Before you get ready for a shoot it's always best to plan ahead so that you can achieve optimal results from your motion capture.
Clothing:
The clothing your actor wears has an impact on the quality of your data. This is why it's important to make sure your actor is wearing the appropriate clothing for your shoot.
Clothing style:
Avoid wearing baggy or loose clothes, this will make your body shape deceiving for the system.
Avoid wearing long sleeves that cover the wrist. The system needs to see your wrists in order to track your hand optimally.
Clothing colour:
We recommend choosing clothing that will stand out from the background. Making sure there is a contrast between the actor and background will improve the system’s ability to extract your motion.
If you are filming in a room with white walls, we would recommend avoiding any white clothing.
Wearing a red top with blue bottoms will provide contrast between one another, making it clear for the system. Additionally, the white walls in the background make the actor stand out.
Avoid wearing black clothing where possible, as black absorbs light, rather than reflects it and so there is less texture for the system to see the detail.
Footwear:
Make sure that the shoe height matches the shoe height of your rig. For instance, if your rig is wearing high heels, make sure your performer is wearing high heels of the same height. This will ensure that the performer’s movement is naturally transferred over to your rig.
Shoot location
Available Space
The capture volume is the space where the actor will be captured. It is also important to consider the space necessary to position your iPhones around the capture volume so that they can see your entire body during the capture.
Use our capture volume tool to learn how many phones are recommended for your space.
Location
When shooting, it's important to remember the following:
Optimal Lighting:
House lighting is usually sufficient, but it's recommended to make sure the capture volume is well-lit in order for the system to follow your movements effectively.
Without sufficient lighting, the contrast between the actor and the background may not be clear. We recommend avoiding very dark lighting and extreme shadows for this reason.
Capture Volume:
When shooting, make sure that no other people are present in the volume except the actor(s) and that no one touches the camera iPhones.
We recommend marking out the limits of the capture volume so that the actor doesn't accidentally leave the volume.
Environment:
Check your surroundings and see if there are any mirrors in view of any cameras, this will be very confusing for the system and should be avoided at all costs, as additional actors may be detected with misleading locations.
Do your best to mitigate water droplets sitting on the camera lens if capturing in the rain, this will distort the image and impact the tracking.
When calibrating, the actor will put their hands above their head in the Y-pose. This tells the system that this is the person we want to be tracking. Make sure that all users outside the volume do not put their hands above their heads. This can interfere with the system and may impact the data quality.