How To Dyi A Motion Camera

Learn how to record your own Movement Capture data for Cinema 4D for cheap!

Welcome to the second part of our series covering Grapheme Blitheness using Mixamo in Movie theater 4D. In our previous article we took a await at how to Rig and Animate 3D Characters with Mixamo in Cinema 4D using Mixamo'due south character animation library. At this point yous may have begun to play with Mixamo and have come to the realization that the mocap library may not be as extensive every bit you wished.

For case, What if you needed a very specific motion for a project? What if you lot wanted to motion capture your own movements? Do y'all demand to rent one of those ping-pong ball suits?! I was just every bit curious as you so I took some fourth dimension to research and examination a DIY motion capture system that can be imported into Cinema 4D. The effect is my recreation of the "crane kick" scene from the original Karate Child film. I've fifty-fifty setup a gratis projection file for you lot to download and mess effectually with. Enjoy!

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Now before the Karate Kid pic buffs requite me flack for Johnny Lawrence not infamously itch on his face after a right head kicking, let me add that I had to improvise with FallingBackDeath.fbx from the Mixamo library due to recording in a pocket-size room. I mentioned this was DIY, correct?

DIY Movement Capture for Movie theatre 4D

After doing some research I constitute a great DIY motion capture rig to be iPi Soft mixed with an Xbox Kinect Photographic camera. The result was fifty-fifty meliorate than I originally imagined.

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

HARDWARE FOR DIY Motion CAPTURE

Hither's a quick listing of hardware you will need to setup the DIY motion capture rig.

ane. A PC (or MAC with Windows installed using Kicking Camp) 2. Kinect 2 Camera (~$40) 3. Kinect 2 USB Adapters for Xbox I & Windows ($xviii.24). four. Camera Tripod ($58.66)

1000 Total w/o Calculator: $116.xc

SOFTWARE FOR DIY Movement CAPTURE

Below is a quick list of software that you will need to perform the DIY Motility Capture projection.

iPi Recorder (free download)
iPi Mocap Studio ( 1 month trail or purchase)
Kinect 1 windows commuter
Movie house 4D Studio

Nosotros are going to try to keep this cheap equally possible.

You tin can get an limited $195 perpetual license for iPi. That means information technology's totally yours and includes two years of technical back up and software updates. The express edition includes the both iPi Recorder & iPi Mocap Studio. You are however limited to using a single RGB/depth sensor camera, but it'south 99% as reliable as the more expensive options. For this article demo purposes I just downloaded the trial version, you can practice the aforementioned to follow forth.

iPi says you lot tin but record frontways on a unmarried camera. Notwithstanding, I spun around and... oh my goodness, it worked!Acquit in listen this is the only software I've tested using this technique. If you use whatever other applications to test out DIY motion capture please tell us about your experience. I've listed them at the end of this article for reference.

DIY Motion Capture: Step-by-Step

Now that nosotros accept our software and hardware gathered, allow'due south take a look at how to do some quick DIY Motility Capture.

Step 1: INSTALLATION

First install iPi Recorder & IPi Mocap Studio before connecting your Kinect to your PC.
Plugin your Kinect to your PC
It will prompt you for Kinect One Driver. If non, download here.

Pace 2: IPI RECORDER

i. Setup the camera between 2 feet (0.6m) and 6 Anxiety (1.8m) off the floor. Note: The flooring has to be completely visible! We need to run across your feet!

2. Launch iPi Recorder

3. Under your devices tab an icon of Kinect two for Windows will appear highlighted in orange and marked set. If not, either make certain USB is correctly plugged in, the driver was installed, & restart your figurer.

four. Click Record Video

5. New Tabs will announced. Setup, Background & Tape.

6. Click Groundwork

7. Click Evaluate Background This will have a single snapshot of the background. Setup the timer for the snapshot with the Start Delay dropdown carte du jour (be conscientious not to movement the photographic camera once your snapshot has been taken).

