Mocap Methods

A friend of mine told me about his Mocap Methods. Just to sum it up on what he did, get prepared on all the data they are going to get, getting the mocap on what they believe in, and being confident on the results they are going to get.

1. You must get as much as detail from the designers
2. Go over the details over and over
3. For every mocap that they were planning to get at the studio, they wanted to make sure they are not wasting time by thinking of ideas for a movement.
4. We needed to get male and female animations, so we thought of an idea to record them both together at the same time. this theory sounded really good, because you will be getting the movements from both actors at the same time and timing, but we tested this out in reality and it felt as if the director was giving 50/50 attention to both actors. We really want to invest in 100% attention.
5. Friend Quoted  "If you want me to direct, I need you to get off the floor." This is to make sure that there is only one cook in the kitchen, if there are more, chances are there is going to be disagreements and fighting for direction.
6. The mocap trip turned out great, I was really impressed with some of the data that came back. Not just the final content but also how it was organized. For example: dl_talk_1_2_3, was just an animation that had 3 variations of talking, I had to clean the mocap by putting on the correct stand pose and splitting the files up. I ended up making dl_talk_1, dl_talk_2, and 3, quick and easy.
7. Reference Reference Reference, coworker has a spreadsheet with all the documents that they go over with cinematic designers. All the data they need to get for mocap is fully documented and reviewed by making video clips of themselves. Designers need to approve the videos before getting the mocap.

So when ever you go out for mocap, you must be prepared and know what you are capturing.
1 Direction, Organized, and plenty of reference.