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Ascension and Sony
Complete Real-time, 5 Performer
Motion Capture Breakthrough
Production
Image Courtesy of Sony Computer
Entertainment
Burlington, Vermont (USA)
November 1, 2001: Sony Computer
Entertainment Europe's Team
Soho and Ascension Technology
have set a new standard for
motion capture: Production
for the forthcoming Playstation
2 game The Getaway was the
first ever to capture the
motions of five performers
at once, in real time. To
animate the game's characters,
each performer wore an Ascension
Technology MotionStar Wireless®
tracker and a pair of 5DT
data gloves. This allowed
the game to have unprecedented
interaction among the characters
while streamlining the overall
production pipeline.
Image Courtesy of Sony
Computer Entertainment
Team Soho was able to map
motion capture data from all
five performers--plus the
ten 14-sensor gloves--directly
onto the character models,
which were created in Alias|Wavefront
Maya. Dave Bawell of Phantom
3D (Hollywood, CA) helped
install the MotionStar Wireless
system near London where a
large wooden mocap stage was
built to accommodate the performers.
The team originally considered
using an optical system but
rejected it because of occlusion
problems and the fact that
real-time data for five performers
is impossible with current
optical technology. The simultaneous
tracking of five performers,
incorporating over 50 specially
built wood props such as cars,
trucks and weapons, could
only be accomplished using
Ascension's DC magnetic system.
Each motion capture performer
wore an Ascension CyberSuit
outfitted with 11 sensors.
Each performer had a separate
backpack and receiving base
station. Ascension also supplied
the new 5DT, Inc. 14-sensor
data gloves to capture the
performers' hand movements.
The gloves connected directly
into each performer's backpack,
with the glove data "piggybacked"
on the body motion data through
the MotionStar Wireless RF
link at 2.4 Ghz.
Image Courtesy of Sony
Computer Entertainment
Real actors were used for
the production because Team
Soho wanted to capture their
speech along with their movements.
As Gavin Moore, director of
motion capture for Team Soho
pointed out, "Having
speech matched to body motion
is a holy grail of mocap.
Gloves are another holy grail...All
credit really has to go to
Ascension for making this
work. Without their help and
their vision, we just couldn't
have made this possible. Ascension
rewrote software and made
hardware changes to allow
us to put together this most
ambitious of projects."
The Getaway, Sony Computer
Entertainment Europe's flagship
title, positions the player
as Mark Hammond, a retired
bank robber who is forced
back into the world he left
to save his son from an evil
mobster. A series of frantic
car chases ensue, hurtling
the player through a recreation
of 70 square kilometers of
actual London street scenes.
For the cutscenes, Team Soho
applied the motion capture
data directly onto the characters
inside the actual game scenes.
In development for three
years, The Getaway production
required 30 days of motion
capture and is the only game
ever to use five motion capture
performers at once. The Getaway
is expected to be released
early next year.
Ascension Technology Corporation
(Burlington, VT) manufactures
magnetic, optical and inertial
motion trackers for a broad
range of computer graphics
applications. Ascension's
MotionStar and MotionStar
Wireless have been used in
landmark animated productions
such as Star Wars prequels,
Roughnecks: Starship Troopers,
Jay Jay the Jet Plane, Larry
King at the Super Bowl and
the IMAX CyberWorld 3D press
junket.
For more information about
Ascension's motion trackers,
contact Ascension at 802-893-6657.
-- end --
For Immediate Release
Contact: Jack Scully (802)
893-6657 or e-mail: jscully@ascension-tech.com
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