It's really strange but a thread with the title "Some simple (?) suggestions for Kinect motion..." seems to be all about iPi Soft. Perhaps you should start another few hundred threads about your product to increase sales and leave this thread to actually be about its subject. Just an idea.

I picked up an new Kinect thirty minutes ago and I'm going to try it out using a pair of Vuzix glasses and a Space Mouse tonight. I may post the results on YouTube and add links here if I find out something interesting. I'm mainly focusing on moving the camera using the Kinect for now. Performance capture will be a later test.

The equipment list right now is:
The "habitat" is my living room. 6x6 meter.
Samsung flat screen TV
Lenovo w520 with 16GB RAM, 2 SSD drives and a Quadro 2000M GPU. Quad Core i7. Windows 7 Professional 64-bit.
Vuzix 320VR with VGA extension (I don't think I'm going to use the Gyro in the glasses)
Space Mouse
Kinect
iClone PRO 5

Martin Munthe
Filmmaker
http://munthe.biz
http://youtube.com/watch?v=2ntlOSGrRrI

If you connect a virtual camera to an avatar and use the Kinect plugin on that avatar and add camera smoothing to the camera you actually get a good looking camera path. So the smoothing feature is there and ready for Reallusion to work with.

Fature request number one on my list, guys. Pretty please? :)

Martin Munthe
Filmmaker
http://munthe.biz
http://youtube.com/watch?v=2ntlOSGrRrI

I'm not going to get into a discussion with peaklevels this time but I want to add a few notes on how to view the Kinect Plugin compared to other systems of motion capture out there.

The Kinect plugin rests on the OpenNI driver. This is an open source driver used by the Brekel software as well. The OpenNI driver reads the Kinect just like the Xbox does and provides the option to get a real time read of a person standing in front of the Kinect. What other systems - like the on from iPi Soft - does is to do an optical analysis track that is then post processed. It actually takes a while before you get to view your recording. There is absolutely no feedback during the actual recording.

Post processing of visual tracking provides a better capture. It can be likened to iClone using a real time game engine to achieve realtime renders - you either find that to be an advantage or you start screaming about how superior Renderman is to the iClone game engine - they shouldn't be compared. It's all a matter of priority in what your trying to achieve with your work flow. Using two Kinects brings more details to the track. Keep in mind that professional optical motion capture systems used on big blockbusters uses several hundreds of cameras. So you will never get that kind of detail using two Kinects. That being said - iPi is a really cool garage solution for the independent producer. The reason we wont have a two Kinect setup for realtime work for a while is that it will demand double the performance of our computer systems. And it's already quite intense work to work with the OpenNI on a regular desktop. Not all iClone customers use Tesla setups I would expect.

The downside to post processing systems is that you loose the real time feature of the Kinect plugin based on OpenNI. I work a lot with previz work with paying customers. They have come to expect realtime, draft quality renders of different camera setups and actor/dummy motions. iClone gives me this possibility. I can't do it with post process based systems. After all the previz work I can move on and use something better for the actual performance capture - like the Vicon system or the OptiTrack (or iPi if a two Kinect setup is sufficient for what I'm doing).

I also view the Kinect plugin as a really interesting experimental feature for no-budget film making and interactive stuff.

It's all about real time. That's why the flame war on what's a better system and then we're talking about a real time system vs a post processing system is so strange to me. Why compare them? They are two interesting systems and tools available for us to use for different purposes. It's a non argument and for some reason it seems to trigger a lot of emotions. I have no idea why.

Just my two cents.

Martin Munthe
Filmmaker
http://munthe.biz
http://youtube.com/watch?v=2ntlOSGrRrI

Peaklevels, your last post is either sarcastic, or very confusing.

Also, my last post was responding to the original post of this thread...a list of what would make iClone mocap better. My list shared similar features to iPi, sure, and that just means these should be standard features in any mocap system.

However, I'm not sure iPi records head tilts and hand tilts off the human's motion...these should also be standard features regardless of the mocap company :)

I still like Peter, I don't think he's bad at all. I don't agree with some of his decisions, and I certainly don't mind openly sharing these opinions. I also know some things are likely out of his hands...things he is told from above.

You sound frustrated Peaklevels, and I can understand that. Keep in mind that there are Reallusion users who are interested in your product, but we also like iClone. We won't jump ship on iClone too easily, so please be careful about putting Reallusion down across the board.

And to be honest, your new graphic is much slicker and better designed than the large one. IMHO. Cheers.

Thank you Peter.

Martin Munthe
Filmmaker
http://munthe.biz
http://youtube.com/watch?v=2ntlOSGrRrI

Actually, they were likely removed because they emphasized a non Reallusion product (iPi) that is superior to the Mocap product sold by Reallusion.

As I wrote in one of those posts that was deleted, but perhaps could have been moved, the mentioning of other products is healthy for everyone. It provides the necessary wake up call to Reallusion to make their product usable and perhaps even better than the competitor.

Honestly Peter, the posts that included some insults were in the minority and THOSE were the only posts that should have been removed. The other posts you felt were off topic could have been moved to another category. I put time into writing my posts, and I know other people do too. Our feedback and free testing is what makes your products stronger.

Thank you CallNeg for the suggestions. We appreciate you taking the time to share your views on the Mocap Device Plugin. Your suggestions have now been passed to the iClone development team.

*PLEASE NOTE* All the posts that followed this have been removed. This was done for the following reasons.

1) They were completely off-topic. This is the Wishful Features forum.

2) They descended into arguments and insults including the use of profanity which is against forum rules.

                                                                

Peter
Forum Administrator

www.reallusion.com

Actually, the multiple camera idea was inspired after having played with the IPi Soft capture software. I didn't know that they now supported multiple Kinects because the tech specs say only one, so I appreciate the link. The trick that I would like to see iClone develop is either a similar ability, or the ability to link into a solution like this in realtime as opposed to going through the BVH format. When working properly, realtime animation in iClone makes it much easier to do things like navigating around virtual props, or interacting items using the physics engine that would require a lot of additional planning if capturing to BVH and then importing.

Edited to add the following for the benefit of those reading this thread following the mass deletion of posts, to add what I gained from the exchange:

Following the post below this one, a very long and sometimes contentious discussion of the iPiSoft markerless motion capture system took place. Demands for proof that it worked were made by some, peaklevels, whose banner used to be about a 1/3 page ad for the iPiSoft product supporting 2 Kinects that linked to his sales page participated extensively. Peaklevels stated he does not use iClone, however provided a number of motions and examples to show that the iPiSoft product will integrate rather nicely into the iClone production pipeline through BVH export. A number of back and forth exchanges took place, occasionally due to the misunderstanding of the parties as to what would constitute "proof" that the product worked as advertised, as well as to its $595 price tag.

What I gained from this discussion was that the iPiSoft product is not directly comparable to the realtime mocap plugin because it is not realtime. The best thing about the realtime plugin is that, if it were improved a bit, would provide a very quick and easy way to do animations, but even then would not be able to achieve the same level of quality of a multi-camera non-realtime markerless motion capture system (the non-realtime system can expend a huge number of CPU/GPU cycles crunching the input data, a luxury realtime does not have). I believe the realtime plugin, if it worked a little better, would be ideal to do quick and dirty animations, realtime demonstrations, scene blocking/testing, and for introducing kids, friends, and family to animation . To do high-quality, close-to-professional quality motion capture, especially of more complex motions requires an aftermarket solution.

You want dual Kinects? OK

General Picture - animating now to life itself(tm)
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