Motion Capture

Olympic Promotion

Tokyo 2021

Task

Roles

What began as an assignment, turned into a mock advertisement for the Olympics. Assigned to record data in motion capture, attach the data to a rig, clean up the animation with overlapping action, light and render the scene.

Process

Live Action Acting + Recording

Attaching Data to Rig

Cleaning Up Animation

Modeling Environment + Lighting

Editing Live Action (see below)

As an Olympic athlete, there's a fine line between man vs machine. This motion capture was intended to highlight four moments of an Olympian's sport while acknowledging those parallels. Three captures see the athlete in moments of tension, and one capture shows a celebration. I acted for the captures, recorded with Shogun, transferred the data to a downloaded rig, attached the rig to a downloaded model, and cleaned up the animation with some overlapping action.

Below is a live action mockup of how the motion capture would be edited in the final advertisement with the song "Welcome" by LSD.

Result

*I do not own any of the rights to the footage in these videos

Since the pandemic struck, and the Olympics were postponed until 2021, I decided to dedicate this piece to athletes that have overcome extraordinary obstacles within their field. Jessie Owens, Kerry Strug, Greg Louganis and more had to face more than most people are expected to ever encounter, and they prevailed.

The pace goes from a celebratory state, to a moment of tension, mimicking the song's cadence and tone. In the end, I decided this piece would be best suited for live action, with the story of the athletes being the most powerful element to viewers. How do you turn Jessie Owens into a robot? Thankfully for mankind, it turns out, we humans can't be replaced.