March 28, 2007

Motion Capture Transforms Dancers into Compelling 3D Animations

The current issue of BusinessWeek has a cover story about the latest developments in motion capture technology and how it's being used for commercial and entertainment purposes.

The BusinessWeek article uses the term "motion capture" in a very broad sense to encompass any system that can track, capture and respond to the motion of people and objects.

The Nintendo Wii computer game system is a good example of a popular motion sensing device that monitors the movements of the game controller in space as it's manipulated by a player. Here's a good video that illustrates how the Wii system works - if you watch the entire clip, you'll see how it is used to play different types of games.

But from a dancing perspective, motion capture is especially intriguing when the 3D coordinates of a body in motion are converted into animated dance sequences.

Here are four videos that are based upon using motion capture technology to transform the movements of real belly dancers and a flamenco dancer into 3D animations.

Belly Dancers

Nice detail in this first example. I'm curious what belly dancers think about the quality of the captured movement:

There's no audio for this 3D computer rendering:

Here's another example of a belly dance animation - I can't embed it in my blog. The movement feels very fluid but I wish they got rid of the horizontal band of bright light in top third of image that makes it difficult to clearly see the dancer.

And an impressive flamenco dancer:

In upcoming posts, I'll include videos and pictures that show how the motion capture process works from a nuts-and-bolts perspective. If you know of good links to pictures and videos of different motion capture systems - especially ones that show examples of dancers, please let me know about them.

Posted by Doug Fox at 8:17 AM - Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

November 14, 2006

Savion Glover Off To Penguin School

For the animated film, "Happy Feet," opening in theaters this Friday, tap dancer Savion Glover attended penguin school.

Glover, as reported in LA Times, was working on mastering the constraints of penguin locomotion so that he could perform the tap dance moves of Mumble, the penguin with no vocal range but great dance moves. The problem for Mumble is that among the Emperor penguins of the Antarctic, if you can't sing you'll have no social standing in the community.

Then, once he had the Penguin motions down, Glover's tap dance routine was captured via motion capture, "...a recording process that required him to tap dance on a small stage under 60 lights in a black bodysuit that had 40 reflective sensors near his joints. As Glover performed, the light from his reflectors was recorded by an array of 60 cameras and turned into data." The next part of process consisted of converting these captured motions in to the animated moves of Mumble. (On the LA Times article, you can watch a video clip of this motion capture process. Or, if you can't access this article, you can see same clip on Yahoo.)

More links:

- "Happy Feet" profile on Internet Movie Database.

- Article in USA Today, "Penguins on tap could ice the mice."

- MySpace Page - they even have news ticker and countdown clock that you can add to your blog/website.

I started writing this post because of Savion Glover and tap dancing. But it's also interesting to see how this movie is being promoted online. A lot of food for thought for dancers and dance companies - I'll write more about this topic.

Posted by Doug Fox at 6:10 AM - Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

January 26, 2006

Types and Challenges of Motion Tracking Systems

Matt Gough in his "Splines in Space" blog has two entries about the motion tracking and capture system he uses for his dance research and composition - "Motion Capture (Dance)" and "Noodle Dance".

Matt describes the different types of motion tracking technology (Magnetic, Gyroscopic and Optical) and points out the challenges of tracking large numbers of discrete body movements. Ideally, he'd like to have a dancer outfitted with 100 plus markers and more computer power to process results in real-time.

An image that displays results of 1:41 minutes of motion tracking - "The Noodle Dance":

Using a passive optical motion tracking system with markers that are placed on the dancer's hands and body:

This area of motion tracking systems and dance movement - both for research and performance - is an area I plan to do a lot more interviews about both for my audio podcasts and upcoming publication.

Posted by Doug Fox at 11:37 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

October 3, 2005

Merce Cunningham at Stanford Interdisciplinary Course

During the winter semester earlier this year, Stanford University offered "The Anatomy of Movement: an Interdisciplinary Course" that featured the participation of Merce Cunningham through a one-week residency. This hands-on study of anatomy brought together physicians and surgeons, engineers, animators, and visual and performing artists.

There are a number of online resources that you can access to learn more about this fascinating program:

- The Anatomy of Movement Course website

- Enconter: Merce

- "Dancing with data adds to the show", article in March 2005 edition of Stanford Report

- "Anything Can Happen: Dance pioneer Merce Cunningham keeps the campus on its toes", article in March/April 2005 edition of Stanford Magazine

- MotionAnalysis (manufacturer of motion capture equipment) write-up about the participation of Merce Cunningham in this Stanford educational program with video of Cunningham dancer being tracked via motion tracking sensors.

Posted by Doug Fox at 8:00 AM - Permalink | Comments (0)

September 27, 2005

Motione Performance at ASU

Motione is an interactive, multimedia dance performance that featured Bill T. Jones and Trisha Brown and premiered on April 9, 2005 at Arizona State University. The performance and companion website are a joint project of the Arts, Media and Engineering Program at the Herberger College of Fine Arts and the Fulton School of Engineering at ASU.

The motione website is fantastic. I must have spent more than two hours late last week watching the videos, reading research papers, and learning about the participants.

Posted by Doug Fox at 1:13 PM - Permalink | Comments (0)