SFM using Kinect

[Froge]

I am going to buy a connect but I don't know which one, my budget is 200 dollars(USD). What do I need for SFM the Xbox 360 Kinect or the Xbox One Kinect, Maybe even the Windows Kinect (It has bad reviews so idk if I should buy it.). What should I buy to use Motion Tracking with the Kinect. Please tell me which to buy to use for SFM and also Garry's Mod maybe.

[Mind Man]

Hello, Flying Mystical Frog

I recently was able to hook up a Kinect with my computer, so hopefully I can be of assistance. I bought an Xbox360 Kinect, and the USB was adaptable to my PC. If you buy one, you may or may not need a USB adapter for it based on the model.

After purchasing an Xbox360 kinect, or Kinect For Windows, You must Kinect Runtime as well as the Kinect SDK. After doing so, connect your Kinect to your computer and driver installation will automatically take place. Finally, after driver installations comeplete, start up Garry's Mod and test the kinect by clicking on the Kinect icon in the bottom right section of the startup menu, and selecting "Show Kinect Window" Or something along those lines. If you cannot see the window, something did not install correctly. Make sure you installed V1.6 of both runtime and the Kinect SDK.

I hope I could help,
~The Walrus

[Abzero]

Here's my advice:
If you wan't to Mocap in source filmmaker i would advise doubling your budget.
A kinect is about £200 and the best software to create the animation in my opinion is Ipi mocap studio 2 which is £195 so you should set your budget to about £400 (No idea what that is in dollars)
The kinect for windows really is the best in my opinion, forget the bad reviews because it's more reliable than buying an Xbox kinect and finding out it's not compatible with your PC.
And the windows kinect also works in Gmod (Believe me, i've tried and it's hilarious).
Hope i helped :)
-Abi

[Froge]

Originally posted by DefinitelyNotAbi:

Here's my advice:
If you wan't to Mocap in source filmmaker i would advise doubling your budget.
A kinect is about £200 and the best software to create the animation in my opinion is Ipi mocap studio 2 which is £195 so you should set your budget to about £400 (No idea what that is in dollars)
The kinect for windows really is the best in my opinion, forget the bad reviews because it's more reliable than buying an Xbox kinect and finding out it's not compatible with your PC.
And the windows kinect also works in Gmod (Believe me, i've tried and it's hilarious).
Hope i helped :)
-Abi

Thanks man, when I get more money ill buy it, I decided to buy an Elgato HD60 with that money.

[Froge]

Originally posted by Doctor Bertram Walrus:

Hello, Flying Mystical Frog

I recently was able to hook up a Kinect with my computer, so hopefully I can be of assistance. I bought an Xbox360 Kinect, and the USB was adaptable to my PC. If you buy one, you may or may not need a USB adapter for it based on the model.

After purchasing an Xbox360 kinect, or Kinect For Windows, You must Kinect Runtime as well as the Kinect SDK. After doing so, connect your Kinect to your computer and driver installation will automatically take place. Finally, after driver installations comeplete, start up Garry's Mod and test the kinect by clicking on the Kinect icon in the bottom right section of the startup menu, and selecting "Show Kinect Window" Or something along those lines. If you cannot see the window, something did not install correctly. Make sure you installed V1.6 of both runtime and the Kinect SDK.

I hope I could help,
~The Walrus

Thanks man, when I get more money ill buy it, I decided to buy an Elgato HD60 with that money.

[ConfederateJoe]

You can get mocap software from autodesk free, just pick up the educational version which is the same thing but free for non commercial use.
(If you do want to use it commercially, don't tell no one, shhhhhhh)

As for a kinect.... they don't cost $200 do they? Just buy one or two alone...
You'd probably find a good deal for around $90 a piece if you looked hard enough.

Unless you pick the windows one, which would be better, but also more expensive. There may be other cameras out there you can use for less money.

[Paintbrush Poltergeist]

I've used two kinects and the mocap studio. I had mediocre results from it.

