In sports it’s all about individual movement, that is what makes some one better than another, it’s their skills and final touches. The use of extensive cameras pick up these beams which is then sent via a connection to the super computers, I know that EA uses 86 flexible cameras in their in-house studios. Their motion capture is so thorough that it picks up face expressions by the athletes, which means they have little sticky dots on their lips which reflect light. Guess we are going to get all of Ronaldinho in Fifa 08!

Here is a little video clip of Y2K having a night time out-door mo-cap video shoot for their basketball game, what I like about this is the fact that its open to public so people get to see their stars. It is also a great marketing idea for promotion and building hype, but I would like to say it is a prime example of RIGOROUS PLANNING!!

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