mocap on the desktop

Xaelander – Previz in Maya

I just completed recording a small animation in Maya using the new Xaelander X2R2 hardware testing the upcoming Xaelander software release.

I think it documents nicely what the Xaelander software suite is capable off. It demonstrates animating a walk cycle on the primary character and animating the secondary character. The powerful two point 3D camera tracking and animating a special effect by capturing motion onto a locator.

I look at the short video and think «Even if I captured every part ten times, I created that animation in about 20 minutes. An experienced storyboard artist could probably come close nailing that shot in 20 minutes. But a previz animator should never ever have to just float his characters around anymore – they should make them walk around.»

Modified website up

Jonathan Woodburn redesigned our entire appearance. As the first thing of many new things to come we released our new look on the web today.

Here is Jonathan’s Web Home

Since the Domain is gone I am posting an image here.

Xaelander animator blog

I want you to go and read Mike’s blog where he talks about his experiences using the Maya Xaelander and an X2R2 camera setup from Motion4U.

Also check out his portfolio here. Some really cool stuff.

Motion4U @ Siggraph 2009

We had our own small booth @ Siggraph 2009 in New Orleans. And yeah the gorgeous woman in the gold suit belonged to us 🙂 I am amazed how underrated the «booth babe» concept is these days.

Here’s Vizworlds photo gallery covering a lot of the show. You’ll also find this picture in case you did not remember her eye color 😛

Motion4U – What is BurstMode?

Here’s a little flash anim posted for historical reasons and sharing.

It’s explaining different operations that can be done in BurstMode.

Left Mouse Button = Object Manipulation
Middle Mouse Button = Camera Manipulation
Right Mouse Button = Burst Fly Mode

Check out the Flash below. Beware it loads for a while…

RoninWorks – Rattle – Promotional Video

Moving an object around in 3D space can be a tedious and annoying process and is definitely not something a baby could do with todays versions of tools like Maya, 3DS or alike. But with the immersive tools from RoninWorks even a baby could animate a shaking rattle more dynamically.

Watch what happens when a baby discovers full 6D motion interaction.

(And yeah, after hearing this over and over again for 3 full days, exhibiting at Siggraph, we had a rather ballistic attitude towards crying babies…)