[~₸~Ø~Ñ~¥~]

Эм а что я вовще тут делаю?

[BATMAN]

I know this is an old post but I'm looking to do animations, is the kintic still good to get or is there better?

[Turgineer]

I'm thinking of buying it to make better/easier animations in SFM and Blender. Because it is still the cheapest MoCapture device available.

Is it difficult to use and how good is its consistency?

[Fluid Script Studios]

Originally posted by Turgineer:

I'm thinking of buying it to make better/easier animations in SFM and Blender. Because it is still the cheapest MoCapture device available.

Is it difficult to use and how good is its consistency?

I've used mocap for about 7 years now. Tried both ps3eye's and kinects. I would suggest trying out and getting usto mocap with ps3eye's first since they are very cheap (close to 4 bucks a camera) and you can get your feet wet with using the software. Currently my setup is 2 kinects, and i find this the most suitable, because the calibration process is easier, and when it comes to how tracking works, it's able to pick up your movement better, since clothing in your setup matters when using Ps3eye's, and this is cumbersome when it comes to tracking your movement.

In terms of how good and useful it is : Mocap is extremely useful. I have a stream on my channel that goes over Mocap workflow (how to cleanup and deal with mocap) and once you get a handle on how to clean it, it can take animation that what would have been weeks, into minutes. The quality of the recording is the most important part in how easy it is to cleanup...so it is worth going for the most ideal recording setup you can (having enough space for the cameras, cleaning up your room so you dont have stuff all over that can interfere, placing the cameras in optimal recording orientations etc...) so that you have less cleanup work to do.

Here is the livestream for reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbfYTJSPOwg&

[Turgineer]

Originally posted by TheNCourt:

I've used mocap for about 7 years now. Tried both ps3eye's and kinects. I would suggest trying out and getting usto mocap with ps3eye's first since they are very cheap (close to 4 bucks a camera) and you can get your feet wet with using the software. Currently my setup is 2 kinects, and i find this the most suitable, because the calibration process is easier, and when it comes to how tracking works, it's able to pick up your movement better, since clothing in your setup matters when using Ps3eye's, and this is cumbersome when it comes to tracking your movement.

Wow, thank you for your answer, it is very difficult to find someone knowledgeable on this subject.

I didn't know that MoCap could also be done with PS3 Eye and the price per camera is only 6 dollars. However, in some videos I watched, it seems that the PS3 Eye may have difficulty detecting movements even when used more than once. Just like you said. I don't want to deal with the setup over and over again, so it makes more sense to buy two Kinects at once.

A reddit post said that Kinect has a narrow field of view. Approximately how large a space do I need to use Kinect and and is the software required for MoCap paid?

[Fluid Script Studios]

Originally posted by Turgineer:

Originally posted by TheNCourt:

I've used mocap for about 7 years now. Tried both ps3eye's and kinects. I would suggest trying out and getting usto mocap with ps3eye's first since they are very cheap (close to 4 bucks a camera) and you can get your feet wet with using the software. Currently my setup is 2 kinects, and i find this the most suitable, because the calibration process is easier, and when it comes to how tracking works, it's able to pick up your movement better, since clothing in your setup matters when using Ps3eye's, and this is cumbersome when it comes to tracking your movement.

Wow, thank you for your answer, it is very difficult to find someone knowledgeable on this subject.

I didn't know that MoCap could also be done with PS3 Eye and the price per camera is only 6 dollars. However, in some videos I watched, it seems that the PS3 Eye may have difficulty detecting movements even when used more than once. Just like you said. I don't want to deal with the setup over and over again, so it makes more sense to buy two Kinects at once.

A reddit post said that Kinect has a narrow field of view. Approximately how large a space do I need to use Kinect and and is the software required for MoCap paid?

Hey again.

i would once more, recommend starting with ps3eye's first so you can familize yourself with how these techs behave, which will then give you enough general knowledge about what is going to be better for you. The Ps3eye's are not bad, they will record mocap well but they require a different set of "things you have to care about" when doing a recording.

