Memories

As part of this test, the motion capture team at Dimension set out to showcase the speed and efficiency of the Vicon’s system. Perfect for projects where our team needs to deliver fast-turnaround visualisation, the aim was to shoot the test content in one day. We used the markerless system to send tracking data directly into Unreal Engine where it was retargeted onto two metahuman builds in several virtual environments.

“Dimension is always looking to improve the filmmaking process,” commented Tim Doubleday, Dimension’s Head of On-set Services. “That improvement is what this new markerless system helps us do. Because anyone can jump in and start being tracked straight away, we’re able to very quickly iterate on ideas and workshop movements, not just by directing actors, but by putting ourselves in the scene, in real-time."

‘What we’re trying to do is create a friction free production environment that lets us capture motion and story in the most straight-forward way possible,’ explained Martin Bell. ‘Usually the first hour or two of a motion capture shoot is getting the actors into suits and calibrated. But with Vicon’s new markerless system we don’t have any of that; we just come in, the system boots up, actors strike a T-pose and we’re ready to go.’

The test film titled ‘Memories’ was produced using Epic’s Unreal Engine, which the Vicon system integrates easily with. We remotely triggered from Unreal and recorded in Vicon’s Shogun, in which the team also can retarget the data, applying the live movement directly onto the final skeleton and we can see the results in real-time.

On top of that, we were also able to take advantage of prop tracking and the virtual camera thanks to a tracking crown that’s been built by the Dimension team. This lets us easily integrate tracked props, and walk around in the 3D space to see what the camera sees in the virtual environment which includes the metahumans animated live by the markerless tracking data.

This, on top of the other benefits the system delivers, means the team at Dimension can really make the most out of a shoot day like the one we had on this film. Creatives and filmmakers can try out lots of different things, and finish the day with multiple takes and versions, all of which are almost final. It allows filmmakers to concern themselves only with the story, because the nuance of a live performance is there in every take, having been tracked and animated in real-time.