Topic: E3 MMX

[Dirk Temporo]

But you're still hunched over staring at a tiny screen that 99% of the room you're in won't be able to view.

[MaryJane]

Why does the room you're in need to view your 3DS? Don't the wall talk enough already?

[MaryJane]

Just saw this, new motion capture technology shown at E3: http://www.gamepro.com/article/news/215667/the-most-impressive-thing-i-saw-at-e3/

Well, the bottom line is that it’s a groundbreaking 3D motion-capture system. No...wait...stay awake, come back. It’s not as dull as it sounds. Seriously. Unlike every other motion capture thing you’ve ever seen, this is a full performance capture system. It doesn’t just track movement, or grab animation data from actor’s faces as they speak their lines, it captures everything about an actor’s performance, and generates a fully-textured 3D model based on what it sees and hears.

Unlike the systems that we’ve all seen in countless boring magazine stories for the past 10 years with the little white balls glued to spandex body suits, MotionScan is much more sophisticated. It uses 32 high definition cameras (divided into 16 stereoscopic pairs) to capture every angle of an actor’s performance at 30 frames per second. From this data it generates a fully-textured 3D model (at the moment it’s just their heads, but later it will be full body) that incorporates every nuance, mannerism, and emotional detail from the performance.

The first demo was simple. An actor spoke some lines and smiled, and it was eerily realistic. As Bao and McNamara advanced through subsequent demos, the performances became more and more emotionally engaging until they eventually showed me a scene in which a character was shown distraught about the murder of his wife. As he sobbed through his lines, every line in his face broadcast the angst his character was feeling. His eyes welled-up, and tears streamed down his face. As the scene played out, Bao demonstrated that it was a realtime 3D model by moving the actor’s disembodied head around the screen, and applying different lighting effects.

That's 'Walter Bishop' from Fringe 'real' name John Noble. This looks pretty cool the article also mentions that a lot of heads of studios walked away impressed with the technology, this could be a big leap in graphical presentation, especially with polygon's maxing out.

[ThePerm]

meh