Vicon, a motion capture technology specialist for the entertainment, engineering and life sciences industries, together with Audiomotion Studios, have set a new world record for the most people motion-captured in real-time–19 people. The attempt, which featured two UK based hip hop dance crews, took place in Oxford on March 9 and was adjudicated by Gary Marshall, motion capture supervisor at Framestore, and Rebecca-Louise Leybourne, @ThatMocapGirl.
The types of motion to be used in the record attempt was decided through a fan vote on social media; a dance group was picked as the best format for the attempt from other choices including a cheerleader pyramid, or a rugby scrum. B-Boy crews were organised by the Hip Hop Heritage project which works to preserve Hip Hop culture and is supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund.
Andy Ray, sales director at Vicon said: “We’re often asked as a business how many people a Vicon system will capture in real-time, and up to this point we haven’t had a definitive proven answer. So we decided to go for a fully validated method of seeing what could be done! Dancing, and indeed B-Boy dancing, with a group of people who have never done mocap before was incredibly challenging. All of the dancers required a crash course in ‘mocap 101’ on the day and the complexity of the motions carried out provided tough conditions for the Vicon and Audiomotion team. Especially as it became apparent that some of the signature break-dance moves were damaging the markers!”
Mick Morris, managing director at Audiomotion Studios, said: “We had been discussing this idea with Vicon for sometime and I’m really glad we went all out for the record. We are very proud to have been a part of it. No other studio has been able to do this and it’s down to Vicon. This is the recognition they deserve for making the world’s finest motion capture systems.”
The record was achieved on Audiomotion’s main stage using: 36 F40 Vicon cameras and Blade software, piping to solved skeletons in Autodesk’s MotionBuilder.
