Motion capture in 3D animation

Abstract

3D-modelling has become a popular way to create graphics for many IT-based applications. The technology has become more common thanks to the 3D-models being reusable and complex while also including depth values. These models are often used in animation production and at the same time the popularity of motion capture has risen. Motion capture is a way to transform motion of real physical objects to digital data. Thanks to benefits such as interactivity, realism, and automatization it has made it an increasingly more appealing way to create animation. These methods have found use for instance in in entertainment, sports, and medical applications. However, combining motion capture with 3D-animation is a complicated process, which comes with several stages and a set of development challenges.

This work was done as a literature review, which set out to discover what kind of challenges and development possibilities exist in using motion capture for 3D-animation. The work first explored the fundamentals of 3D-modelling and -animation. Secondly it showcased motion capture and its different methods of implementation. Finally the work focused on three central challenges of the animation process: accessibility, cleaning data and fitting it to a model. These challenges span the entire production process from acquiring the data to processing it.

Result was a thorough review of different parts of the process as well as their development possibilities. Along with the strengths and weaknesses of each motion capture system it was revealed that accessibility and simplicity of systems is inversely proportional to the quality of the acquired data. This is a problem, because in future the expansion of motion capture usage relies largely on consumer products. The priority therefore is to simplify the systems without compromising the quality. Machine learning algorithms for instance can be used to understand the details and nuance of human motion even with inadequate data. In the future they have the possibility to further advance technological development of motion capture, so simple systems with small amount of equipment have their appeal. However, even more complicated systems will continue finding use in the future in high budget productions, because their quality data is reliable.