So, how do YOU personally make animations

Ok, so I have been thru trying so many different programs to create animations and there is some I like and some I don't. Poser? Not too bad but I think a little bit too much for what some of us would ever need for creating SL animations. I did however get the free one everyone was talking about. (brain fart on the name its on my computer upstairs will update and put the name when the kids are done eating lol) But ya know I can't help but be curious. When I was in college a couple of my friends were studying to become game animators and also work with doing animation for movies. (I'm sure you can think of a few that used complete animation work). Eventually between the 3 of them they pooled together to buy a MoCap Suit. For those of you unfamiliar with the termonology this is a motion capture suit. A person would wear this suit and wirelessly would send the data of ever movement made by this person to a computer and capture it as an animation. There is also other ways of doing this like using a specialize camera and placing several "dots" at specific points/joints on your body. hense recording the movements.

Sitting back playing with these programs trying to create a simple animation I couldn't help but wonder. How much does a MoCap suit run these days? So then it began. The search in google for the price tag of one of these suits. Nada. Not a single price listing. Sure I could have contacted the company and asked, but now adays with everyone selling your information left and right and getting tons of spam and junk mail. No thanks. Ok fine can't find a price of how much it costs. What about hiring someone to make animations that owns one. Surely I could figure out how much it would cost to buy one based on how much they charge to create animations for you. Again, nada. So my question is this. Based on the fact that poser and other animation programs cost a rather large ammount of money to purchase legitimately. Is there anyone out there that happens to know the price of these MoCap suits/cameras? I'm sure its some outragous number like 25K+ but i'm really curious here lol.

Any information would be appreciated as I'm really curious and would kinda wanna know. Hell if its not as much as my car, who knows, i might just splurge and get one. Ok so prolly not cause if it was affordable. 1/2 the animators in sl would prolly have one. and i'm sure that jessy and the other guys are reading this and dieing laughing at me. but cmon, if you could afford it, wouldn't you get it?

*edit* whoops had another question. What programs do you use? Is there an "easy" way tomake animations or am i just being really impatiant? lol

Want to "buy it now" for US $29,950.00?

http://cgi.ebay.com/New-PhaseSpace-Optical-Motion-Capture-System-4-camera_W0QQitemZ270144203339QQihZ017QQcategoryZ26261QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Oh! Sorry, don't forget the $95 shipping!

I believe one of the more popular sellers of dances has access to motion capture... I'm sure it's not exclusively for SL use, LOL! How many L$ millions of sales to cover it?

(Is QAvimator the one you couldn't think of the name of? It's not overkill for SL, takes care of much of the "busywork" SL requires and is very easy and straightforward.)

Oh, almost forgot! Would I get mocap? I prefer creating animations... Would you prefer hiring actors, puppeteers or dancers and spending your time doing nothing but cleaning up keys?

no; yes

You could also try Rotoscoping as a cheap alternative to MoCap.

I use avimator and qavimator to make my animations. They are simple programs for making simple animations and poses. They work best at creating animations from scratch. They are not that good at editing existing animations.

I use Poser. The user interface is quite complex (but an interesting one, I think) and the product does far more than you need for SL - so I wouldn't recommend anyone buying it unless they are really keen. If you keep an eye on the Content Paradise website, sometimes you can get old versions of Poser at reduced price or even free. SL avatars have the same skeleton as a standard Poser 2 figure - so you do not need the latest version - but if you get Poser 6 you also need an add-on to export to bvh format correctly for SL.

As for techniques, there are three main ones for making any animation:

- Stop framing, where every frame of the animation is created individually moving each part little by little.
- Key framing, where the significant positions are created along a timeline and the software creates the in-between frames for you - the software does the "tweening".
- Motion capture - where data is gathered from a real person doing the motion and converted to a computer format that can be used in animation software

Animators, I believe, will use all three techniques, sometimes in combination to achieve the result they require. All 3 techniques are useful for different reasons. I don't have any real experience with motion capture, but the one time I used an imported bvh file that originated from motion capture, I had to adjust every frame in Poser to get it to work with the SL avatar skeleton - so it certainly did not save any time. However, as the work was animating the walk of a person disabled because of Cerebral Palsey, there was no other way I could have done it. I simply do not have the knowledge to animate a specific medical disorder from scratch.

That brings me to my last point...I can only animate (using key framing or stop framing)movements I understand. I need to know which way the arms, legs, head, body etc., moves in order to be able to do the job. So this is where motion capture can be most useful, as it can give a natural, real-life movement, of actions that I do not understand in enough detail to key frame.

