SAN FRANCISCO – Motion capture specialists Vicon are at the Game Developers Conference with Shōgun, their new software platform for entertainment users and the successor to their Vicon Blade software. The ability to deliver the highest quality animation data quickly and efficiently is key for all users. Shōgun delivers time savings at each point in the motion capture workflow with new features that ensure users have Final Quality Skeletal Data by day’s end.
Shōgun eliminates the previously time-consuming process of calibrating performers from captured data as the process occurs dynamically in Shōgun Live mode. Performers that enter the capture space are automatically detected and labelled and the subsequent Range of Motion (ROM) outputs a complete calibration including scaling of Shōgun’s new skeletal mesh model. The new mesh is designed to be highly functional and make the assessment of solving data easy, visual and immediate. With today’s large productions featuring dozens of performers, this enables directors to quickly start capturing the performances they want. Every aspect of the mocap workflow from system setup to exported data has been streamlined and improved.
Shōgun represents a step change in realtime performance captures, ensuring that solving stays true even when multiple actors undertake complex interactions that would usually disrupt real-time visualization such as hugs, folding arms and props. Vicon support for all the major real-time game engines enables film and game directors to visualize exactly how the final scene will look. Labelled solved data from Shōgun is recorded direct to disk, saving hours in post-production and ensuring data is delivered in record time. Shōgun Post mode supports existing pipelines and HLS scripts, but also adds new data assessment features to get data processed faster. A single view data quality heat map shows every gap and issue across the entire capture and a data health panel gives users an overview of data quality across multiple performers.
Shōgun’s active camera monitoring ensures that system uptime during a shoot is maximized. This feature alerts operators to camera bumps, dropped frames and when a camera has stopped contributing data. When issues do arise, correcting them is easier than ever. Live camera recovery enables users to quickly update a camera calibration using any tracked object or subject in the volume, without the need for a full re-calibration. Recalibrating a system can cost a lot of time, but now the crew can continue working and the system is back on line in just a couple of minutes.
“We’ve developed Vicon Shōgun based on industry needs both for today and in the future. Improved efficiency, better visualisation, robustness and feedback are added to the best tracking system available” says Imogen Moorhouse, CEO, Vicon. “With Vicon Shōgun, our customers can deliver the highest quality final data faster, combined with increased system and studio efficiency regardless of whether they’re working on games, films or VR experiences.”