How To Capture Camera Motion For 3d Animation

Learn how to record your own Motion Capture information for Picture palace 4D for cheap!

Welcome to the second office of our serial covering Grapheme Blitheness using Mixamo in Movie theater 4D. In our previous article we took a look at how to Rig and Animate 3D Characters with Mixamo in Cinema 4D using Mixamo's graphic symbol blitheness library. At this indicate yous may have begun to play with Mixamo and have come to the realization that the mocap library may not exist as extensive as you wished.

For example, What if you lot needed a very specific motion for a project? What if you wanted to motion capture your ain movements? Do y'all need to hire one of those ping-pong ball suits?! I was just as curious as you so I took some fourth dimension to research and test a DIY motion capture system that can be imported into Cinema 4D. The consequence is my recreation of the "crane boot" scene from the original Karate Child movie. I've even setup a free project file for you to download and mess around with. Bask!

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Now before the Karate Kid movie buffs give me flack for Johnny Lawrence not infamously crawling on his face subsequently a correct caput boot, let me add that I had to improvise with FallingBackDeath.fbx from the Mixamo library due to recording in a small room. I mentioned this was DIY, right?

DIY Motion Capture for Cinema 4D

After doing some research I found a great DIY movement capture rig to be iPi Soft mixed with an Xbox Kinect Camera. The outcome was even better than I originally imagined.

You lot may already own some of the gear required to build this kit. If so, lucky you!

HARDWARE FOR DIY MOTION CAPTURE

Here's a quick list of hardware yous will need to setup the DIY motion capture rig.

1. A PC (or MAC with Windows installed using Boot Camp) 2. Kinect two Camera (~$40) 3. Kinect 2 USB Adapters for Xbox 1 & Windows ($xviii.24). 4. Camera Tripod ($58.66)

M Full due west/o Figurer: $116.90

SOFTWARE FOR DIY MOTION CAPTURE

Beneath is a quick list of software that yous will need to perform the DIY Move Capture project.

iPi Recorder (free download)
iPi Mocap Studio ( one month trail or purchase)
Kinect ane windows driver
Cinema 4D Studio

We are going to effort to keep this cheap as possible.

You can get an limited $195 perpetual license for iPi. That ways it's totally yours and includes two years of technical support and software updates. The limited edition includes the both iPi Recorder & iPi Mocap Studio. Yous are nevertheless limited to using a single RGB/depth sensor camera, simply it's 99% every bit reliable as the more expensive options. For this article demo purposes I simply downloaded the trial version, yous tin do the same to follow forth.

iPi says you can simply record frontways on a single camera. Withal, I spun around and... oh my goodness, it worked!Comport in listen this is the simply software I've tested using this technique. If yous utilise any other applications to test out DIY motion capture please tell u.s. near your experience. I've listed them at the end of this commodity for reference.

DIY Motion Capture: Step-by-Step

At present that we take our software and hardware gathered, let's accept a look at how to do some quick DIY Movement Capture.

Footstep i: INSTALLATION

Commencement install iPi Recorder & IPi Mocap Studio earlier connecting your Kinect to your PC.
Plugin your Kinect to your PC
It will prompt you for Kinect One Driver. If not, download here.

STEP 2: IPI RECORDER

1. Setup the camera between two feet (0.6m) and vi Feet (1.8m) off the floor. Note: The flooring has to be completely visible! We need to meet your feet!

2. Launch iPi Recorder

three. Under your devices tab an icon of Kinect ii for Windows will appear highlighted in orangish and marked ready. If not, either make sure USB is correctly plugged in, the commuter was installed, & restart your figurer.

four. Click Tape Video

v. New Tabs will announced. Setup, Background & Record.

6. Click Groundwork

7. Click Evaluate Background This volition take a unmarried snapshot of the groundwork. Setup the timer for the snapshot with the Kickoff Delay dropdown bill of fare (be careful not to move the camera once your snapshot has been taken).

8. Exist certain to Change your Binder path to where you want recording to live.

9. Click the Tape tab, gear up your Start Delay dropdown to give you a chance to get your behind the camera into position & press "Outset Recording"

10. Create the 'T' Plate - Get yourself into a T-pose. Stand straight with your arms out like you almost to turn into an airplane. Just for a 1-2secs, and so start moving/acting.

11. A new window volition popup labeled Recording Finished. Click the Rename Video Icon and give your recording an appropriate name.

