do you consider mocap as animating

[ACJelly]

I've noticed that there is bit of friction between the 3D animating community and the use of motion capture. Some say that it isn't true animating, its more like putting a 3D model suit on. In some way I would agree, particularly with cartoon animating mocap doesn't work; it's "too" real as it were.

What everyone else's thought on this?

[Dinoaur]

When someone does what they call an animation but its pure mocap, I do not belive it can be labled as animating, I dont really know im in no position to imply anything but I do not agree with mocap being used to make videos and saying you animated it or whatever, if you work for a studio and need to get animations into a game/movie ect then that is perfectly understandable its for a job you have deadline they need them but for a portfolio i dont really like it. If anyone doesnt agree with me please dont rage at me.

[ASZ20]

The thing about mocap is that unless you have multiple high end infared cameras the movement is not going to be precise at all (kinect). Mocap has it's advantages but if you want high precision, yet harder to make animation that people won't immediately say is mocap, then keyframing is better. It's quite obvious when mocap is being done, and even more obvious that keyframing is being done if it does not look that great.

[steve french]

Originally posted by Surfsideaaron:

When someone does what they call an animation but its pure mocap, I do not belive it can be labled as animating, I dont really know im in no position to imply anything but I do not agree with mocap being used to make videos and saying you animated it or whatever, if you work for a studio and need to get animations into a game/movie ect then that is perfectly understandable its for a job you have deadline they need them but for a portfolio i dont really like it. If anyone doesnt agree with me please dont rage at me.

I agree. If you have very little time and not enough time to key frame, then it's perfectly understandable to do Motion Capture. But doing it for anything just comes off as to me just a bit lazy.and it glitches alot way mrore than key frame animation, For example: A While back i was using IPISOFT Mocap V2 and the arms kept phasing inside the body after tracking. ive seen this happen with and without kinect. And i don't have these problems when i key frame everything (that is unless the graph editor decides to be a total bitch). but if anyone diasagress with me, that's fine. But what i'm trying to get at, is that you shouldnt use mocap for every single video you do and call it animation...

[ACJelly]

Originally posted by DFSPandevy:

I agree. If you have very little time and not enough time to key frame, then it's perfectly understandable to do Motion Capture. But doing it for anything just comes off as to me just a bit lazy.and it glitches alot way mrore than key frame animation, For example: A While back i was using IPISOFT Mocap V2 and the arms kept phasing inside the body after tracking. ive seen this happen with and without kinect. And i don't have these problems when i key frame everything (that is unless the graph editor decides to be a total bitch). but if anyone diasagress with me, that's fine. But what i'm trying to get at, is that you shouldnt use mocap for every single video you do and call it animation...

what about using mocap to aid the animation process? not totally relying on it, just using it to get those pain in the ass complicated walk sets and movement done.

I would agree that the over reliance of motion capture is lazy and come out with a slightly odd look about it *cough*Beowulf*cough*

The only thing I am using mocap for in my current projects is to get the absolute raw data to work with, it only takes a hour to capture a good few scenes which would take much much longer to keyframe.

[steve french]

Originally posted by BenevolentHellion:

Originally posted by DFSPandevy:

I agree. If you have very little time and not enough time to key frame, then it's perfectly understandable to do Motion Capture. But doing it for anything just comes off as to me just a bit lazy.and it glitches alot way mrore than key frame animation, For example: A While back i was using IPISOFT Mocap V2 and the arms kept phasing inside the body after tracking. ive seen this happen with and without kinect. And i don't have these problems when i key frame everything (that is unless the graph editor decides to be a total bitch). but if anyone diasagress with me, that's fine. But what i'm trying to get at, is that you shouldnt use mocap for every single video you do and call it animation...

what about using mocap to aid the animation process? not totally relying on it, just using it to get those pain in the ass complicated walk sets and movement done.

