Hi Dave,impressive, what was the hardest thing to find out about. I do hope you could do a short tutorial when you have time.................dave
Thank you. I will definitely do a tutorial showing everything how things were done.
In short, it runs like this.
1. Install ipi basic version software. You can get the Express or the Standard version. Try the free trial, that allows you to export 5 seconds of animation. The only difference between the basic and standard version is the number of cameras you can setup. Functionality wise they are the same. In basic you can setup 4 cameras max for mocap. Standard lets you setup 6 cameras. But is almost double the price, which I don't think is worth it. I used just 1 Kinect and captured a good motion. I'm looking forward to try with 4 cameras all together. That would allow a bette data capture.
2. Install ipi Recorder (you can download in their website) : https://ipisoft.com/downloads_index.php
3. With the Xbox Kinect plugged in, the Recorder will detect it. Choose Kinect in the dropdown menu as the devise to use for capture. Just make sure the first 2 seconds the recording is filming an empty space. Once the recording button is pressed, walk to your position and stand as T pose.
4. Two seconds in T pose you can start moving around as shown in the video I posted.
5. Once that is done........ walk back and press STOP recording. You will have a new avi file.
This avi file is a special one. You can't open it in Premiere for example. Not sure why.
6. Start ipi DMC (Desktop Motion Capture). Choose Open and the avi file you just created from the ipi Recorder. In the screen you will see the data. Move the ipi dummy character around, increase his height, etc in the Actor tab to more or less fit the background video of you in T pose.
7. Once you are happy with the dummy model, go to Tracking and press fit. Now wait for ipi dmc to process the data. Done.
8. In Maya, prepare your character in T pose and add a HumanIK skeleton.
9. Select the character and the bones, then export it as FBX file.
10. Back in ipi dmc, in the Export tab, press button and import your character fbx file (The one you saved in Maya).
11. You will now see your character side by side with the ipi dmc default dummy character. Or you can choose to have your character on the dummy.
12.
Now, the tricky part and problems I encounter
After importing my cowboy, my character arms, legs, etc didn't move at all. The whole mesh was moving around with the ipi dummy in T pose. After asking around in their forum, I actually had to retarget all the bones. (Will do a screen grab later as I'm teaching a class now. When I get back home later Tonight).
Now, the good new is, you don't have to have all the bones renamed / named to match the ipi dummy.
Since HumanIK bones have their own names, I had Maya opened in one monitor and ipi dmc in my second monitor so I could easily match the bones one by one. The good news? You can retarget everything inside ipi dmc.
They are releasing v.2 this month. I am very impressed with the software and quality too and above all, I only used 1 Kinect to capture my movements and the quality was very impressive. I'm planning to get 4 cameras later.
I will make a video on how to do all this later. But my next and final step is really to try and export the data back into Maya. Had to rush out this morning and didn't have time to continue my testings.
Once I have this step done, I will do a zero to hero video showing all the steps.
Hope all that information helps. Cheers!
