Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Summer of Mocap
In what was part of a professional dream come true, I had the opportunity to spend this past summer working with a motion capture system for the first time.
It took some work to get the pipeline down properly, but once we got everything figured out, the results were pretty awesome. There were certain shots that would have taken weeks to accomplish by hand, but with mocap we were able to put them together in a single afternoon, and they looked better than they ever would have without it.
<![]()
>
From an aesthetic standpoint, I'm by no means a convert; I'm still convinced that Pixar and Dreamworks films makes for much better artwork in most cases. That said, there certainly is a time and a place for mocap. It just comes down to the style you're going for.
For visual effects in live action movies, it's usually a no-brainer. As for animated features: I think there is potential for the realism style. I think that Beowulf, while far from perfect, was a step in the right direction for the genre - certainly much better than The Polar Express or Final Fantasy. And for smaller production companies on a tight budget, it's really the only way to complete a large scale project.
Labels: Character Animation, Mocap, Photos