For example : The clothes you wear...have to "not be the same" as the space you are in. If you have white shirt, and a white wall, the ps3eye mocap will have issues distinguishing you from the background color and it will jitter and wibbly wobbly the movement. In the same token, wearing the same colors as your own body parts, will occlude themselves (if you are wearing a white long sleeve shirt, then your arms when they pass over your chest, the program will have a hard time distinguishing your arms from your chest)

To further prevent occlusion the program needs more cameras at different angles to differentiate your body parts. Getting more cameras = need more space/potentially smaller capture area. And when you need more cameras, you need more processing power, and storage space for your computer. It's worth noting that, the ps3eye capture areas are quiete large so losing capture area isn't a big deal for ps3eye's.

For Kinects, the story changes. The first thing is that your clothes no longer matter at all. You can do recordings naked if you want. Instead what you have to care about are laser bounces, which is what the program uses to get data about the parameters of your room (it shoots lasers at the room, then returns to the camera to triangulate position). Lasers bouncing off certain angles and materials, will cause bad recording areas...which you minimize by having softer materials in your room (like blankets).

The capture area is smaller than Ps3eye's so you need a bigger space in order to make use of two of them. The reason you want two Kinects instead of one, is because there is a drastic change in quality from one to two. The cameras are picking up twice the data points, and comparing them similiar to how the Ps3eye's compare your body parts for occlusion, and it gives you far far better results than with just one kinect.

So just to conclude here : Both cameras have strengths. and advantages, and to really get a feel for what is going to work best for you, really requires experiencing both. Getting Ps3eye's is a cheap way to jump into it without a huge hit on your wallet. If you buy two kinects, but then forgot your room is made of metal... then your gonna regret dropping almost $200 on cameras, and additional money to buy blankets, and the additional time of fixing the room.

As wall detection and identifying ground plane : It's hard to really compare the two in their capability to do this because they both use different ways to track. Both have been real decent when it comes to ground plane detection. Wall detection however is a different story and i'm certain that both of them fail pretty hard at detecting walls. However, this could be just due to my setup, since my walls are parallel to the leading line of the camera view...so when it comes to kinects and laser bounces, you can imagine trying to bounce a laser parallel to the surface your trying to bounce it off of : it never happens.

It's been a while now since i've used ps3eye's, and i dont remember what it was like in terms of wall detection, but that video sure looks alot better than how my kinects deal with walls.

[Turgineer]

Originally posted by TheNCourt:

To further prevent occlusion the program needs more cameras at different angles to differentiate your body parts. Getting more cameras = need more space/potentially smaller capture area. And when you need more cameras, you need more processing power, and storage space for your computer. It's worth noting that, the ps3eye capture areas are quiete large so losing capture area isn't a big deal for ps3eye's.

For Kinects, the story changes. The first thing is that your clothes no longer matter at all. You can do recordings naked if you want. Instead what you have to care about are laser bounces, which is what the program uses to get data about the parameters of your room (it shoots lasers at the room, then returns to the camera to triangulate position). Lasers bouncing off certain angles and materials, will cause bad recording areas...which you minimize by having softer materials in your room (like blankets).

The capture area is smaller than Ps3eye's so you need a bigger space in order to make use of two of them. The reason you want two Kinects instead of one, is because there is a drastic change in quality from one to two. The cameras are picking up twice the data points, and comparing them similiar to how the Ps3eye's compare your body parts for occlusion, and it gives you far far better results than with just one kinect.

Thank you, @TheNCourt. Due to a problem I don't understand, Steam did not notify me of the answer given.

When I looked at this comparison[docs.ipisoft.com], I learned a little more but the technical information seemed complicated to me. Because my room is not very big, so the viewing angle of the camera[wiki.ipisoft.com] will be important for me.

