OCU now has a motion capture room which will allow students to work with virtual reality.
A motion capture room–commonly referred to as a “mocap room”–has recently been built in the Norick Art Center and is already in use.
A motion capture room can be used for virtual reality, entertainment, health sciences, life sciences, and research.
Jeff Price, professor of digital design, said students and faculty have already gotten use out of the room.
“Unfortunately, now we can’t use it because of the circumstances we are currently in, but we have been using it for the past two weeks,” Price said.
Price said the motion graphics class gives students the opportunity to learn about motion capture rooms. Now, they have the opportunity to use one.
“In the class, students learn how to create industry-level motion capture animation,” Price said.
Price said those who don’t know what motion capture is should think about some of the most popular movies right now.
“For example, think about Avengers. The Incredible Hulk is a 3D character, and to do this, someone was in a motion capture suit and did all the motions for Hulk, and then people went back and attached data to the figure,” Price said.
Price said students in the class learn the process of motion capturing from dressing up actors in the suits, to capturing the data, to creating three-dimensional characters.
Motion capture rooms are commonly used for entertainment purposes, but Price said the room can be used for analytics by looking at how an athlete moves or for rehabilitation purposes for patients that have issues with particular movements.
“The room allows people to record all info and movements and review it later in multiple different ways and at different angles,” Price said.
Price said the room has a tolerance of six microns, making the data very accurate and useful.
“It’s top of the line, it’s not just an average motion capture room, it is what they use in all the real movies,” Price said.
Price said the room is a Vicon room, which is the same type of room they use in moviemaking.
“The fact that we have it at OCU is pretty awesome,” Price said.
Collin Salmonowicz, film senior, is in the motion graphics class.
Salmonowicz said his class had about two weeks working with the room before OCU went virtual for the semester.
“Part of our curriculum was going to be using the room and getting familiar with it,” Salmonowicz said.
Salmonowicz said the room is able to capture precise body movements that could be beneficial for many people in different industries.
“From the job outlook perspective, to be able to come out of college saying, ‘I know how to use a Vicon system’ would definitely get me points and help me with job placement,” Salmonowicz said.
Salmonowicz said he could see the room being used for projects in the future, such as game design, 3D modeling and animation.
“I’m a film senior, so I won’t be coming back, but I’ve already asked Jeff about using the room for future projects, and he agreed,” Salmonowicz said.
Price said the School of Visual Arts is working on creating a major for game design and animation for students with these interests that have not declared a major yet.
“In the future, we are hoping to work with other students like dancers or theater students and record some of their performances,” Price said.
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