We’re doing motion capture for the cinematics in the game I’m working on. Last week it was the minor characters and I monitored the sessions through a video link, but today we had the main characters in the studio for the first time so I drove down to San Diego to be there to watch and occasionally give some feedback to the director.
It’s been years since I’ve been in a mocap studio and the technology has really advanced. They were using about forty cameras and were tracking six different characters simultaneously in some scenes. The reflective markers have gotten smaller (marble-sized instead of golfball-sized) and they have these cool velcro attachments to the suits instead of being taped on like they were back in the day.
A mocap stage is not a very pleasant space. It’s a big, echoy warehouse with eye-searing LEDs mounted in rings around the cameras. Props are very minimalist, just a few pieces of plywood hammered together. Grips drag them in and out of the capture volume as needed while everyone else stands around and eats snacks from the catering table.
One of the weird things about mocap shoots is that the cameras don’t see anything but the markers, so it doesn’t matter if crew members wander in and out of the capture volume while the scene is being played. The director was in among the actors, as were two additional cameramen who were capturing facial expressions on video for the animators to use later. And of course people could talk throughout since we weren’t capturing audio.
The actors were real troopers. The voice was recorded months ago by voice actors so the performers we had today had to sync their movements up to someone else’s performance – not an easy task. One of the dangers of doing mocap is that actors often exaggerate their gestures to compensate for not being able to use their voices or faces, but after a few hours of rehersal this morning all of our actors were able to keep their motions smooth and natural.
It’s amazing how much you can tell about someone’s personality just from how they walk.