DEMO VIDEO

Description

Cycle is an immersive Motion Capture, Dance and Martial Art performance inspired by traditional asian martial art and the Five Animal play in Qigong. It tells the cyclical tale of life through stages of growth, struggle and seeking wisdom and depicts them through their associated animals, seasons and natural elements that are associated. Featuring spatial projection, a central hologram and interactive animated natural environment, Cycle invites the audience to immerse in a fantastical world of movement and sound and join our hero to meet the challenge of the elements. Incorporating motion capture, animation, real-time visual effects and interaction design, the project is the culmination of a collaboration between the Integrated Digital Media Program and the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University

Collaborators

Yunzhu, Barak Chamo, Kai Hung, Pratik Jain and featuring performances by

Dancers

Raziman Sabrini and Chaery Mon

Music Composer

ChenyuSun.

Cycle Press Kit

Toolkit

Unreal Engine, Substance Painter, 3dsMax, Projector Mapping

Environment Modeling

Exploring post-processing and Minimalist aesthetics to create a subtle environment that focuses attention on motion, atmosphere and connotation.

Tiger - Wood - Spring - Anger - Qi&Shen 气和神
Deer - Water - Winter - Fear - Root of Life
Bear - Earth - Late Summer - Worry - Guqi 骨气
Monkey - Fire - Summer - Joy - Spirit
Crane - Metal - Autumn - Sadness - Qi 气

Character Design

Character will perform martial art with spiritual animals comes out and perform together. Both of human and animal are covered by inner energy.

For character design, I use 3dsMAX to model the characters and then rig them with HumanIK before bringing to Unreal.

Facial Makeup

Red face contains derogatory meaning, representing loyalty
Black face is neutral, representing wise
The blue face and the green face are also neutral, representing the grasshopper hero
Yellow face and white face contain derogatory meaning, representing fierce
The golden face and the silver face are mysterious and represent the demon
生（sheng, male role）
旦（dan, female role）
净（jing, painted face）
末（mo, male）
丑（chou, clown）

Pictures (Credit to Yihan)

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Week 5 - Motion Capture Systems That Don’t Cost $60,000

Yunzhu Li October 9, 2018

Workshop

This week we tried to use Perception Neuron and UE4 doing a small animation in weekend.

Click here for “how can I setup the UE4 Plugin”

Click here for OptiTrack Unreal Engine 4 Plugin

Click here for ive with Perception Neuron - Axis Neuron and Unreal Configuration

Compared to previous workshops, this workshop is faster and easier, but the quality is not as good as optitrack.

Step 1: Check if you have everything (including hub, neurons, gloves, usb cable, body straps..etc)

Step 2: USB Interface

Screen Shot 2018-10-09 at 20.31.54.png

Perception Neuron works in Wifi and USB mode. There are 2 mini USB ports on the Hub
For USB mode, use the upper port to link the Hub with computer for data transmission and power supply.

Step 3: Prepare Working Environment

Set up wifi router (set up the unicycle pswd)
Download and install the sexy AXIS NEURON installation package from neuronmocap.com

Step 4: Put on the gloves and body straps (Thanks to pratik for acting!)

Plug Neurons into the gloves and body straps
Put on the gloves and body straps
Link the Hub with gloves and body straps

Step 5: Link with computer and connect.

Step 6: The four step calibration

Screen Shot 2018-10-09 at 20.30.22.png

Click on the Calibration icon
Perform the four-step calibration (steady pose, a pose, t pose and s pose)
Check real-time mocap animation

Step 7: Open UE4 and streaming (remember to create bp and change to the right name)

Recording video is here:

Video