I've recently got interested in motion capture lately and I've been trying to get my hands on some equipment. The one road block, I've run into is that the equipment is quite expensive. In terms of equipment, the cheapest option is probably purchasing a Kinect or PS eye. Then using software from ipisoft. Problem is though, the software is on the pricey side.

So I was wondering if anybody knew of any affordable cameras that cost around $50 -- $300?? Should I expect that motion capture will be a pricey venture moving forward? If anybody is an expert or is involved in the field, I would really appreciate any advice you might have thanks.

Challenge yourself and use that 4 Hz 480p webcam with windows xp support at the bottom of your abandoned electronics bin

Searching for "free kinnect motion capture" turns up a few results.

Which animation software are you planning on using the mocap data in?

@Hodgman,

Thats actually a good question. Lol. I was originally going to use ipisoft software packages, but like I said before.,There price point seems a little steep, but I'm running out of options. And as I think about it, their package seems like the most feasible at this point

Can I use regular video cameras to capture the motion data? If you have any experience with motion capture let me know.

After you've captured the mocap data, you still need to have a regular animation tool that you'll use to create the game-ready animation files (using the mocap data as input).

Have you done any non-mocap animation yet? The workflow will be very similar. Once you can make animations in something like Blender or Motion Builder, you can probably find a mo-cap plugin for your chosen tool, for use with a Kinnect etc...

Well, I messed around with regular 2D animations, so in a way yes. So the regular software animation will be used to export the data to blender?

I believe you can use the old Sony Eye with iPi. Those may be cheaper than Kinects, if you can find them. You can use multiple, which will get you better data than a single camera.

I did a test with Brekel software and a Kinect once. You can get very basic anims but the data will need cleaning.

Most other body capture systems will be pricey.

You may be better off hiring a studio for a day. Just need to do your research thoroughly beforehand as to what data you will need to capture.