I will make my first try with PS3 Eye as you recommended, because I haven't used a depth sensor camera before and I don't know how Kinect will react to things in my room. Even if I bought three it's still cheaper than a single Kinect v1.

-

But I'm still wondering about my second question. ipiSoft Studio 4 is the most widely used software for MoCap from what I have seen, but it is very expensive. The Basic Edition $695, the affordable Express version only supports one depth sensor and is not suitable for PS3 Eye.

Originally posted by Turgineer:

...and is the softwares required for MoCap paid?

[Fluid Script Studios]

Originally posted by Turgineer:

Originally posted by TheNCourt:

To further prevent occlusion the program needs more cameras at different angles to differentiate your body parts. Getting more cameras = need more space/potentially smaller capture area. And when you need more cameras, you need more processing power, and storage space for your computer. It's worth noting that, the ps3eye capture areas are quiete large so losing capture area isn't a big deal for ps3eye's.

For Kinects, the story changes. The first thing is that your clothes no longer matter at all. You can do recordings naked if you want. Instead what you have to care about are laser bounces, which is what the program uses to get data about the parameters of your room (it shoots lasers at the room, then returns to the camera to triangulate position). Lasers bouncing off certain angles and materials, will cause bad recording areas...which you minimize by having softer materials in your room (like blankets).

The capture area is smaller than Ps3eye's so you need a bigger space in order to make use of two of them. The reason you want two Kinects instead of one, is because there is a drastic change in quality from one to two. The cameras are picking up twice the data points, and comparing them similiar to how the Ps3eye's compare your body parts for occlusion, and it gives you far far better results than with just one kinect.

Thank you, @TheNCourt. Due to a problem I don't understand, Steam did not notify me of the answer given.

When I looked at this comparison[docs.ipisoft.com], I learned a little more but the technical information seemed complicated to me. Because my room is not very big the viewing angle of the camera[wiki.ipisoft.com] will be important for me.

I will make my first try with PS3 Eye as you recommended, because I haven't used a depth sensor camera before and I don't know how Kinect will react to things in my room.

Even if I bought three it's still cheaper than a single Kinect v1. But I'm still wondering about my second question. ipiSoft is the most widely used software for MoCap from what I have seen, but it is very expensive. (Basic Edition $700)

Are there free alternative way for MoCap?

Originally posted by Turgineer:

...and is the softwares required for MoCap paid?

Ya you want the basic. You can either rent it or pay it outright. at $165 a year on rent, that boils down into $13 a month, and it'll take your 4-5 years of rent to reach the Buyoutright price. That's not a bad deal...so if you want to get started outside of the free trial, then start with just renting it out.

There are several alternatives to ipisoft mocap, but I'm not familiar with them. Wigwoo is another individual who i know uses these altneratives (https://www.youtube.com/@WigWoo1). Ron Ducats is also another person i know who has dabbled in some setups. (https://www.youtube.com/@BryantFilms)

Can explore their videos, but also send them a message about what those alternatives are, and direct you on the right path.

[Turgineer]

Originally posted by TheNCourt:

Ya you want the basic. You can either rent it or pay it outright. at $165 a year on rent, that boils down into $13 a month, and it'll take your 4-5 years of rent to reach the Buyoutright price. That's not a bad deal...so if you want to get started outside of the free trial, then start with just renting it out.

Hello, it's me again. It's been a while and I've set up my four-camera PS3 Eye system and decided to use ipiSoft.

The placement of the cameras is not a full circle, but a half circle due to the small size of the room. In other words, they are on one wall of the square 4x4 room.

I'm currently trying to learn Studio and although I've done the calibration at a Good-Excellent level, I'm having trouble with animations being rendered "wrongly". The movements I make during the MoCap video are very different from the movements in final render.

The software often confuses my feet and arms. Maybe I should wear a long-sleeved t-shirt instead of a short one (my t-shirt is blue), but my pants are black jeans and my background is a white curtain and a beige wall. So I don't know how I can fix this.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1840/discussions/0/4844274928139849970/