One, two, three! Motion-capture may be the most fun aspect of visual effects I've
ever encountered. Xsens reached out to us to give the FXhome
team a chance to play with their MVN Link mocap suit. This is a $14,000
suit so we were, of course, excited to get our hands on it. We're gonna have a look
we're gonna have a play and give you guys a tease of how you can use these
files in Blender and HitFilm. We may be revisiting this a few times in
the future so be sure to subscribe and ring the bell to be notified because
you're not gonna want to miss a thing. I'm excited to get into it, so let's get
into it. I'm just gonna go ahead and open this up
because I have been waiting hours to open this. Ooo okay!
So we've already got three from the looks of it, yeah, we've got three suits, I
imagine, all different sizes. Javert there's one your size. Nah I'm good. When you
put the sensors into them, they keep them as close to the body as possible. This
way you get the best detail, the best information from the suit, and yeah,
then you can take this into anything, like Blender maybe, which is what I'm going to do. All right, we'll start
up here. Ooo velcro, it's a velcro-y suit. Yeah, we've got the wireless router here. Just plug
this into your laptop and you have instant connection,
so you can run around. In here we have, from the looks of it, all of the sensors, which
yeah, they are. These have gyroscopes inside them, accelerometers, Magneton? Magno?
Magnometers? Magnometers? Magnometer? I think it's called a magnometer.
Magnetometer! All of this combined into one sensor means that you have 100% body
control. Nothing's gonna flail, nothing's going to go out. It's all down to your
motion, which is really cool. You can even wear them in environments that are
highly magnetic, nothing's going to disrupt them which, again, we're going to
gonna test that out. So we've got the main ones here, these are for hands,
feet, from the looks of it. We've got a little stand. Yeah these are the battery
packs so everything kind of hooks up into these, and then they have a wireless
router inside so they connect up. It comes with a little figure. And that looks like it's it! Let's go try
it on.
Hey Tom. Got a mocap suit on. What you doing? Took a little time to get used to our network but
everything is working and no strings attached.
It's natural. This is running from a series of like sensors going through
every single joint on me. All the way down and even in my shoes which it's
kind of uncomfortable. There's no lag, there's nothing there. There's a foot, nice! There's a leg.
So now, let's go experiment, make some cool stuff. Stephen, Kirstie, Javert, in this hat, I
have a bunch of movements we're gonna do. We're going to take it in turns in the mocap
suit, try and guess it, see how many points you can get. Okay. Let's do this.
Bee Gees! Hah Bee Gees. What is that dance move called? Dads at a wedding.
Oh, is it an old movie? Oh, Grease! Uh, Saturday Night Fever? Yeah! We were just getting into that first one, it was a warm-up.
What? Haha. One, two, three. Hahaha
Transformers? What? Transformers. Yeah! Wow.
Gangnam style. Yeah! Hahaha. Well done Javert. Javert, on it! Okay, round number two. Are you gonna somersault?
Is this something we're going to find out about Javert right now? I'm hoping for Dirty Dancing or something.
Ah! James Bond! Yeah. Brilliant. That was a good one man.
I don't know this one.
Do you want to pick another one? Yeah. The level of professionalism from all of us here is. I know.
Washing the windows! Oh Karate Kid? Karate Kid? You got Karate Kid from that? The worst part, that was my submission.
Robin Hood? Hunger Games? Oh, wait, what? It was archery, yes, so yeah. Oh ok!
Oh I missed it!
Shawn of the Dead? Walking Dead? Z-day? World War Z? I'll give you that, it's just Zombie.
Honestly, if you had left it going for another 10 seconds I could have given you another 10. Train to Busan.
Squatting? Bidget Jones Baby? Are you a monkey? Kind of. He looks a little bit like a monkey.
Planet of the Apes? King Kong? He's not actually a monkey.
Spider-Man?
Have you got any more movements? Or is that the one? Gollum? Yes! That was a good one.
Do you want me to do it again? Yeah! Yeah!
Indiana Jones. Is it the Flash? Oh. I was doing the swap and then running from the boulder
Wouldn't Indiana Jones be like a whip?
This is the best game.
Um, Nutcracker? Black Swan? Yep!
Can we get one more?
Million Dollar Baby? Rocky? That was the first one that came to your
head? Yeah, I haven't seen Rocky. I don't know who the winner is but we're all winners here.
I don't think anyone in the office is really Andy Serkis level. Down in the
description are all the files from this game of Charades, so download them let us
know what you think of the results, and have a play. But how can I use these file
types? Well I'm glad that you asked, because we're now going to show you how
you can do it in Blender. In Blender, go to File > Import, and select your file type.
We're using .bvh. Once you've grabbed your model, go to the object properties.
This little stick man. Then set the skeleton-type to Rest. This will move the
model to the center and adjust it into a t-pose. Find yourself a model. There
are some amazing websites online like Turbosquid, Free3D.com and
Sketchfab. Ideally, you need one that's also in a t-pose. Import your model and
adjust the alignment with your rig by pressing G to move. Best to use x, y, and z
axis to keep everything in line. If the alignment is off enter the edit mode of
the rig, by pressing tab, and move the points to align with your model. If you
are moving these, grab the opposite joint, because symmetry is important. Once set,
select the model, hold shift and select the rig, into the object tab and go down
to Parent > Armature Deform with automatic weights. If you now exit edit mode by
pressing tab again, you will now have your model aligned with the mocap data.
Export this as a .FBX, and you can import this into HitFilm Pro or in
Express with the 3D Model Render pack. If you want a more detailed
tutorial on motion capture, then do let us know in the comment section down
below we'll be posting all our experiments on Instagram at @fxhome_official
so do be sure to follow us. We're also looking to do more
experimenting like this, so be sure to subscribe to not miss out on any of the
goodies that we may give away. We've had a great time with this motion capture
suit. It's been a ton of fun in the office, and we're looking forward to
doing more with this. But, we want to pass it off to you guys. What do you want to
see done with this suit? And how would you use it for your own productions? Let
us know in the comment section down below and we'll see you next time.