April 13, 2012 at 16:57Cascadeur - is it possible to replace stuntmen?
Once it seemed that tricks in the movie would be done without stuntmen and it would be possible to realize almost any ideas. But this is still not the case. For computer animation, stunt motion capture is almost always used using motion capture technology.
At the same time, even in the most advanced blockbusters, in order to make an animation that exceeds the capabilities of stuntmen, they use cables, trampolines and other tricks when shooting motion capture. Is animation really limited to this?
We want to talk about Cascadeur - our program for creating 3d animation. The main idea is that animators can take into account the laws of physics when working on animations. Physics allows you to make animations more realistic without the help of motion capture. In the future, if you can do without stuntmen, you can try and beat them - to make movements and tricks that are not possible for any stuntman in the world. At least we set ourselves such a goal.
Currently, we used the Cascadeur program for animation in our Shadow Fight game, and now we use it for our new project about parkour. In the process of working on these games, it turned out that the program is quite easy to learn, in comparison with professional software, and even weighs only 2 mb. That is, even a person without experience in a few months begins to make an animation of good quality, in the presence of references.
Our character model consists of joints (each of which has mass) and bones connecting these joints. The character also has muscles - in the picture they look like stretched strings, but the essence is the same as a living person: changing the length of the muscles, the character can take any pose.
The animators are helped in the work by a tool showing the required muscle tension of the character on each frame of the animation. The more muscle is tense, the brighter the color. By the distribution of the load on the body, animators can find their mistakes.
At the same time, there are tools to correct most of the errors associated with physics. For example, an animator can directly control the character’s center of mass and angular momentum.
And here is the video from the game Vector, which we are currently developing for social and mobile platforms. Despite the fact that the graphics in the game are 2d and the character is represented by a silhouette, the character animation is done in 3d. Game animation imposes its conventions, but the effect of realism is still present.
In one of the next posts we will try to talk more about the process of work in Cascadeur.
At the same time, even in the most advanced blockbusters, in order to make an animation that exceeds the capabilities of stuntmen, they use cables, trampolines and other tricks when shooting motion capture. Is animation really limited to this?
We want to talk about Cascadeur - our program for creating 3d animation. The main idea is that animators can take into account the laws of physics when working on animations. Physics allows you to make animations more realistic without the help of motion capture. In the future, if you can do without stuntmen, you can try and beat them - to make movements and tricks that are not possible for any stuntman in the world. At least we set ourselves such a goal.
Currently, we used the Cascadeur program for animation in our Shadow Fight game, and now we use it for our new project about parkour. In the process of working on these games, it turned out that the program is quite easy to learn, in comparison with professional software, and even weighs only 2 mb. That is, even a person without experience in a few months begins to make an animation of good quality, in the presence of references.
Our character model consists of joints (each of which has mass) and bones connecting these joints. The character also has muscles - in the picture they look like stretched strings, but the essence is the same as a living person: changing the length of the muscles, the character can take any pose.
The animators are helped in the work by a tool showing the required muscle tension of the character on each frame of the animation. The more muscle is tense, the brighter the color. By the distribution of the load on the body, animators can find their mistakes.
At the same time, there are tools to correct most of the errors associated with physics. For example, an animator can directly control the character’s center of mass and angular momentum.
And here is the video from the game Vector, which we are currently developing for social and mobile platforms. Despite the fact that the graphics in the game are 2d and the character is represented by a silhouette, the character animation is done in 3d. Game animation imposes its conventions, but the effect of realism is still present.
In one of the next posts we will try to talk more about the process of work in Cascadeur.
