1 CmpE 195A Project Motion Capture Tool Project Description By: Dr. Mohamed Fayad & Huáscar Sánchez

2 Team Requirements The team or students designated for this project must have the following qualities: Experience on Java/Java3D Programming Understanding of Graphics Theory GUI Programming (Java Swing) Hardware design Knowledge Research Experience And Team Oriented.. Does your Team have these qualities?..... Did I scare you?

3 Available Resources Research Papers about this topic will be posted on Dr. Fayad’s Website. Sample Code, and any related material will be also available on Dr. Fayad’s Website. To make this work very iterative, team members are welcome to share their findings to be posted on Dr Fayad’s website.

4 Current Concerns in the Area Reduce the required time for making a Character/Object Move. Necessity of Easy to Use GUIs to improve complex Motion Capture Process. Better Integration Between Hardware and Software. Construction of Application- Independent Controllers handle complex character’s posture configuration by simply recording the desired behavior or motion of particular actors in a defined environment. Make use of different types of complex capture hardware or simpler mechanical devices to accelerate Animation Process. Efficient Integration of Hardware and Software to improve the utilization of Motion Capture Data for Real Time Animations (i.e. Mortal Kombat Game). Alternatives Did you know that: Motion Capture Techniques are constantly use in Game Development? I am sure you do!

5 What is Motion Capture Technique? Motion capture technology focused on the utilization of real actors to overcome the problem of complex character’s posture configuration by simply recording the desired behavior or motion of particular actors in a defined environment, thereby reducing the need of artists to manually position characters [1]. Motion capture systems usually store data as absolute coordinate values, but there are motion capture file formats that specify rotation data, which can be extracted from absolute coordinates data to be used for hierarchically articulated characters [1]. References: [1] Szilard Kiss, Computer Animation for Articulated 3D Characters. Cool! huh?

6 Project Description The main goal of this project is to develop a tool for character animation, focusing of the most “Hot” technique for character animation: Motion Capture. This technique should be included as the main feature to animate your characters (i.e. using Hardware and Software Means). Provide to any artist and any other common user the enough flexibility to express his/her unlimited imagination into a well- defined/detailed 3D digital representation of a character and/or environment. For this project, the captured subject can be anything that exists either in the real world or our imagination, with the key points positioned on the subject/character such that they will accurately represent the distinct orientations of the moving parts of that particular subject (i.e. pivot points). For this Project we will use Java/Java3D Programming Language and UML, and Hardware Design.

7 Project Description - Continuation This project will consist on several deliveries with specific deadlines. These deadlines will be stipulated by the class instructor and/or the project advisor. Remember, stable tool for character animation should cover in detailed and how Motion Capture is applied for character animation (i.e. Capture Hardware, Software Controllers, etc.). The selected team for this project will be working with a moderator/project advisor who will help you to understand and get clarified about minor doubts on the project development. At the end of the course, the selected teams for this project must merge all the submitted documents into one whole document (including snapshots of the tool, some samples of the source code). Also, the team must submit a copy of the developed tool (CD) and be ready to show the working tool. Motion Capture Possible Process Flow Information – Domain Knowledge

8 Who is interested? Any Question? Please let me know if any Team is interested in this project. Thank You!