Step 3: IPI MOCAP STUDIO

Permit's take that data into Mocap Studio!

i. Launch Ipi Mocap Studio

2. Drag your .iPiVideo onto the window/canvas

3. Y'all will be prompted to choose if character's gender & height. If y'all don't know the tiptop your will get another chance to manually edit it. Click Cease.

iv. You will at present see yourself appear, along with blue dotted mesh & lots of grain.

5. At the bottom of the window is a timeline that you can scrub to view your recording

vi. Drag the Region of Involvement (grey bar) and the Have (grey bar) to ingather to the begin of your T-pose and your final resting position before you walked off your computer to cease your recording.

7. Under Tracking/settings be sure to check enable all cheque boxes for fast tracking algorithm, human foot tracking, ground collisions & head tracking.

viii. Scrub timeline to begin of cropped region and click track forward. You will now run across a os rig tracked to your recording.

9. On your first rail you may notice an arm or leg stuck to the body on your outset track. To resolve this go to Individual Trunk Parts Tracking dropdown and uncheck all the parts only leaving the offending body part checked. Then just press Refind Forward which will only refine that track on simply that single leg or arm.

x. Then click Jitter Removal. Information technology works pretty well off the bat. If it's actress jittery on a specific limb, click Option" and drag the sliders of the offending part to a college smoothing range. Think of information technology as a mistiness tool. If you smooth you may remove detail (i.e. a wobbly manus volition stabilize), but if y'all acuminate you lot're adding detail in (i.eastward. you lot may get a better head motility).

eleven. Now become to File/Set Target Character import your Mixamo T-pose .fbx file

12. Go to Role player tab and ready your characters height (this is the size your graphic symbol volition be once imported in C4D) .

13. Get to Export tab and click Export Animation and export out your .FBX file.

14. Now these are the nuts. If you desire to go more in depth check out their User Guide. Also iPi doesn't track fingers. If you want to know more well-nigh manually keyframing check out Hand Keyframing in iPi or alternatively Keyframe information technology in C4D. My communication is also to keep your recordings short to minimize tracking errors. You can and then stitch all of the shorts together in Cinema 4D.

Pace 4: OPEN IN CINEMA 4D (OR 3D Packet OF YOUR CHOICE)

Import the .FBX by going to File/Merge and locate your Running.fbx
If you need a refresher on what to exercise adjacent? Read Rig and Animate 3D Characters with Mixamo in Movie house 4D.

That'south all there is to information technology! You're move captured data is now inside of Movie theater 4D.

Acquire More: Motility Capture Using Movie house 4D

Hat tip to Brandon Parvini who was my Mr Miyagi for this projection! This video tutorial featuring Brandon is a swell resource for more than insight into the procedure I used for this project.

Here are some other tutorials that I institute to be helpful for Motion Capture as well.

Cinema 4D & Mixamo - Combine Mixamo Animations Using Movement Clips
Cinema 4D Motion Clip - T-Pose to Animation (and a picayune Marvelous Designer)
IPISOFT - Animation Smoothing Tutorial
Kinect Motility Capture Tutorial - Ipisoft Motion Capture Studio
Motion Capture for the Masses: Review of iPi Soft with Cinema 4D

Motion capture is a rabbit pigsty that can get REALLY deep. If you're looking for some alternative methods to those listed hither in this article, here are some different move capture solutions from around the industry.

ALTERNATE APPLICATIONS FOR DIY Move CAPTURE

Brekel - ($139.00 - $239.00)
Quondam version of Brekel - (Costless, just Slightly Buggy)
NI mate - ($201.62)
IClone Kinetic Mocap - ($99.00 - $199.00)

Alternate CAMERAS FOR DIY Motility CAPTURE

Azure Kinect DK - ($399.00)
Playstation iii Heart Camera - ($5.98)
New PlayStation four Camera - ($65.22)
Intel RealSense - ($199.00)
Asus Xtion PRO - ($139.99)

ALTERNATE MOTION CAPTURE SYSTEMS

Perception Neuron - ($ane,799.00+)
Xsens (Price available on request)
Rokoko ($2,495+)

Set to Defeat Cinema 4D?

If y'all're new to Cinema 4D, or want to learn the program from a principal, sensei EJ Hassenfratz has adult an unabridged form to help you lot get up to speed with with everything yous need to know to conquer the program. If you want to acquire more check out Cinema 4D Basecamp hither on Schoolhouse of Motion. This is super fun Cinema 4D grooming; No debate painting or car washing required!