Vicon Motion Systems' Brian
Nilles: Motion-Capture Moves Forward
(continued from page 3)
SS: How has motion-capture impacted
the volume of character animation that is being produced for television,
games and film?
BN: I don't think anybody would argue that it's only gone
up. The whole reason we're in business is because we can produce
very realistic motion, capture it from an actor, and save money
and time for people who are implementing such digital animation
in their productions, whether it's film, TV, games, etc. One of
our quests over the last few years of development has been to reduce
the pipeline from the capture session into the animation package
in the final product. And without being able to show people real
cost benefits for using motion-capture, just the artistic argument
probably wouldn't hold up. Everybody wants to be able to produce
better quality video games and TV and film and special effects,
but if there is a heavy price premium on it or it meant that projects
would be delayed, then we wouldn't go anywhere with it. But the
fact that we can have our customers save money and produce super-realistic
animation, that's the reason that we're having record years.
SS: Do you imagine that this volume will increase in the
future?
BN: Absolutely. We tripled our business last year and we're
on slate to do it again this year.
SS: Will motion-capture become more prevalent to the average
consumer?
 |
|
Fox's
Halloween special Night of the Headless Horseman utilized
motion-capture techniques ranging from collecting facial expressions
to the movements of a horse. Courtesy of and © Computed
Animation Technology (CAT), Dallas, Texas.
|
BN: Absolutely. No question about
it. Certainly, people are going to have more access to 3D. Existing
programs and existing Web content are only now starting to investigate
3D. So, for the average consumer, they really don't understand what
that is and how it can benefit them. But the future is only going
to increase the amount of 3D accessibility that people have. In
terms of whether people will have access to motion-capture themselves
-- no question. One day there will be a product that will be able
to capture the nuance of motion and have people, even at the consumer
level, do something with it. The motion-capture horizons are fairly
pretty right now.
SS: What new arenas do you think we'll be seeing motion-capture
in?
BN: You'll see more 3D and more motion-capture on the Web.
You'll see entertainment media that haven't been able to afford
motion-capture so far. You'll see that prices are coming down and
people will have more access to it. There are more service bureaus
who are using motion-capture as their primary business and offering
services for motion-capture. So, a whole bunch of people who don't
currently use it now will have access to it because of better pricing,
because of a better understanding of the technology, because the
pipeline got simpler, and it's easy to use. All of the above. We're
still at the bottom of the curve.
Sharon Schatz is a writer in the New Media department at Fox
Family Worldwide and is also a freelance writer based in Los Angeles.
