In Broadcast - November 2012 - 46

I N T E R N A T I O N A L

N E W S

WWW.INBROADCAST.COM | ISSUE 14 - NOV/DEC 2012

InFOCUS
Motion Capture And Video Graphics Solutions Cont.
support for Adobe After Effects and Pixologic’s GoZ Fiber Mesh. Genoma can be used to rig a simple biped or quadruped for animation without the need for additional rigging tools. It offers modular rig presets that consist of skeletal parts such as spines, wings, arms, legs, hands and feet. Complete rigs for biped and quadrupeds can be customised. New modeling tools include UV Unwrap, Edit Edges, Place Mesh, Slice, Thicken and Heat Shrink. A GoAE button allows the operator to select elements in a scene and see them in Adobe After Effects, including animation, lights and camera setting. At IBC 2012, Maxon introduced Cinema 4D version 14, the latest generation of its 3D motion graphics, visual effects, painting, and rendering software. This contains a new fully integrated sculpting system, new camera matching facilities, the debut of exchange plug-ins to The Foundry’s NUKE and Adobe Photoshop Extended, and improved integration with Adobe After Effects. The new sculpting tools allow artists to create detailed models with tools such as Pull, Wax, Smooth, Flatten, Inﬂate, Knife and Pinch. Preset options are provided for brushes, stamps, stencils, and attributes for size, pressure and symmetry. A new Camera Calibrator allows a 3D camera image to be matched into a 3D environment. Motion Camera, Morph Camera and Camera Composition Helper and Camera Focus Picker tools are also provided. Moscow-based iPi Soft recently announced Version 2 of its iPi Motion Capture markerless motion capture software technology. This offers film-makers, computer graphics animators, broadcast motion graphics designers and video game developers a toolkit for creating human characters, including key-framing, female character tracking and support for motion sensor devices such as ASUS Xtion and Kinect for Windows. “The new data formats in Version 2 deliver more efﬁcient motion capture data recording on portable computers,” comments iPi Soft founder Michael Nikonov. “That will help our customers meet the challenges of compositing b e li eva b l e c h a r a c te r s into immersive 3D environments. We plan to continue the evolution of our software as well as introduce new features including props tracking and multiple people tracking.” proxy generation, automatic asset moving and copying, system monitoring and administration from a single point. Users have access to templates, images, video clips and rundowns. Also featured in the new Maestro 6.7 release is an order management system that manages asset requests for video clips and images. Another new feature is the SceneEdit module. This lets users create a completely new graphic design or modify the look of existing graphics from the playout station. Pixel Farm’s PFMatchit offers lower-cost entry point to company’s motion tracking technology. Based on the flowgraph architecture and key algorithms of PFTrack, PFMatchit’s reduced tool set is suitable for tracking single camera and stereoscopic scenes. Project compatibility allows content created in PFMatchit to beneﬁt from the additional tools and functionality of PFTrack. Artists can augment scenes using deformable geometr y tracking modeling, z-depth, and other creative tools. Ross Video has integrated its XPression broadcast production graphics platform and Furio robotic camera heads with the UX virtual-set control software from UNREEL. The combination allows the creation of virtual sets that enable camera movement around the scene while keeping talent and other foreground elements locked in place within the virtual 3D environment. Ross demonstrated at NAB 2012 a full virtual set with a Ross Robotics Furio head on tracks performing automated moves that included simultaneous changes to camera position, elevation, pan, tilt, and zoom. Vizr t and Motion Analysis Corporation recently signed an agreement whereby Vizrt will resell MAC’s CamTrak camera tracking system for use with Viz Virtual Studio. The combination allows fast alignment of studio cameras to produce virtual sets for live broadcast. CamTrak software tracks the placement of marker arrays on studio cameras and aligns the motion data in accordance with the optical axis of the virtual camera. The same motion data is automatically mapped to multiple cameras which can move freely within a 40 to 50 foot area, coordinating their views of the same 3D virtual scene. Xsens recently demonstrated a plug-in which can stream live motion capture data into Autodesk Maya animation software. Xsens MVN Studio allows artists to view live or pre-recorded motions in real-

Xsens MVN Studio plug-in can stream live motion capture data into Maya

The OptiTrack Prime 41 tops out at 180fps in HD

OptiTrack’s Prime Series is a new family of motion capture cameras designed to capture areas of up to 75 by 150 feet. The Prime 41 camera has a 4.1 megapixel resolution and a claimed 80 foot camera-to-marker range. Features include 180 frames per second capture rate, infrared strobe, simultaneous body and finger tracking, outdoor motion capture, a rapid single-user setup button, genlock, timecode and external sync. Orad recently announced version 6.7 of its Maestro graphics system. This is designed to integrate with third-party newsroom, automation, traf fic and editing systems, including equipment from Quantel. GMAM is a graphics oriented media asset management tool set which gives broadcasters administration and production facilities for use in large-scale production operations where users spread across different depar tments require access to graphic production tools. All assets required for the graphic operation are handled by this one system. GMAM administration lets broadcasters manage global access rights. Built-in production tools control ingest scheduling,

time, bringing a character to life in minutes and reviewing the motions. It can be used to create, surface, animate and render a character. Maya and MotionBuilder plug-ins receive motion data from a network streamer in MVN Studio which is capable of streaming motions to other applications in real-time. Zign Creations Zign Track Pro is claimed to be the fastest and easiest way to create professional facial motion capture using DV, HDV or web cameras. It can source from up to eight cameras or process prerecorded video. Input from cameras together with the captured motion on the face rig can be viewed live. Adjustment tools allow the user to correct any motion or apply exaggeration before, during and after recording. Zign Track Pro automatically detects up to 44 markers as soon as they are visible. If small tracking errors occur, it will detect and correct these during capture. Motion data is exported as BVH, TRC or C3D. These general motion capture formats contain bone or marker data and are supported by most 3D animation applications. Zign Track Pro also exports to the morph-based PZ2 ﬁle format for Poser and DAZ Studio, and a combined bone/pose driven ACT file format for ‘Animation: Master’. The exporter for Poser, DAZ Studio and ‘Animation: Master’ creates 70 base morphs based on the captured motion. New in Zign Track Pro 2.1 is a real-time TCP/ IP motion capture export stream. Using a simple protocol, software and plug-in developers can transfer the captured motion into their 3D software, hardware or animatronics. The TCP/IP connection makes it possible to stream the data to other computers over a network. An excellent summary of early work in the area of motion capture is ‘A brief history of motion capture for computer character animation’ by David J. Sturman which can be seen online as part of the Siggraph library – click on the logo to view document. ■

iPi Soft’s Motion Capture offers markerless motion capture

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In Broadcast - November 2012

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