optitrackcamera

Good news.  NaturalPoint was at the Game Developers’ Conference in San Francisco showing off their OptiTrack motion capture system, along with their virtual camera system which they plan to release later this year.  You can use it to pretend you’re Robert Zemeckis and need to mo cap everything no matter how creepy the rest of us find it.

The camera’s orientation and movement is actually tracked in the same way a motion capture suit is, and if you’re in the same tracking space as a motion capture actor you can do “real” camera work with a live 3D rendered preview of the action. The shoulder-mounted camera has controls for virtual tracking and dolly moves, along with zoom, and has zero problem delivering that shaky handheld look that’s all the rage in visual effects these days. [Endgadget]

That description doesn’t really do it justice.  Check out the demo video below to see the system I will soon be using to film the most epic Avatar fan videos ever.  I just have to wait for the stray cat in my neighborhood to go into heat.  It’ll look a little something like this:

optitrackcamera2