I would agree that the over reliance of motion capture is lazy and come out with a slightly odd look about it *cough*Beowulf*cough*

The only thing I am using mocap for in my current projects is to get the absolute raw data to work with, it only takes a hour to capture a good few scenes which would take much much longer to keyframe.

i understand where your coming from but i'd rather have it look good than have it really jerkyand jitttery. i'm not saying that mocap dosent look good, cause with some fine tunning it looks great! but what i'm tryng to say is that if i wanted something to look good i'd do key framing (and when i say good i mean like really really good looking). but i agree with you when you say that you would use it for the complicated walking and running animations. but if i where to use the mocap on anything all the time it would have to be al of valves game models besides tf2, mainly because if i have realistic looking models, than i would want realsitic movements that could easily be done in mocap. but if i wanted to animate a cartoony looking character like the models in tf2, i'd do key framing mainly for it to look more cartoony.so if you wan't to use mocap, thats fine! i just don't think you should use it all the time.and by the way i got a little off topic, yes you could use you could use it to aid you in the process of animating a character but mainly every time i see people doing this, it looks all wrong, like they would select the wrong bones to do it with. like they would key fame evrything else in a walking animation but the arms, when people make the decision to do that it just looks flat out odd.

[ACJelly]

Originally posted by DFSPandevy:

Originally posted by BenevolentHellion:

what about using mocap to aid the animation process? not totally relying on it, just using it to get those pain in the ass complicated walk sets and movement done.

I would agree that the over reliance of motion capture is lazy and come out with a slightly odd look about it *cough*Beowulf*cough*

The only thing I am using mocap for in my current projects is to get the absolute raw data to work with, it only takes a hour to capture a good few scenes which would take much much longer to keyframe.

i understand where your coming from but i'd rather have it look good than have it really jerkyand jitttery. i'm not saying that mocap dosent look good, cause with some fine tunning it looks great! but what i'm tryng to say is that if i wanted something to look good i'd do key framing (and when i say good i mean like really really good looking). but i agree with you when you say that you would use it for the complicated walking and running animations. but if i where to use the mocap on anything all the time it would have to be al of valves game models besides tf2, mainly because if i have realistic looking models, than i would want realsitic movements that could easily be done in mocap. but if i wanted to animate a cartoony looking character like the models in tf2, i'd do key framing mainly for it to look more cartoony.so if you wan't to use mocap, thats fine! i just don't think you should use it all the time.and by the way i got a little off topic, yes you could use you could use it to aid you in the process of animating a character but mainly every time i see people doing this, it looks all wrong, like they would select the wrong bones to do it with. like they would key fame evrything else in a walking animation but the arms, when people make the decision to do that it just looks flat out odd.

Agreed, though keep in mind that most sfm animators are new to 3D animating in general (like myself) I think once people the people who are passionate about animating get more skilled we will see better and better integration between key framing and mocapping. On that note sfm Is not the best program to use mocapped details with yet there are still a lot of bugs to work out with it. It will be interesting to see what animations we see come out at we all grow

[steve french]

Originally posted by BenevolentHellion:

Originally posted by DFSPandevy:

i understand where your coming from but i'd rather have it look good than have it really jerkyand jitttery. i'm not saying that mocap dosent look good, cause with some fine tunning it looks great! but what i'm tryng to say is that if i wanted something to look good i'd do key framing (and when i say good i mean like really really good looking). but i agree with you when you say that you would use it for the complicated walking and running animations. but if i where to use the mocap on anything all the time it would have to be al of valves game models besides tf2, mainly because if i have realistic looking models, than i would want realsitic movements that could easily be done in mocap. but if i wanted to animate a cartoony looking character like the models in tf2, i'd do key framing mainly for it to look more cartoony.so if you wan't to use mocap, thats fine! i just don't think you should use it all the time.and by the way i got a little off topic, yes you could use you could use it to aid you in the process of animating a character but mainly every time i see people doing this, it looks all wrong, like they would select the wrong bones to do it with. like they would key fame evrything else in a walking animation but the arms, when people make the decision to do that it just looks flat out odd.

Agreed, though keep in mind that most sfm animators are new to 3D animating in general (like myself) I think once people the people who are passionate about animating get more skilled we will see better and better integration between key framing and mocapping. On that note sfm Is not the best program to use mocapped details with yet there are still a lot of bugs to work out with it. It will be interesting to see what animations we see come out at we all grow

Indeed :)

[Biggie]

Yes, keyframing and mocapping are two different things, but they are linked to each other. Mocap certainly isn't animating, but it is animation. I rely on both since making convincing animation from scratch is a hard task and takes time to master. I don't think anyone should feel guilty about using mocap instead of keyframing. It is true though that the best animation is the one done by hand if done properly. Mocap doesn't always have the best results.

