Great thread! 

I decided after more testing today the iClone plugin is definitely inferior to the other options, but it has a huge advantage in that it is real time to capture directly to the dope sheet. Part of what makes for shitty 3D is the acceleration being off and leading to the bottom of the uncanny valley. The retime tools in iClone are probably the thing that is the least intuitive, but breaking up the motion capture and saving smooths out jitter, and acting things out at a slow pace makes it then easy to retime to a snappier motion with a curve. 

Not being able to customize the acceleration curve is tedious, but it's still quicker than messing with only slightly better data and having to import piece by piece.

iPi seems to do a solid job with a wii controller, and from the videos I see, a much better job on twisting motions with 2 Kinects. You still need to setup two computers and to have a large space properly lit dedicated to the cause, which is a major drawback. I think that's a big plus for the neuron considering the cost of iPi. I'm not going to invest money right now in anything more than a single camera setup with iClone 7 coming.

Hi Nadiak,

If you're interesting by Neuron , I made a thread of it. I've 2 suits and it works perfect for my need.
I'm just waiting Iclone 7 release to make serious production :)

https://forum.reallusion.com/294573/DUO-MOCAP-TUTORIAL

After testing, Brekel outperforms iPi for single camera. In theory iPi should work better and smoother, but any small advantages are vastly outweighed by having realtime feedback. Having a Wii remote would supposedly help with occluded wrists, say in a golf swing or tennis stroke, but I think the advantage is minimal because of the slightly poorer floor recognition. Brekel has an alpha version for two cameras, but when you are getting into multi camera setup, it might be cheaper just to use Neuron. I am interested in buying neuron, but without seeing more videos of it working with iClone I probably will hold off. 

Brekel also exports hand info to BVH. What is strange about iPi Mocap Studio is that the preset iClone rig doesn't use hands for some reason. It appears they are using an old generation rig. I couldn't find the profile for it anywhere, so if RA is reading this, you might consider needling them to include the updated rig. 

As for price, Brekel costs more upfront, but you own it forever. It also supports a bit of a lone wolf genius which is great for competition. Support from both iPi and Brekel is good. I think the verdict is that if you have only a need for one Kinect One, then get Brekel. If you need more advanced features and are comfortable fiddling in BVH Hacker, then iPi is also worth the money. The iClone plugin is disappointing, but in the scheme of pricing is ok depending on your scene. It would be very nice if it were updated or ported to receive Brekel data.  

Can confirm that both Brekel and iPi Mocap do an infinitely better job. I wonder why Reallusion didn't just make a plugin for Brekel. The program's author seems pretty down to Earth. It would seem mutually beneficial rather than trying to reinvent the wheel with a fairly difficult thing to take on. 

iPi Mocap Studio seems similar in usefulness for a single camera. The Kinect 2.0 drivers do not allow for more than one Kinect connected at a time, so to make the multiple cameras work you need two computers. I'm not sure if there is a workaround using a VM, but I use multiple laptops for my workflow so this isn't personally an issue. 

The results for the golf swing are still mixed. I may have to try the iPi Mocap soon with a second Kinect. 

I've had good success with the Carnegie Mellon BVH set. Would you recommend Brekel instead? 

The Reallusion plugin is useless I think except for idle motion, a basic jump, and some basic arm gestures. It looks like it has been abandoned along with many of the third party software. It's a shame M$ doesn't consolidate these companies and offer a mocap recording tool themselves. I feel bad for the developers who invested time only to have it not really be as profitable as they thought. There is probably not enough of a market for so much intense work done in so many places.

Has anyone used this for complex motions, like a golf swing?

I am having very poor results with anything other than basic motions. The available tutorials are the official Reallusion one, which is very basic, and the 3Dtest video about working around the limited motion smoothing in the plugin. 

There are some other free tools to capture BVH with the kinect. (e.g. http://tech.integrate.biz/kinect_mocap.htm* ) Are these problems just a limitation of the camera, or can you get a better result using other software? It seems the Kinect does a pretty good job of tracking bones, albeit a bit jittery. A golf swing is complex, and I wouldn't expect it to get it perfect with just one capture, but it's not tracking spine angle or arms very well when you try.

I know it is easier to keyframe most things instead of debbie schultzing about in in BVH editor with stock mocap data, but some motions are just hard to keyframe. 

*This only works with Kinect 1.0.