On the trail of the shadow woman: the mystery of motion capture

Motion capture houses throw away the person and keep the shadow-the essence of their motion-and apply that motion to animate all kinds of characters. In the past few years, as the technology has become less expensive and at the same time more accurate, MoCap has helped lessen the rigors of traditional cell animation-especially in highly cost-conscious projects like TV commercials. A MoCap studio can use both magnetic and optical capture systems. Each has certain advantages. The magnetic system handles shoots that don't need really high accuracy, and the director wants to be able to apply the data to his character in real time. Magnetic systems generally are faster at providing data to use in animation, though optical systems are generally more accurate and can track more points. That may be changing, though.