Press Release from VICON
Los Angeles, CA (April 14, 2009) -- VICON, developer of Academy Award-winning motion capture systems, today announced the sale and installation of its T10 motion capture system at graphic design and 2D animation company The Studio, located in New York City. The Studio, which has served the advertising industry for over 20 years, including top agencies such as Saatchi & Saatchi, Goodby Silverstein and McCann-Ericson, installed a top-of-the-line VICON system at its facility in January, both for use on commercial animatics and as part of its plans for expansion into 3D animation.
"We went with VICON because they're the best," said The Studio owner Mary Nittolo. "We looked at everything else available, including markerless systems, and were very pleased with the quality and features VICON had to offer."
"VICON cameras are extremely high-quality, which was a big factor in choosing their system for our facility," said Dave Voci, Director of Animation at The Studio. "I've worked with other motion capture systems in the past, but found limitations in the hardware that were just not acceptable. The VICON system is ideal for capturing motions ranging from action-based, such as sports, to simple and subtle interactions between two people."
The Studio's capture volume is configured with rail mounts for capturing facial and full-body movements for up to three actors at a time. The facility's motion capture pipeline includes VICON's Blade Software for managing mocap data, Autodesk MotionBuilder for character rigging, and Autodesk Maya for rendering and character development.
"Installing the VICON system was incredibly simple. We put it up, calibrated it, and had it running that same night," Voci detailed. "We have a dual-screen set up with Blade on one screen and MotionBuilder on the other, and the connectivity between the two is immediately apparent. Clients love it because the can see instant results - so far they have been very impressed."
The Studio, a certified woman-owned business, is in the process of developing a character library, set environments and other assets for its motion capture pipeline. Voci anticipates that they will be using the system on test commercials for clients by the end of the month. "We're still in the development phase," he said. "We're perfectionists, so we want to have everything in place before we start using it on client projects."
"We're very happy with the performance of the VICON system," Voci concluded. "It's very low-maintenance, and the rail mounts we use allow it to be reconfigured for various tasks with very little down time."
About VICONAcademy Award-winning VICON is the world's largest supplier of precision motion tracking systems, serving customers and CG animation applications in film, visual effects, computer games, and broadcast television, as well as engineering and life science industries. VICON operates in four offices worldwide, including its Los Angeles-based Entertainment headquarters, a 26,000 square-foot facility equipped with three performance capture stages for VICON's service company House of Moves as well as over 250 VICON F40 cameras.
VICON is the largest holding of OMG (Oxford Metrics Group - LSE: OMG), plc., a group of technology companies that produces image understanding solutions for the entertainment, defense, life science and engineering markets. Other holdings include Emmy Award-winning 2d3 and newly founded Geospatial Vision Ltd.
VICON's and OMG's global clients include: life science leaders University of Pennsylvania, the VA Hospitals, Shriners Hospitals for Children, Titleist Golf, The Andrews Institute; engineering industry leaders Ford, BMW, Airbus, Lockheed, Pratt-Whitney, NASA, Caterpillar, International Truck, and Toyota; and entertainment companies Sony Pictures Imageworks, Sony Computer Entertainment, Industrial Light and Magic, Sega, Nintendo, Ubisoft, Vivendi, Electronic Arts, Square Enix and many others. For more information about OMG and its subsidiaries, visit www.omg3d.com, www.vicon.com, or www.2d3.com.
