Welcome to my week three blog! This week was full of new projects, new people, and new places!
The week began with a slow day at Digital Domain, where things were quiet as people in the MoCap department either continued on their work of “tracking” data from previous shoots or preparing for a two-day shoot on Tuesday and Wednesday. As I touched on in my previous post, motion data tracking involves labeling marker points to assemble a complete skeleton that replicate’s the actors movements, then “cleaning” that data to fix any and all jumps and shakiness in the data (to make the data look as natural as possible), and filling in gaps where markers temporarily go out of view of the cameras. I completed this cleaning process on my own marker data from last week, when I captured some data of me running around the main stage in a MoCap suit. I also got the opportunity to sit in on a couple of meetings to prepare for the shoot that was being finalized for the following two days, it was really great to gain some insight into the professional/coordinating side of this business.
On Tuesday, I got a chance to experience my first shoot with Digital Domain! Unfortunately, I’m not permitted to disclose who or what it was for, but I am allowed to explain the purpose and process of what we were doing. We began our day down the street at the offices of Dimensional Imaging in Playa Vista, where we used their top-of-the-line facial motion capture rig to record facial data for the talent.
Dimensional Imaging’s Facial Capture System
The system consists of 9 cameras fixed to a frame that are arranged in such a way that allow them to capture 3D facial data without necessitating facial markers. This system allows the filmmakers and VFX artists to capture, in extreme detail, the behavior the face as it moves throughout all possible expressions. In order to properly capture the entire range of motion of the subject for future digital recreation, the subject must go through a series of lengthy range-of-motion processes. This includes performing a long list of facial expressions, as well as speaking a few lines of jumbled dialogue to cover every English viseme. Visemes are the facial shapes that we make when saying words, so animators can shape their character’s mouths in visemes to make them appear like they’re speaking naturally. For more on Dimensional Imaging’s systems, visit this link: http://www.di4d.com/systems/di4d-pro-system/
All in all, the data that was captured at Dimensional Imaging was for the purpose of generating a 3D mesh of the subject, while capturing every expression, viseme, and shape that the subject’s face can make. This allows them to recreate the expressions later on a digital human.
For the second half of the day, we made our way to the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies. This facility is funded by the US Department of Defense, and exists to research and develop technologies to benefit the military, students, and society. The purpose of our visit there was to make use of their incredible “light stage”.
ICT’s Light Stage
The light stage, as seen in the picture to the left, is an impressive feat of engineering and software. Fundamentally, the light stage is a sphere of lights and cameras designed to capture extremely high-resolution images of a subject under all lighting conditions. Photographs of the subject are taken as the lights strobe from every angle so the VFX artists can recreate every lighting condition for their digital humans. This ensures that even the smallest details including blood flow and skin translucency are all as realistic as possible. In addition, distinct natural lighting conditions can be recorded as the lights can recreate the conditions of any environment. For example, the photo to the right shows me in the light stage as it generates the conditions of Paris during daytime. For a more in-depth description of the technology, I highly, highly reccomend watching this video and perhaps it’ll make more sense: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6QJT5CXl3o
You can also visit this link to read more about recent applications of this light stage: http://gl.ict.usc.edu/LightStages/
In this video, I am in the light stage as it strobes through every lighting condition and takes nearly 400 photos of my face under these conditions. https://youtu.be/EKEU2d0UlDI
One simple way to think of the two things we did on Tuesday is that Dimensional Imaging created the 3D model of the subject’s face, and ICT’s Light Stage recorded the high-res data of the color, blood flow, and pores of the face under all lighting conditions.
On Wednesday, the talent came to Digital Domain, and we recorded full body and facial movements using a MoCap suit and head-mounted camera. This day was more familiar to me, as I had worn a MoCap suit already and went in with a decent understanding of the technology and it’s purpose. We captured full body and facial ROM’s (range-of-motion’s), visemes (to be mathematically cross-referenced with the visemes from Dimensional Imaging), and various body/face performances. This day was really cool for me, because I got to be fully involved with the shoot: in charge of rolling the helmet camera for shooting, taking shot notes, and other on-set assistance. It was very engaging and I learned a lot about technical protocol on set.
Thursday was a mellow day for me at work, because there was not so much for me to do as everyone else was processing data from the previous shoots. In the afternoon, I got the opportunity to sit down and speak with one of the animators at DD for a half an hour or so and learn a bit about what he does day-to-day, which was interesting to learn about.
On Friday, I had the day off from work, so I rode the Amtrak down to San Juan Capistrano to meet up with a friend who lives down in that area! I spent the remainder of the day and evening down there, and came back to LA Saturday morning. Today, Sunday, Greg and I went paddle-boarding for two hours in Marina Del Rey where I saw some stingrays and sea lions. It was quite the workout for my arms! It was very nice to be on the water and it fortunately was not too hot out. Then, this evening, we walked about 30 minutes down to a park in Playa Vista to meet some of Greg’s friends and see a live Steely Dan cover band. Not such a bad weekend!
In addition, I’ve been running every day, sometimes in the neighborhood where I am living, and sometimes down by Venice Beach where Greg and I run with his running club from the Venice Pier to the Santa Monica pier and back. Altogether, I’ve had a really great time with my mentor, Greg, and learned so much about MoCap already. Eagerly looking forward to what this next week may bring!
“The money is in the banana stand.” Arrested Development anyone?
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