Week 07 – Film Language

The impact of emergent technologies on the game and film industry – motion capture

In filmmaking and video game development, motion capture refers to recording actions of human actors, and using that information to animate digital character models in 2D or 3D computer animation. It can be also referred to as performance capture when it includes face and fingers or captures subtle expressions.

The emergence of motion capture technology has brought a lot of characters to life, like Koba in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Avatar, Hulk in Robert Bruce Banner, Gollum in The Lord of The Rings and so on.

Motion capture allows the animators so much more movements to work with, these movements are more realistic than before, and save animators a lot of time. It liberates a lot of productivity from animation to detail production and product creativity, so as to realize the double leap of product quality and quantity. Therefore, motion capture is of great significance for the company to improve the overall productivity.

When it comes to the game industry, characters can have closer shots to present the actions of game characters more realistically. Non real action can easily reveal flaws, especially when the camera is very close.

It blurs the boundary between reality and game. Today’s players pursue the sense of reality in the game, and motion capture greatly improves the quality of characters in the game, and can even achieve the effect of confusing the virtual one with the real. It can be said that it brings reality into the game world.

In addition, as shown in the video, it allows people in different industries to work together. The joint work of excellent motion capture actors, technical engineers and animators can greatly increase the performance of game characters. Only with excellent equipment and better talents can we complete higher quality physical expression and apply the data to the game.

Reference videos:

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