I’ve just release the DEMoCap 0.7 . This is a tool allowing to do motion capture using VR equipment. I won’t go into the details as you can read all on DEMoCap Homepage. The tool is designed in the first place for game developers but it can be useful for all people doing animation work looking for a way to speed up the process and quality (depending on your skill level).
This update added support to capture objects alongside actors as well as network access to get live motion capture data into other applications. Right now Unreal Live Link is supported but I’m working also on updating the Blender Scripts accompanying DEMoCap to allow streaming right into Blender instead of just importing the animations.
The downloads you can find on the DEMoCap Download Page. These two videos are some examples. More can be found on YouTube.
This tool is in active development and is currently in pre-release state but I use it already for production use. If you have comments and suggestions for improvements I’m all ears.
Improved stereo rendering performance. Two optimizations can be selected depending on GPU support (“Dual Rendering” or “Geometry Shader Duplication”).
Added “GrabObject” object class to make objects grabbable from the UI. See Wiki Page and video below.
Added interaction bubble support. Gives quick access to important actions and properties. See Wiki Page.
Removed the requirement to select CapturedObject to record to. Now you can select the “Capturable” object from combo box in the Session panel. This decouples the selection state from the capturable state improving workflow.
Added support to record over existing animations breaking playback once interacting with objects.
Camera option “Enable GI” is now disabled by default to improve performance.
Added support to automatically stop recording if the end of the existing recording is hit.
Various bug fixes.
Eventually it happened. For something Epic should have required a couple of days they required whoopie 1 month (!). But now the plugin is at last available on the market place.
In particular this release contains Blender Live-Connection Add-On. See the Wiki-Page for instructions on how to use the tool or watch the video below. The Add-On in part of the DEMoCap Blender Tools.
New Features and Fixes in this Release:
Blender Live-Connection Add-On.
Modified *.demca saving to use relative path (relative to *.demca file not project file). Importers try first path relative to *.demca file and if not found relative to project file.
Added support to import/export stage directions *.stagedirs.xml file.
Fixed potential null pointer exception if trying to record with uncalibrated character.
Added support to change object class.
Improved project panel performance while selecting objects.
Improving overall UI performance.
Added loading-character model to better tell the user he has to wait for character resources to be loaded.
Improved world spawn character handling.
Fixed recreating object (due to stub property changes) deleting attachments.
Improved GrabAttach behavior to support disabling colliding with actor limbs, prevent actor grabing object and locking hand rotation while grabbing.
Added support to reset position, orientation and velocities for physics simulated objects.
Added some more hand poses for GrabAttach behavior. Use Component behavior panel to select models to closer resemble the grab motion the actor has to perform.
Added support to auto-load project by adding it to the command line. Path has to be relative to DEMoCap config directory.
Trying this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZI6EMBuLxsc with Guest 3 and SteamVR, Blender 4.2, but I don’t understand. It have to download and installed locally like old addons, not found from extensions. Tried Live Connect and host was “localhost”, it was connected, not this 192.168.1.20, can’t select “Listen”.
But where can I found this dragon object (dragonroo.rig)? or would this work with Rigify or AutorigPro rig?
This would be so good, if get it work!
And other question: when using this Quest 3 without Touch plus controllers it can track my fingers too (not in games where using this controls), can this software do the same?
In general you start out with your character in Blender (rigged). Then export the “Drag[en]gine Model” (.demodel) and “Drag[en]gine Rig” (.derig) resource. Then create the “Drag[en]gine Skin” (.deskin) with the materials inside (an XML file). Exporting .deskin files from blender directly is a future WIP for the extension. If you have an FBX file you can also just use this one in DEMoCap as it contains model, rig and skin in one file.
Concerning Quest 3 DEMoCap can use finger tracking if you connect the quest through SteamVR. DEMoCap can not yet deal with wireless HMD that are not connected to the same PC (through SteamVR for example). Being able to do so has been request already and will be done in the near future (more or less near).
