Motion Capture

MAKING OF: Motion Capture

Almost every animation was made with the help of two Microsoft Kinects and an iPi Soft DMC. Except for running sequences and a few other animations, like the first shot with Guard standing in front of a door, animation of one Guard in ambush, close-ups.

Every animation was then refined with the build-in filters of iPi DMC, then brought into 3ds max CAT rig, and adjusted and refined further there.

We also used Endorphin to create ragdoll dynamics in the starship scene.

Kinects were upgraded with vibro-motors. One was made from a USB fan, and another was made from an old shaver (on the picture). Vibrations helped to isolate pattern projections for each kinect, and make overall quality of recordings about 2 times better. Can't wait to get my hand on Kinect 2.0, I hope iPi guys are ready to add support for them as soon as possible, after the release!

MS Kinect upgraded with a shaver. Looks weird, but it works really well!

Endrphin scene.

Precursors CG Cinematic

Precursors CG Cinematic

We desided to open this blog to show some "making of" scenes, and support further work on a new version of this cinematic.

This particular cinematic was our first try, it was also made a university graduation movie, so we had to stick with a tough deadline and certain requirements to fit into diploma project.

It's main goal was to try out our skills at CG cinematic production. We inspired by the work of such a great studios as Blur and Digic Pictures, as well as a lot of sci-fi and space-related movies and games.

And though we are not satisfied with what we've got, we processed and discussed our mistakes, and we've got a great experience making this movie.

But now we decided not just to make it better, but completely rebuild it from ground up, starting with a new script, storyboard and designs, using this old cinematic as a reference.

So, we'll start with our old cinematic first, then some making of stuff, and then we will move on to production news on a new version of it!

It is based on a fake-universe, so don't search for a full game or movie =) Maybe, in the future, we will come that far, and make a game or movie out of it, but thats not our goal at the moment.

Here was also an old production blog, used by us to coordinate people at first: http://nixes.ru/ancestors/wp/