Project 3

This project will focus on collecting motion capture data and then using that data to animate three or four non-human characters who are in a band playing their instruments and singing the lyrics.

The first thing you need to do is pick a song, preferably one available in digital form. This should be at least a 60 second clip. You will be listening to this clip a lot so make sure its something that will not drive you insane. You will very likely hate this piece of music when you are done, and possibly have nightmares about it, so please choose carefully. Something that has a very obvious beat may be easier to animate to.

Then you need to think of what kinds of creatures will be in the band. Maybe they are worms, or a bunch of aliens on the moon, some dinosaurs in prehistoric times, or a bunch of fish or crbs on the ocean floor. The idea here is to be creative in what these non-human creatures look like. They should not look like people. Think about how the creatures will move to the music before you get to the motion capture area. The characters do not need to be playing real instruments but there should clearly be some connection to the music so a person watching this could belive that the characters are playing.

You will then use motion capture techniques to animate your characters. We will use the Vicon motion capture system in EVL to collect this data. You will then need to clean up that data and use it to animate your computer generated characters so they move to the music. Be sure to bring something with you to your motion capture session to play back your music. We will be scheduling a few days in November when the groups can come and do your motion capture sessions. This will take place in 1032 SEL, which is in the North East corner of the Western building of SEL.

The setting should be detailed enough to know what the setting is supposed to be.

You should probably think about bringing some props to bring along. Last time a couple groups brought in some friends who were better dancers.

You also may want to use some of the routines you created in Project 2 to augment the motion capture in this project. All of the primary motions of the characters should be through motion capture, but secondary effects can be through other routines, and you may want some other things moving around in the background. You may also want to use some of the kinematics material.

One major difference in this project is that this project will be done in groups. The groups will most likely have 2 people. Please email me your group members once you have formed.