Vicon Standard 2020

VICON STANDARD 2020
THE GROUPS ACTUALLY TORE OUT
THEIR ANIMATIONS AND THEN
REDID THEM ALL IN MOCAP,”
ENTERTAINMENT
A RESOURCE-BASED
PROBLEM
When the chance to carve out a motion
capture space emerged, the School of Art
and Design leapt at it.
“We were renovating and there looked
to be a perfect opportunity to essentially
create a cube that would work as a small
mocap setup,” says Beck.
There was a catch, however. “We were
looking at two or three different mocap
options ... to be perfectly honest, we are a
state institution with little to no resources for
additional equipment that would take us to
that next level.”
While some of those options might have
cost less, at least initially, Beck pushed for a
Vicon system.
“It was a higher quality product and is used
much more often in the industry,” he says.
“And I wanted to make sure that we were
preparing our students to work with the
highest quality equipment and, historically,
technology that has a lot of legitimacy in the
industry. But then, finally, also [a product]
that branches beyond just entertainment if
and when we would want to take it in that
direction with other partners on campus.
A SIMPLE SOLUTION
Despite being, at first glance, a more
expensive motion capture option, Vicon
offered a solution that met both UW-
Stout’s need for quality and its budget. The
combination of the Vero camera and Vicon’s
Shōgun software allowed the department to
start with just eight cameras, while retaining
the flexibility to add cameras.
Furthermore, the department could bring
in additional Vicon software solutions if the
university wanted to expand the setup’s
use into fields such as biomechanics or
engineering.
The system has only been in place for a year
and a half, but even before it was formally
incorporated into the animation and games
design programs students were rushing to
use it.
“When the system became available while
one of our cohorts was finishing its projects,
[some of] the groups actually tore out
their animations and then redid them all
in mocap, because they want to have that
experience in their project,” says Williams.
Jesse Woodward, a lecturer of animation
at UW-Stout, adds that using the system to
output animation through a game engine in
real time excited the students, prompting
some informative ad-hoc experimentation
in VR.
Between the animation and game design
programs, some 250 students already
have access to the system, and there are
more plans on the horizon. Looking ahead,
Williams anticipates potential applications
in telepresence, while design classes are
already showing an interest in using the
setup to study ergonomics. Sports science
projects and partnerships with industry
may follow.
What has started as a simple, compact
system is already delivering big results and
promises to open up even more doors for
students in the future.
“It was honestly one of those rare situations
where I said, I know it’s going to cost
more money to do this, but I really believe
strongly that we need to get this product
specifically,” says Beck. Getting training and
support with installation was a big factor,
too. “We knew we needed to have that
from the ground up for our staff and our
faculty and our students as well.”
Photography courtesy of: University of Wisconsin-Stout
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