Research Artefact 6: Mocap vs Key-Framing

This artefact takes the motion created in artefact 5 and discusses the benefits and negatives compared with key-framing the same motion. Both techniques are very time consuming but each have their own plus points. The recorded time for creating the 15 seconds of motion capture data that replicates the same motion as the key-framed animation, minus facial and finger animation as well as the tests sessions was: Half an hour set up, 1 hour capturing (several takes), 3 hours cleaning the data, 1 hour plotting the motion to an actor and character, overall time taken 5 hours 30 minuets. The time taken to key-frame the same motion minus facial and finger animation was 4 hours. This was a surprising result as previous expectations were of the key-framing technique requiring more time. Due to this outcome a second motion capture session was performed to cover 60 seconds of motion. The recorded time for this process was: half an hour set up, 1 hour capturing (several takes), 3 and a half hours cleaning the data, 1 hour plotting the motion to an actor and character, overall time taken was 6 hours. The time taken to key-frame 60 seconds of similar animation is roughly 16 hours. Research on the topic concludes that to book a commercial motion capture lab session costs around £3000 for the day, not taking into account extra cost such as actor’s fee. Based on research from Google Answers, available at: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/784826.html, the cost for an animator to key-frame this motion is $6000 or £4129.42 ($100 per second of finished animation). The positives concluded from the artefact show that extreme accuracy can be achieved when key-framing a motion, using motion capture is a cheaper and faster alternative but doesn’t allow for the same accuracy to be achieved.