1. Explain in your own words, What is motion capture?
Motion capture is a set of equipment that can record a motion data and then the motion capture can be used by an object in any animation.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/Activemarker2.PNG
2.Explain in your own words, What is the connection between Zoe-trope, Rotoscope, Motion Capture
These three are all methods that are used to record the movement and then used in the animation. They present the developing progress of the animation technique.

Zoe-trope

http://education.eastmanhouse.org/discover/kits/files/3/zoetrope2.png

Rotoscope

http://com546-volumetric-cinematography.pbworks.com/f/rotoscoping.jpg
3.Choose a Game or a Movie and explain/ show videos, their motion capturing process, company name, year, clip.

http://www.vizworld.com/2009/12/art-motion-capture-avatar/

Avatar Exclusive -Behind The Scenes (The Art of Performance Capture)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2_vB7zx_SQ&feature=player_embedded

4.List 4 Advantages & Disadvantages for your assigned motion capture suit & why would we use the motion capture suit (2837-Optical)
Optical Motion Capture is a technique that detects motion visually.
Advantages:
*very configurable (you can put the markers on an elephant or fabric, or baseballs or footballs, etc.)
*a large active area is possible
*useful for capturing gymnastic types of moves
*most often used 'out of house' at specialty studios
Disadvantages:
*only the bright reflective markers will be sampled
*extra cameras are required for full coverage
*easy for the performer to occlude, or hide
*limited by the resolution of the cameras and the sophistication of their tracking software

Optical motion capture suit can offer the performer the most freedom of movement since they do not require any cabling. Optical systems incorporate directionally-reflective balls referred to as markers which attach to the performer. Optical systems require at least three video cameras, each of which is equipped with a light source that is aligned to illuminate the field of view for that camera. Each camera is in turn connected to a synchronized frame buffer. The computer is presented with each camera view in order to calculate a 3D position of each marker; the resulting data stream therefore consists of 3D position data for each marker. This data is typically applied to an inverse kinematics system, to animate a skeleton.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_capture#Optical_systems
http://www.metamotion.com/motion-capture/optical-motion-capture-1.htm
http://vizproto.prism.asu.edu/datacapture/motioncapture1/index.html
http://www.siggraph.org/education/materials/HyperGraph/animation/character_animation/motion_capture/motion_optical.htm#An