There is a sotware besed motion capture plug-in for 3D Studio Max from Peak Performance. I think it's around $1000; but you'll need Max, 2 video cameras and a computer to run Max. I think it's called KineCapture, or somehing like that. It probably isn't as good as an all hardware mo-cap system, but it's a hell of a lot cheaper. I believe that if you are a student that you can get it for around $600. Their URL is:

http://www.peakperform.com/

Hope that helps




Edited by - miataman1990 on January 15, 2002 9:50:50 AM

Amazing! So many great replies outlining all of the possibilities. I am looking into all of them and will be checking to see which one might work best for me.

Thank you very much everyone
I really appreciate it.

quote: Original post by SD2
it though.

Interesting. This type of thing really works? Is it really possible to get proper motion capture results like this? The ping pong ball idea seems to be the exact same thing as the 150 000 dollar optical motion capture they use (the same in theory). Would one actually be able to do these things and get proper results?



Yes. Watch some behind the scene docs on hollywood movies sometime. This is done all the time in special effects, especially when blending cgi with live action. The ping pong ball option is pretty common, actually. They''re also used as markers to figure out camera movements during recording.

Of course, the real question is will you spend $2000 worth of time developing software for this stuff, or is it more cost-effective to just rent a studio.