Easiest way to animate? (also advice on mocap?)

Support Animation and Rigging
1

Hi guys, I was wondering, what is the easiest way to animate?

I was thinking mocap.

Can I do mocap for free?

Does it actually work?

Any other advice would be great!

EDIT: Is using pre recorded videos of someone walking/talking MOCAP? Is that different than using live footage?

Can this be done easily/cheaply?

:eyebrowlift:

2

There are people doing mocap with the Kinect sensors. They’re not free, but they’re a lot cheaper than just about any other form of mocap. Here’s a video someone did. Near the end they have problems with occlusion because they only had one sensor. Having two or three sensors helps eliminate this.

Learning to keyframe is free. Give it a try. There are lots of tutorials on Youtube.

Steve S

3

Thanks, Steve.

I am only beginning to animate, I find it pretty hard atm, i cant really get the keyframes right!

I added more to my original post:

Is using pre-recorded footage MOCAP? Is it easier/cheaper to do this?

4

Are you learning to use the curves editor? That’s how you finetune your animation.

Is using pre-recorded footage MOCAP? Is it easier/cheaper to do this?

Yeah, most of those files will be mocap. The problem is that you’re limited to what someone else has done, and lot’s of other people will also be using them so there’s nothing unique about your animation. Taking the time to do it yourself will be worth it.

Steve S

5

I have just been trying to keyframe animate the character so far, ill look into the curve editor!

What if I recorded a video of myself doing the things i need, is that feasible?

Also, I checked out that video you linked (which is awesome), do I need an Xbox in order to use that if I bought the kinnect? And is it possible to use more sensors like you suggested?

6

Some people are leveraging videos of themselves for automatic animation. It is a different approach, however, and automatic might not be the correct term. Check out Sebastian’s work with head tracking.

I have also seen some work on tracking dots on face to handle expressions on 3D characters.

7

I’ve had a look at the video and am searching the net for tutorials on how to use a video file to animate.

Cheers!