Motion capture and performance

The production of digital animation by means of motion capture from live, real-time performance of actors, athletes or any human being has become more and more popular. On the one hand there are film productions and the digital game industry, which drive technology improvements and is consumed by hundreds of millions of people. On the other hand, there is the user mass, made mostly of potential users, which require more compact and cheaper solutions for their productions.

The process of animating characters by means of this technique introduces taxonomy discussions that, after all, are useful for differentiating the two groups. The digital motion capture appeared in the late 1980s. Until the beginning of the twenty-first century, only body movements were captured while facial expressions were manually animated. This is due to the subtlety of facial movements and the consequent need for better accuracy in mapping the dozens of muscle groups and their links. When this facial technique was made possible, it was then named performance capture. Independently of the name given to the technique, the new possibilities of creation, production and improved performance are wide.

This article approaches these aspects from the point of view of the evolution of audio-visual production since the appearance of animation, while the process of motion capture is presented with its impact on animation and performance. The expectations about the use of the technique are discussed with the equipment available. The open source code software for motion capture, OpenMoCap, is presented here as an alternative for the current production scenario.