[Oleander]

I would call it choreography instead of animation because that's what it is. You're moving through a pre-determined set of moves that are being fed into some kind of software that imposes the moves onto a model. Though it is animation in the sense that you are taking an inanimate object and bringing it to life, but there needs to be distinction between the various ways of getting to that point. Mocap is cheap, fast and easy, keyframing is expensive, long and hard to master. To be honest I don't like wathing mocap movies made with SFM, they just feel cheap even if the movement is nice. It becomes acting at that point.

[ACJelly]

Originally posted by Oleander:

I would call it choreography instead of animation because that's what it is. You're moving through a pre-determined set of moves that are being fed into some kind of software that imposes the moves onto a model. Though it is animation in the sense that you are taking an inanimate object and bringing it to life, but there needs to be distinction between the various ways of getting to that point. Mocap is cheap, fast and easy, keyframing is expensive, long and hard to master. To be honest I don't like wathing mocap movies made with SFM, they just feel cheap even if the movement is nice. It becomes acting at that point.

good point, as I have said before any 3d movie SFM or not that depends on mocap too much does feel odd in a way, just look at films like Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland and Beowulf, heck it's even in games like the call of duty games that they hash out each year, they (I'm looking at you Activision) want it to be cheap, fast and easy, because the less they spend on it the more they make out of it.

Then look at a game like The last of us and half life 2, the developers did use mocap, but they made the effort to build upon it, they used the mocap data as base movements and integrated keyframing very well to make a stunning finished project.

in regards to SFM and mocap, I would give it some time, true most mocapped videos do look rushed and cheap but there are a few around that I've watched that stand out from the crowd in a good way.

[Etmer]

I don't have much to say tbh, though I would say that Mocap isn't animation. To me, animation is an art, and it isn't meant to be easy either. One of the reasons why I love watching animations, is because of the effort put into them. People who put effort into their work, is worth watching imo.

However, Mocap feels like a process, rather than an art itself. Mocap videos do have a cheap look to them, and it does take out the originality imo. I think that Mocap is meant to be used rather as a reference, than the final product. These are just my two cents though, and I am a bit new to animation myself.

[The Man From G.A.M.E.R.]

Originally posted by Etmer the Sentry c::

I don't have much to say tbh, though I would say that Mocap isn't animation. To me, animation is an art, and it isn't meant to be easy either. One of the reasons why I love watching animations, is because of the effort put into them. People who put effort into their work, is worth watching imo.

However, Mocap feels like a process, rather than an art itself. Mocap videos do have a cheap look to them, and it does take out the originality imo. I think that Mocap is meant to be used rather as a reference, than the final product. These are just my two cents though, and I am a bit new to animation myself.

Mocap, if done properly, can look better than animation sometimes. By properly, I mean laying animation over it. Just look at this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y90MYtGI-20
Mocap and hand editing.

[ASZ20]

Originally posted by OneFourth:

Originally posted by Etmer the Sentry c::

I don't have much to say tbh, though I would say that Mocap isn't animation. To me, animation is an art, and it isn't meant to be easy either. One of the reasons why I love watching animations, is because of the effort put into them. People who put effort into their work, is worth watching imo.

However, Mocap feels like a process, rather than an art itself. Mocap videos do have a cheap look to them, and it does take out the originality imo. I think that Mocap is meant to be used rather as a reference, than the final product. These are just my two cents though, and I am a bit new to animation myself.

Mocap, if done properly, can look better than animation sometimes. By properly, I mean laying animation over it. Just look at this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y90MYtGI-20
Mocap and hand editing.

Yeah, Max makes it look awesome!

[PapaPocky]

I would consider it a sub-genre of animating, if that makes sense. It's not really animating but it's not not animating either. I would probably consider it cheating, but unless you have multiple high-end infared cameras, then you're not going to get the look you want, probably.

[KoeWaffle]

Motion capture is motion capture. The one who preforms the motion is called an actor, if you are the one doing it you should be credited as actor. If you alter the motion capture sequences you are editing, if you are adding motion to it you are animating. I like motion capture for realistic projects, but I can enjoy an artist's animation style a lot too.

Besides, motion capture can really save you a lot of time and may have stunning results. But pure motion capture is definitely NOT animation, hence they call it different.