Studio Brief 1 - Process and Production - Motion Capture

Motion capture in an animation process that records the movements of objects and people. In recent years, it has mainly been used to create feature films and games in order to capture moving actors successfully and precisely.

The advantages of Motion Capture is that it can successfully capture the speed and agility of an actor in order to clearly demonstrate real life. This process also allows many tests to be done in order to visualise how the end result will turn out. This is good compared to having to animate on a compute, without any reference for the system. 

Weight can be easily captured through this process too, which can be proved to be difficult when animating normally. 

The disadvantages to this process is that the cost to create a full length feature film using motion capture is extremely high. The software and equipment being the main source of money. Also, many of the principles of animation cannot be added until post-production. Theses principles include, squash and stretch and also anticipation. When these principles aren't considered, the animation and illusion can be hindered.