Inital Client Meeting - Thursday 13th November 2008

There are motion capture drop in sessions where we will be able to view the equipment and props in action with the use of motion builder.

The university usually keeps the MOCAP room open on Mondays and Fridays for RTGROP students.

Discussion with Alex Counsell

Our project idea was proposed to Alex, he liked the concept but pointed out similarities with our idea and the previous year’s attempts. He agreed that it would be an interesting and viable project to undertake as long as we understand that he expects us to improve upon last year’s attempts and make use of the new features within the MOCAP lap.

Alex proposed that we should have our thoughts for the project gathered and submitted to him before Christmas. The basic idea has already been agreed upon through brief discussion, but it’s required that we give him the details of the project, such as the story, environmental designs, character concepts, 3d concept renders etc, possibly in the form of an extended pitch document.

Expectations

Alex’s biggest complaint of the previous year groups was that their performances appeared clunky and that he would like it to appear more seamless. This mainly refers to when transitioning from real-time motion capture to pre-rendered videos and other media. The performances can seem more realistic with the use of the new in-built physics engine (including collision detection) which is available this year with the introduction of Motionbuilder 2009 into the MOCAP room. However, MB2009 has not been tested with real-time data as of yet, so until Alex tests this, we will not know if we are able to make use of all these new features or if we will have to resort back to MB7.5 (shit).

Due to the vague nature of the marking scheme and the fact that what we are doing is a performance, we are able to use whatever is at hand to make it work. For example, one group performed a magic show and the hat appeared to be floating, when in fact it was just a piece of wood with two reflective balls being moved about in the air by another student. Another example is of a group placing a sticker of the university logo physically onto the screen to earn the mark of keeping the university logo present at all times of the performance.

The final important point that was mentioned was that he wants to know of any changes that are made to the original pitch as we go through the project process, since we are pretending that he is our industry client, he must be kept up to date.

Technical Information

• Motionbuilder 2009 Learning Edition is available free to download now (confirm?)
• Polygon limit will most likely be able to be increased due to the introduction of new software and hardware; i.e to 9,000 triangles (not confirmed but highly likely).
• ‘Relational Constraints’ are apparently very important for some reason, but not much was mentioned because it’s fun to be ignorant.
• FBX exporter is not available on some of the university machines, which according to Alex, is needed for the use of 3dsmax with Motionbuilder.
• No additional physics plug-ins such as Endorphin are required if MB2009 can be used.