1. Explain in your own words, Why do we use motion capture instead of doing hand/normal keyframe animations?

Motion capture is the latest movement capturing technology that we could use.
The reason why we use it is because it is faster, and takes a lot quicker to create a proper 3d animation. Also adds an huge advantage by boosting the realism in movements, which draws the audience closer to the virtual world. By trying the newest motion capturing technology is a real fortune.

1. Explain in your own words,in 10 - 15 steps, how to put the suit on, adjust, configure, test, direct, record, convert, export and import motion capture suit & data.
• Explain details and use keywords
  

1) Putting the suit on
need 2-3 people's help to put the suit on. Firstly one person hold the back part up in the approx position, and another person adjust the chest holder and place right below acter's chest.
clip the belts onto chest holder, and adjust the length of the belt to suit actor's proportion.

Place the arm holder in right position and warp the velcro around actor's upper arm right above the elbow. and also put on the hand belt and warp around and make them tight.

take the middle part of the suit onto actor's waist. belt it around tight.

place leg holder in right position and belt it tight, warp the velcro around, and put the foot sensor right under actor's feet, and also warp around.

last you can put the head sensor on. then you can connect wires together between the 2 black boxed on the back o the suit.

2) Testing
ask the actor if everything seems to work with him, is he comfortable or is still needs to be adjust. . then ask him to move aorund see if the actor is comfortable.

3) Configuring suite, & system
configure the suit, adjust length of arms, legs....gyros must be around 2 fingers away from the actor. Turn the computer on, than turn the X-ist box receiver on.

4) 6D mouse
open an avatar model, use 6D mouse to move character around then try to fit character in screen.


5) Live system
get the actor to stand still for a minute, turn the sensor box on the back of the suit on, and ask the actor to be in an initialized position before start recording.
after making sure the suit corporates with the system, you can stat record.

6)Roles
In recording movements, there should be a director who directors the actor how to move and what to act. A technician is needed to manipulate the computer and the system.
And a actor assistant is also needed to help caring actor's suit cable/ wire in case actor trip themselves.

7)Recording
After confirming with every role, you can start to record. press record button to start, stop button to finish record.


8) Convert
The file would be saved as .src file.
You could convert them into .csm file while you converting in 3Ds max.

9) Import animation.
open 3D max, import max file.

• gyro, system, suit, titanium, potentiometer , wires, cables, X-ist box, initialize, xrc, csm, bip, body fingure foot tests.

1. Good and bad experience with the prosthetic motion capture suit/system?

Good: For the motion capture suite we currently got has been used for more than 10 years. the technology has grown so fast, and now we could record movements without using any suit but rely on light reflection via camera.
However it is good to know why the technology changed to redundant the problems and inconvenience in old tech, and how to use it in order to understand how motion cap works.


Bad: it is actually quite hard to use, and due to the suit has been broken and carries some broken parts where system could not sensor some parts of the body, it is very to keep the movement accurate...
it is heavy, the movement of the actor is limited, loads of movement is impossible to achieve with this suite back in 10 years.

1. What are you expecting to see different or interested in the new system?

I expect to see accurate, smooth movement. Recording movement without any suites or technical equipment does make it a lot easier. Movements should be almost unlimited. Adds a lot of spaces and limitations for the actor to do some special movements.
Expecting an excellent result form the new system : ) exciting !