![]() ![]() Image credit: the official Avatar Youtube channel, Century Studios. Behind-the-scenes from “Avatar: The Way of Water”. An example of the conventional motion capture suit. Well, seems that there is another way now, which should put a fat check on this industry injustice. Such hardware is incredibly expensive going up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. A motion capture suit helps to record human acting and to track body motion for further animation processes. If you have ever observed behind-the-scenes of any film using a CGI character then you are familiar with the concept of a tight black suit covering every inch of an actor’s body while they impersonate an imaginary Gollum, say. How so, you ask? Let’s talk about motion capture with AI – a zero-cost way to start animating from scratch. Let’s stick with the latter, shall we? Apart from creating artistic mood boards within minutes and enhancing concept ideas, neural networks can also massively simplify your previsualization and animation processes. We can either despise new technology or see it as a helping hand. “I need your clothes, your boots, and your motorcycle… Wait, and also your motion capture suit!” It seems spooky yet it’s undeniable: artificial intelligence tools have been growing and evolving at breakneck speed. keyboard_arrow_rightCameras of the Year.keyboard_arrow_rightGear Guides by Type.keyboard_arrow_rightGear Guides by Budget.Hollywood's internal debate, therefore, is perhaps even more important than its academic counterpart, since industrial. ![]() Furthermore, motion capture is an expensive technology, one that requires sizable investments of both funds and physical space. The major players involved-institutions including the Screen Actors Guild and the Walt Disney Company-recognize that the current debates over motion capture will have long-range professional ramifications. (1) Many of these same topics are being discussed within the film industry, only with the much more concrete goal of assigning creative and financial credit (or blame) for motion capture's successes (or failures). ![]() Previous essays on motion capture have largely dealt with the theoretical problems it presents: issues of reality versus representation, media confluence, and the "uncanny valley" of photorealism. ![]() This essay examines how various groups within Hollywood have sought to control the conversation about motion capture as well as efforts by a prominent umbrella organization-the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences-to end the debate by scrutinizing its own definitions of animation. This has spurred an industry-wide race to redefine motion capture in which different factions of filmmakers-everyone from actors to visual effects artists, studios to labor unions-have attempted to claim the technology as their own. Whereas it was once compared almost exclusively to animation and to techniques such as rotoscoping in particular, the medium has evolved into its own particular mode of expression. As such, motion capture is at the center of an ongoing debate about what constitutes animation in the digital age. By capturing live movement as raw computer data, it exists as an unprecedented amalgam of both recorded and synthetic cinema. Motion capture occupies a unique and disputed place among film technologies. Clearly, the question of how to view motion capture is an important one, as it illustrates the difficulties of defining different forms of film in the digital age. Rules have been written and opinions have been proffered from film practitioners, corporations, unions, and even award shows reflecting numerous agendas and points of view. The past two years, however, have seen several moves to end the debate, with various disciplines attempting to categorize motion capture-often to contradictory extremes. The debate has been quietly raging for over a decade, even as the technology itself becomes more powerful, more convincing, and more widespread. It is, without a doubt, an odd way to postscript a film, but Ratatouille's swipe at motion capture is also indicative of a larger dispute over the use of modern technology within the pantheon of animation techniques. "Our Quality Assurance Guarantee," it reads, "100% Genuine Animation! No motion capture or any other performance shortcuts were used in the production of this film" Next to the statement stands a winking caricature of a 1950s businessman giving the audience a thumbs-up for supporting such an apparently worthy endeavor. At the very bottom of the end credits, following the usual Pixar-perfect lists of loop groups and Production Babies, comes an unexpected disclaimer. The most intriguing scene in Ratatouille (Brad Bird, 2007) occurs after the movie is over. ![]()
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