I hope this helps you Chiman and best of luck!

PS - Johan's answer below is brief, but accurate IMO.

well in doing more research, depending on what one would be looking for. could cost upwords of 1000 USD to make a animation set by hiring somone that has the hardware to do it. to buy the equiptment runs anywhere form 25000 to 150,000 150,000 being the top of the line suits that are wireless and senses the movement then sending the data to the laptop.

oh well, one can dream can't they?

here's the link http://www.animazoo.com/

All products, prices, and features of MOCAP systems (hardware and software) and comparisons can be found here:

http://www.inition.com.au/inition/products.php?CatID_=11

Rock

Hi, I do not have a listed price for Motion Capture Units nor a direct link. But I may still have something usefull for you. You say you have been looking for freelance animators that would be interested in doing freelance work.

I used to studdy classical hand drawn animation and my recomendation is that you try and get in touch with animator students or animators fresh out of school. A lot of them can really use the break as it is very difficult for them to make a living untill they can get enough experience to get hired on long terms, it usually takes 3-5 years of jumping from one contract job to another often needing to move to another country to find work.

Also the schools are very expensive to attend and artist are not known for their general wealth : ) So if they have the opertunity to make a little on the side with something related to their study it is really good for them and sure beats flipping burgers : ).
Many of the animation colleges also have open workshop programs for students and professionals alike where all kinds of projects are undertaken using the students and the animators fresh out of school on commision.

I have been out of the loop for a few years now but here are some good schools to look up:
CAL Arts - California US, Strongly supported by Disney and reputed to be the best.
Dreamworks supports a school in Toronto, Canada (Sorry no name)
There is a school in Dublin, Ireland supported by Don Bluth Studios (Sorry no name)
KAU - An excellent animation school in Viborg, Denmark supported by A-Film that has an extensive open workshop program and loves to give the students a chance to earn something on the side with work related projects.

Also I recommend the online 3D Community http://www.3dcafe.com/. This is a good place to post freelance animation and other 3D related work for offer and to look for the information you seek.

I hope this is helpfull to you. Good Luck with your further search : )

The least expensive mocap system I know of is OptiTrack, which (when released) will sell for $5000.

http://www.naturalpoint.com/optitrack/

Will it be as good at the more expensive ones though? $5000 is still a huge wad of cash to throw down on something (to me anyway) if it does not work good.

My guess would be no, but even if it requires a bit of cleanup keyframing it's still a good deal. I've never used any mocap system though so I'm just guessing. I think the system was debuted at Siggraph so you might be able to find some writeups on it.

I'm VFX supervisor but started as an animator for commercials and feature films. I've actually been animating for 15 years and have used Motion Capture extensively. Most recently on 28 Weeks Later. It's a good way to get realistic movement in but it also requires a skillset as most of the capture in raw form is jittery. Therefore you need to smooth out the curves, normally another program. The larger studios have their own proprietory software. I prefer the Vicom system for your reference. There are several software solutions which use a combination of rotoscope, multiple camera triangulation, such as http://movimento.realviz.com/index.php?language=EN. I've used this and had good results. For SL most motion capture is over the top, you are better going with Poser as mentioned before, or alternatively there is Endorphin which is more of a virtual stunt program.
Answering another post. The film and game industry is overwhelmed by work at the moment in the US and UK. My company has a wing in India where i'm sure i could get animations done much cheaper and efficiently than anywhere else. It isn't difficult for animators who live and breathe just this type of technology. But as yet i've no actioned anything but I am looking into it. Having unique animation, be they dance or poses is what will make SL even better...when it's not crashing.

My two cents worth.

you mention endorphin. i played with that recently and have been hearing about it for a while. i wasn't able to export anything (or get a sl av imported), even as a bvh to poser. then again i also had no idea what w as doing. is it possible to use endorphin for making sl anims at the moment? if so, could someone explain the export process?

Spandex body suit + duct tape + superglue + Lego + http://www.phidgets.com/products.php?category=2 = Dirt Cheap Mocap, maybe?

Hmmm....strap Wii controllers to the major axes of your limbs (12 of them?)?

Somebody has got to have hacked up a cheapo version of this.

Bump for this. DIY mocap would be sick as hell!

Well, anyone can do motion capture. You can download the BVH files, you can steal work. It happens all the time.

Personally I do keyed animation, and then go back and adjust the tweens, I might use some reference videos, but 90% of the time I find myself standing in my room, holding a position, and picturing how I will animate it. but that's just me.