AMA - I run the Motion Capture stage at Digital Domain \ stacker news ~AMA

AMA - I run the Motion Capture stage at Digital Domain

2876 sats \ 16 comments \ @Crossett 14 Mar AMA outlawed

I'm Matt Crossett and I run the Motion Capture stages at Digital Domain in LA. We have done MoCap and Performance Capture for titles such as

Dune Spiderman: No Way Home Resident Evil: Village The Quarry Ms. Marvel Antman and the Wasp: Quantumania She Hulk

I've got some time. Ask me anything.

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76 sats \ 1 reply \ @davidw 14 Mar

Are we all going to be wearing / using your gear in 5 years time?

117 sats \ 0 replies \ @Crossett OP 14 Mar

Lol, I highly doubt it. Our system is very expensive, large, and requires a lot of technical knowledge. However, I already see AR integrated into phones with facial tracking. I have to imagine full body tracking for AR is not the far off from being on your iPhone or Android. They will probably market it as some new feature and partner with Unreal to put you in the Metaverse or some other Ready Player One BS.

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @davidw 14 Mar

Here are some tips from the horse’s mouth for posting a successful ~AMA in future.

Hope this gets picked-up & you have some time tomorrow

38 sats \ 0 replies \ @Crossett OP 14 Mar

Thanks for the tips! I will keep those in mind for the future.

7 sats \ 1 reply \ @Coinsreporter 14 Mar

What are the projects that you are working on currently?

7 sats \ 0 replies \ @Crossett OP 14 Mar

Unfortunately we are under NDA on all projects till after they are released so I can't really tell you that. The most recent thing we did that has come out was a commercial campaign for Crowdstrike. Here's one of the spots. Our MoCap was applied to the creatures.

7 sats \ 3 replies \ @Bell_curve 14 Mar

How did you find stacker news?

49 sats \ 2 replies \ @Crossett OP 14 Mar

I first found it just poking around apps in Spring. Then I posted a note asking how I go about stacking sats. @thebullishbitcoiner replied to me with a guide of how tos. Here I am.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @thebullishbitcoiner 14 Mar

LFG hope you enjoy your time here. 🤙

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @Crossett OP 14 Mar

So far so good! ⚡

7 sats \ 1 reply \ @CheezeGrater 14 Mar

Have you done any MoCap for games?
Any really funny moments you can recall?

82 sats \ 0 replies \ @Crossett OP 14 Mar

Yes we have done many games. It's probably what we do the most of these days. There are also many I can't talk about yet. Some games include The Quarry, Resident Evil Village, Destiny 2, The Callisto Protocol, and Marvel's Midnight Suns.
I have lots of funny moments in the industry in general but not many I will discuss on this platform. The funniest moments usually come from performers who are doing MoCap for the first time. Generally, everyone wants see how they are controlling the rig they are attached to so they start to get real goofy with their dance moves which is always entertaining.

7 sats \ 3 replies \ @davidw 14 Mar

I got 2 for you:

Has technology actually made things way easier (due to capabilities) or much harder (due to pushing the boundaries / expectations / cost)?
And how has motion capture changed over the years, with regards to work done pre & post production?

328 sats \ 2 replies \ @Crossett OP 14 Mar

I would say technology generally has the power to make things possible that were not before. In the performance capture space technology is rapidly changing. Our stage was built over 20 years ago at this point and at the time they had to put silks and diffusion over all the lights and even had white carpet specifically to bounce as much light as possible onto the performer with no shadows for the HMCs (Head Mounted Cameras - Facial Capture). Now the headcams don't require all that and the facial solving tools are much more robust. We can even use iPhones for facial capture. Overall, technology has made it easier and it's a rapidly evolving field.
I have only been in my current position for 4 years. Before that my only mocap experience was when I worked on LA Noire with Rockstar and that's a whole other story. It has changed immensely from them till now. It's changed in facial capture more than motion capture (body). However there are now consumer motion capture products you can do with your iPhone such as move ai. Or you can do inertial capture with an XSens suit or Rokoko suit. Industry leading manufactures are also beta testing markerless optical MoCap systems. Very exciting!

In terms of prep I don't think it has changed tremendously. For virtual production we do have more tools now such as real time visualization and virtual cameras. On the post side the software is more powerful and does more of the work for you but you will always need humans overseeing and checking everything for quality data outputs.

Keep in mind I am a producer and while I do have a fair amount of technical knowledge I am not the MoCap Supervisor that manges all the data on a day to day basis.

Hope that answers some questions.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @davidw 14 Mar

Fascinating stuff. And white carpets… thank goodness we’ve moved on, not least for the cleaners.

Is it fair to say more can be done on film set (and even outside) now or are studios with controlled conditions still the gold standard?

28 sats \ 0 replies \ @Crossett OP 14 Mar

Yes that is fair to sa more CAN be done on a regular set. Both inertial suits and technology advancements make this possible. I wouldn't say there is a "Gold Standard" necessarily unless we are talking about something specific. Like, if you wanted Tiger Woods exact golf swing you would want him to do that in our studio. But if needs dictate overall it's better to capture She Hulk in the studio lot for a scene instead on our MoCap stage, we can do that. It just depends on the needs of the show, the budget, the particular sequence needs. Markless MoCap is being integrated into virtual productions on LED Volumes and also people still do MoCap and Performance Capture on traditional MoCap stages. We are doing more and more videogames these days and a little less feature and episodic work overall.