MoCap, Rokoko and Strom Trooper.

Motion Capture Studio is one of the incredible facilities we VR students at LCC have access to. Motion Capture is about performing an act and capturing it to have real-life motion recorded and available in specialized software, ready to be applied on a chosen 3d model. It is another way of animating digital characters. These animations can be used on their own or utilized as a base in some extent projects, depending on what we are working on.  

I have no prior experience of using MoCap studio or Rokoko suit, therefore, watching it work was a new learning experience. Rokoko Smartsuit was worn by one of my colleagues who performed a range of dramatic bahaviours and positions directed by the rest of the group. As each of us works on our own 3d character and has a movement style in mind, everyone had their turn in giving Billy instructions on how to act in the scene. I had a great time during that session. 

After our work in the studio was completed, it was time to move on to Maya to work with the captured motion.

We started with downloading a Rokoko file and opening it in a new Maya scene. We then had a character reference to whom we had to create a character definition by assigning bones to and saving it as a Rokoko reference (Character 1). We then downloaded a rigged character and repeated the process of creating a character definition for it (Character 2). For this exercise, we used a Storm Trooper model from Mixamo.com. The last step was to choose a source for our Character 2, which was Character 1. As a result, we had the Storm Trooper model performing the action we had captured in the MoCap studio. In other words, we used Rokoko Smartsuit -captured motion on a chosen model in Maya software. 

The animation I planned for my 3d model was a happy skipping and a sudden dramatic fall. I am very pleased with how Billy acted it out in the Rokoko Smartsuit; thanks to that I have a solid base I will be able to work with as soon as my character in Maya is completed. 

The above exercise with the Storm Trooper model allowed me to learn and understand how to utilize MoCap data for 3d models in Maya.