Plano, Texas-based developers Gearbox Software (
Brothers in Arms series) has announced that the company has chosen to use Xsens Technologies' forthcoming Moven motion capture technology for future game development projects.
The Moven system, which is expected to debut at Siggraph 2007 this August, is based on small inertial sensors, which are integrated in a suit, and transmit their motion data wirelessly to a laptop which calculates the position and orientation of all body segments in real-time.
According to Xsens, by using inertial sensor technology, Moven to be used anywhere, as the system does not require the use of cameras, emitters, markers nor a dedicated studio are needed to perform a motion capture session. In fact, the company notes that Moven can even be operated by the actor himself, with no outside assistance in the calibration procedure or in the recording session.
Additionally, the software, Moven Studio, gives a real-time view of the actor and offers the opportunity to evaluate recorded motions by playing it back in normal, fast and slow motion. Moven Studio provides a data format which is compatible with all major 3D content creation software such as 3ds Max, Maya, MotionBuilder, Softimage|XSI or Lightwave 3D.
"Xsens has achieved something special with Moven", said PJ Putnam, vice president of Gearbox. "Moven allows us to record motion capture data for any application in its natural environment, whether indoors or outdoors. An actor who plays a soldier can wear the Moven suit underneath his military attire, which results in more realistic motions.”
“By using two Moven systems we can capture multiple actors simultaneously in a fighting or combat scene. Moven does not suffer from problems of occlusion and missing markers which we find in the existing (optical) motion capture technologies. Besides, the price is substantially lower than that of an optical system," added Putnam.
