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Start Page » DEMoCap: Drag[en]gine Motion Capture » High Level Motion Transfer: Auto Human
Typical humanoid character motion capture. Automatically sets up chain of low level motion transfers matching the layout of VR devices present during configuration. This is the recommended motion transfer to use for creating a new character.
This motion transfer provides a set of global parameters used to set up the appropriate low level motion transfers. Optional parameters can be used to fine tune characters. If a character is troublesome this motion transfer can be decomposed into the low level motion transfers to apply heavy fine tuning.
Name
Name of motion transfer to identify it in the list. Name is not required to be unique.
Head
Head bone.
Chest
Chest bone. This should be the bone where the neck and shoulder bones are attached to.
Right Hand
Right hand bone. This is the bone moving the entire right hand.
Left Hand
Left hand bone. This is the bone moving the entire left hand.
Hip
Hip bone. This is the bone the spine and legs are attached to.
Right Foot
Right foot bone. This is the bone moving the entire foot. For beast type legs this is not the heel bone but the actual foot segment touching the ground.
Left Foot
Left foot bone. This is the bone moving the entire foot. For beast type legs this is not the heel bone but the actual foot segment touching the ground.
Move Base IK
Move to use from character animation file as base IK state.
Arm and leg motion capture is done using inverse kinematic motion transfer (IK for short). IK does not work well if limbs are fully stretched out. Characters are though calibrated in T-Pose which is all about limbs being stretched out. As a result IK tends to calculate strange results. Using a base IK move an initial state can be defined where the limbs are in half bend position close to natural pose. This ensures IK can calculate good results improving motion capture results.
The move is required to have one animation frame. Additional animation frames beyond the first one are ignored.
Move Crouch
Move to use from character animation file as crouch state.
This further refines the IK calculation for legs. Instead of using just the base IK move this move blends between legs in base IK pose and legs in fully crouched pose. This move can have as many frames as required. The altitude of the hip above the ground is used to blend between the first animation frame (0s) and the last animation frame (move play time).
Neck Bend Shape
Fine tuning parameter defining the shape of the bending curve used for the neck. Value is in the range from 0 to 20. This value is only useful for long neck characters. Typical human actors have only one neck bone. In this case the bend shape has no effect.
A value of 10 bends all neck bones with equal weight.
Values towards 0 bend bones more the closer they are to the neck base. This makes long neck characters bend the neck base stronger. This causes the head and the virtual camera the actor sees to move strongly.
Values towards 20 bend bones more the closer they are to the head. This makes long neck characters bend the head end of the neck stronger. This causes the head and the virtual camera the actor sees to move gently.
A good default value is 13. Depending on the shape of the neck in calibration state smaller values are useful. Higher values are usually not useful.
Spine Bend Shape
Fine tuning parameter defining the shape of the bending curve used for the spine. Value is in the range from 0 to 20.
A value of 10 bends all spine bones with equal weight.
Values towards 0 bend bones more the closer they are to the hip. This makes characters bend the hip stronger keeping the spine more or less straight. This causes the character to have a stiff spine appearance.
Values towards 20 bend bones more the closer they are to the neck. This makes characters bend the chest area stronger. The displacement of the chest is used to calculate the bending. If the bend shape value is too high no valid bending might be found.
For human actors a good default value is 13. This bends slightly stronger the upper half of the spine.
Reach Scaling RA
Scales reach calculation for the right arm.
Automatic reach calculation uses the bone layout to calculate the arm reach of the character. This is used to scale the actor arm reach along each axis to about over and under stretching. Nevertheless this calculation can be slightly off depending on how the character is crafted. By manually shortening or enlarging the arm reach this can be compensated.
Arm reach is applied along X, Y and Z axis. A uniform reach would cause problems due to shoulder movement. The X axis reach is from the body center to the side. This reach is a direct product of the T-Pose while calibrating. The Y axis reach is found if the arms are lowered hanging by the side. The Z axis reach is found if the arms are pointing straight forward. The reach scaling is multiplied with each of these axes. Hence the reach scaling is (from left to right): to the side, downwards, forward.
The best way to adjust these values is to change the value, save the configuration and using reconfiguration.
The reach scaling is typically in the range from 0.8 to 1.2 . Values outside this range are usually not useful.
Reach Scaling LA
Scales reach calculation for the left arm.
Same as Reach Scaling RA but for the left arm.
