Ubisoft choose motion capture to speed up animation

Animazoo are pleased to announce that they have supplied games development giants Ubisoft® with a full body IGS-180 wireless motion capture system.

Ubisoft are responsible for some of the biggest games of recent years, producing hugely popular games franchises such as Assassins Creed®, Ghost Recon® and Far Cry®.

After rigorous testing and analysis, the team from Ubisoft came to the conclusion that Animazoo and the IGS- 180 were the perfect partners for their upcoming projects including blockbuster titles due for release towards the end of 2012.

The ability to previsualise the performance in real time using Animazoo's Motion Builder driver was key to Ubisoft’s decision, allowing the team to significantly reduce animation pipelines and speed up delivery of the overall project.

Ubisoft confirmed that the IGS-180 would be used at their motion capture facility in Bulgaria to provide realistic movements for game play and cinematic cut scenes in future releases. The system enables animators to work without the time constraints associated with using a central motion capture facility, providing flexibility and increasing the independence of the Bulgarian studio while reducing costs and increasing productivity

Animazoo Head of Sales Mark Lewis commented, “We are thrilled to add Ubisoft to the list of Game Development Studios and Animators that are using our technology. We will be working closely with the Ubisoft team to help them maximise the efficiencies and cost savings that can be leveraged through the use of our Inertial Motion Capture systems, whilst retaining the creative edge that has made Ubisoft such a success.”

Ivan Balabanov - Ubisoft Sofia MD added "The Animazoo IGS-180 mocap package proved to be a very good solution for us.  Pipeline-wise, it has allowed us to save a significant amount of time.  Its direct integration into our animation pipeline and tools via dedicated driver allows us to review the mocap session on the fly, directly in our tool set, thus optimizing significantly the efficiency of every session. 

The high fidelity gyroscope-based motion tracking, furthermore, facilitates both the animation pipeline and the mocap session process.  The animation pipeline receives a boost due to the fact that the gyro-based solution does not experience the negative effects of occlusion -- be they coming from a single actor's body parts, or by other actors or props -- thus removing the need of manual correction or keyframing of the occluded body parts. 

On the other hand, the process of recording a mocap session benefits from the combination of gyro-based solution and wi-fi data transmission from the actor to the recording station:  there is no space limitation on the recording area save for the actual wi-fi connection range, which is pretty significant.  This allows us to comfortably record at any location with a very minimal initial preparation of the recording stage, be it indoors or outdoors.
The IGS-180 system itself is easy to use and set up.  This fact, together with the excellent support from Animazoo -- both remote and on-site -- has resulted in a fast and efficient integration of the IGS-180 in our animation pipeline."