Mocap Techniques

Mocap is the most used and at the same time the least known technology. Actors' motions are recorded via special cameras and computed via an ordinary computers. Then these records are used in computer graphics software. In this way, any hand-drawn character can be animated. This method is called “motion capture”, also known as mocap. The idea behind motion capture technology is to create realistic animations fastly. There are many techniques to do this. Some mocap systems capture body movements, some of them capture facial expressions, and some of them capture both. All movement detection techniques can be called mocap technically.
Motion capture technology has been used for over 20 years. For example; while making
Mortal Combat 1, the developers recorded actors' movements and used these records as game

But this was a primordial method. Mocap systems has been improved day by day. So, creation of good looking animations became easy. 3D animators use mocap datas with their characters. Mocap was also used for the animations in The Lord of the Rings film. The old method to create animations was to set all motions in a scene frame by frame manually. After the animation revolution, most of developers begin to prefer the mocap technique.
One of ways to create mocap is marked method. In this method, actors wear a special costume which was marked with little white balls in joints. Developers put cameras which will detect this white balls in the scene. Movements of actors are detected and converted to mocap file format with mocap softwares using these cameras. Then, this file is used in any 3D software to
MOCAP TECHNOLOGY 4 animate any 3D character. This way is generally prefered by big companies and studios because it requires expensive costumes and cameras. There are another way called “markerless