How can one assure Realism in animation while also keeping production schedules realistic ?

Welcome to our motion capture service!

Motion Capture is a process where the movement of an actor is digitized (captured) and transferred onto an animated character (skeleton solving). In order to capture these movements, special equipment is needed. At metricminds, we trustfully rely on a Optitrack Motion Capture system. This system features 68 high-resolution cameras which record the movements of markers attached to actors and props inside the “capture volume”.

The markers are strategically placed on the Actors’ bodies to capture the exact movement of the individual body parts. Movements are filmed by the aforementioned 68 specialized cameras mounted on a rig. The resulting images are processed by the system and yield a set of coordinates for each marker. This information is used to triangulate the position of the markers in relation to the cameras.

Our capture volume has dimensions of 8×16 meters (26 x 52 ft), which is ample space for most scenes. With our 14+ years of experience in motion capture, you can rest assured that we will find the best possible way of accommodating your scene in our motion capture volume.

Before each shoot, we like to make sure that we fully understand what you would like to capture, we will therefore ask a couple of questions and plan out the shooting schedule and all necessary items with you. If you like, we can even find suitable actors for your project.

We can capture up to 10 actors at once and we can build and capture a wide variety of props (if we haven’t already, then you can still use them in our studio).

Each motion capture shoot is also filmed by 2 HD reference video cameras, attached to the Optitrack system, which record the action on plain video for your reference and to make take selections easier. Additional video cameras for reference and / or making-of footage as well as operators are available on request, of course.

There are two types of motion capturing. The first is a separation of body and facial capturing. During this process only the body motion is captured. Any facial animation may then be added afterwards by keyframing or by using a separate capture pass just for the face.

The second type is performance capture, where the body movements and facial expressions are captured at the same time. It is easier to capture the range and depth of emotions that you may require from your characters. During a performance capture shoot the actor wears a helmet-mounted camera, filming just his face as he is acting out the scene.

For facial animation, we use either of several options (more are added as you read this…): Faceware, DynamiXYZ, keyframe animation, Faceshift and FaceFX. Which system is best for you depends on the desired animation quality coupled with budget and time constraints.

Please contact us to find out more about our motion and face capture services!

Telephone:+49 69 759 3380
FAX:+49 759 338 29
E-mail: info@metricminds.com