8. Exist sure to Alter your Folder path to where you desire recording to live.

nine. Click the Record tab, set your First Delay dropdown to give you a chance to get your behind the photographic camera into position & press "Start Recording"

10. Create the 'T' Plate - Become yourself into a T-pose. Stand straight with your artillery out like you nearly to plow into an aeroplane. Just for a 1-2secs, so kickoff moving/acting.

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

STEP 3: IPI MOCAP STUDIO

Allow'due south take that data into Mocap Studio!

one. Launch Ipi Mocap Studio

2. Drag your .iPiVideo onto the window/canvas

3. You lot will be prompted to choose if character's gender & elevation. If y'all don't know the elevation your volition get another gamble to manually edit information technology. Click Finish.

4. You will now see yourself announced, along with bluish dotted mesh & lots of grain.

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

6. Elevate the Region of Interest (grey bar) and the Take (grey bar) to ingather to the begin of your T-pose and your final resting position before you lot walked off your computer to stop your recording.

seven. Under Tracking/settings be sure to check enable all bank check boxes for fast tracking algorithm, foot tracking, basis collisions & caput tracking.

8. Scrub timeline to brainstorm of cropped region and click track forward. You will now see a bone rig tracked to your recording.

9. On your first runway you may find an arm or leg stuck to the body on your starting time runway. To resolve this go to Individual Torso Parts Tracking dropdown and uncheck all the parts merely leaving the offending body office checked. And so simply printing Refind Forrad which will just refine that rails on just that single leg or arm.

x. Then click Jitter Removal. It works pretty well off the bat. If information technology'southward extra jittery on a specific limb, click Option" and drag the sliders of the offending part to a higher smoothing range. Recall of it as a blur tool. If you smooth you may remove detail (i.e. a wobbly hand will stabilize), but if yous acuminate you're adding detail in (i.e. you may go a meliorate head movement).

11. Now get to File/Prepare Target Grapheme import your Mixamo T-pose .fbx file

12. Get to Actor tab and set your characters height (this is the size your graphic symbol will be one time imported in C4D) .

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

fourteen. Now these are the nuts. If you want to go more in depth bank check out their User Guide. Also iPi doesn't track fingers. If you desire to know more virtually manually keyframing check out Paw Keyframing in iPi or alternatively Keyframe it in C4D. My advice is too to keep your recordings short to minimize tracking errors. Y'all can then stitch all of the shorts together in Cinema 4D.

STEP four: OPEN IN CINEMA 4D (OR 3D Parcel OF YOUR Pick)

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

That's all there is to it! You're motion captured information is now inside of Movie house 4D.

Learn More: Motion Capture Using Picture palace 4D

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

Hither are some other tutorials that I constitute to be helpful for Motion Capture too.

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

Movement capture is a rabbit hole that tin can become Actually deep. If you're looking for some alternative methods to those listed here in this article, here are some different motility capture solutions from around the industry.

ALTERNATE APPLICATIONS FOR DIY Movement CAPTURE

Brekel - ($139.00 - $239.00)
Old version of Brekel - (Gratis, but Slightly Buggy)
NI mate - ($201.62)
IClone Kinetic Mocap - ($99.00 - $199.00)

Alternating CAMERAS FOR DIY MOTION CAPTURE

Azure Kinect DK - ($399.00)
Playstation three Eye Camera - ($5.98)
New PlayStation iv Camera - ($65.22)
Intel RealSense - ($199.00)
Asus Xtion PRO - ($139.99)

ALTERNATE MOTION CAPTURE SYSTEMS

Perception Neuron - ($1,799.00+)
Xsens (Price available on request)
Rokoko ($two,495+)

Ready to Defeat Movie house 4D?

If you're new to Cinema 4D, or want to acquire the plan from a master, sensei EJ Hassenfratz has developed an entire course to help you lot go up to speed with with everything y'all demand to know to conquer the program. If yous desire to learn more than check out Movie theater 4D Basecamp here on Schoolhouse of Motion. This is super fun Movie house 4D training; No fence painting or automobile washing required!