Motion Capture: AI

Motion capture: AI

When looking at the technical side of my research, I had an important choice to make - which motion capture system to use. 

    To begin my research into the possibilities of the motion capture I chose to try out Artificial Intelligence-powered programs. When doing my research into mocap before starting my project I have already noticed that using a Kinect camera would be a more efficient and suitable technology than AI, looking at what artists such as Maria Takeuchi and Frederico Phillips were using and creating with, yet I still wanted to research all the available possibilities. The main issues that I have found with AI were the pricing, the accuracy of motion capture, and that I had to mostly use prerecorded material rather than live motion capturing which I believe could add another layer of integrity and authenticity when capturing pain in movement. Most of the programs have monthly plans that begin with 12 USD per month for very limited use of the software. For the payment plans that I would see the benefit in using for my research, I would have to pay 70 USD per month. Some of the companies have free trials which I have used to generate the motion-captured movement below. 

Radical

I used software called Radical which specializes in generating high-quality 3D skeletal motion data from a single, real-time 2D video feed using its proprietary AI. In the results that the software has generated, It was clear that the AI was not understanding how my body was moving in the video that I uploaded, therefore it was not able to reproduce and capture the movement. I have included evidence below:

However, it did produce an interesting movement pattern that I have never seen before which somehow does associate with the confusion of living and moving with chronic pain, yet it was not nearly as accurate as what I would prefer for my further investigation into motion capturing movement when feeling chronic pain.

DeepMotion

The second program that I have used is called DeepMotion, a software that brings digital characters to life using AI-powered motion capture and real-time 3D body tracking. I have used the same video as for the previously discussed software Radical, but I have noticed that DeepMoton was more accurate in capturing the movement and understanding the position of the body. Their free trial included a 10-second video, while other options were 12 USD for a 20-second video (180 sec per month) or 17 USD for a 30-second video (480 sec per month). Although DeepMotion-generated motion capture was more accurate and easier to work with than Radical, the results were still not satisfactory enough. The accuracy of motion capture when facing more complex movements was quite poor and the model was breaking which I have recorded and uploaded below:

PixCap

The third program that I used was PixCap. The program features the ability to instantly apply a model to the AI-motion-captured movement. The software has a variety of models ready for use, but for premium members, there is an ability to upload your own model. The main error that I have found with this software was the unrealistic price and the poor quality of the motion capture. The free version includes 30 credits per month. One credit equals one frame, and 1 second of the video equals 24 frames. For 20USD per month, they offer 300 AI credits. That would still not reach the amount required for my research. I have included a screenshot below to provide an insight into how PixCap's creative studio works:

    In conclusion, I did not manage to find suitable AI software for my research. It is due to the presented quality of the motion capture and the price point. The other factor is that I would have to use pre-recorded material rather than the preferred live motion capture. This has led me to a decision to purchase an X-Box Kinect camera which I will describe in my following log.