House of Moves Provides Mocap for <em>Starhawk</em>

Los Angeles, CA — Leading motion capture and animation service company House of Moves [1] (HOM) helped bring realism to the soldiers and villains in the recently released third-person shooter Starhawk through full body motion capture, which was used as the basis for the title’s in-game animation. Now available exclusively for the PlayStation3 (PS3) computer entertainment system, the innovative new game was developed by LightBox Interactive and provides fast paced, frenetic shooter action set in the lawless frontier of space. Through the title’s unique Build & Battle system, players can instantly alter the battlefield by calling down offensive and defensive structures from an orbiting drop ship in real-time, all while blasting away at enemies in the middle of huge single-player or multiplayer firefights.

LightBox approached HOM with the project in 2010, having previously collaborated with HOM Vice President of Production Brian Rausch. After determining the best pipeline to meet production needs, HOM captured full performance and audio over four days on their secondary 459 square-foot soundstage featuring 200 Vicon T160 cameras. Two seasoned performers acted out the necessary movements under the guidance of LightBox Creative Director Lars DeVore. Once the shoot was complete, three HOM artists took about a month to track and solve the mocap, ultimately delivering skeletal data to LightBox for retargeting and animation.

“House of Moves is a well-organized one-stop-shop for everything we needed to get quality in-game mocap for Starhawk,” said Lars DeVore, creative director, LightBox Interactive. “Their set up is state-of-the-art and they were able to secure top notch talent for us. Our performers were so good, we frequently only needed one take and were able to accomplish a tremendous amount of work each day.”

“I’ve always respected how LightBox co-founders Lars DeVore and Dylan Jobe are open to the creative process,” said Rausch. “They listen to and value everyone’s opinion, and will make changes as needed to benefit the final result. Working with them on this project was so smooth; we were happy to adjust our workflow to suit their needs and provide the base for their fantastic animation.”