Tustin, CA — The final reduction in the production pipeline has been achieved with the Vicon 8 system, producing accurate optical motion capture in real-time, according to executives at Vicon Motion Capture.

The Vicon 8 Rt will be exhibited by the company at Siggraph '99 in Los Angeles from August 10-13, at Booth 1939. Vicon says its system marks a significant breakthrough in motion capture technology, as Vicon 8Rt is not a previewer, but actually produces full body motion capture data without the wait. This system provides the highest standards of accuracy that Vicon 8 is famous for, and will render live characters in popular commercial animation packages including Avid’s® Softimage®,Discreet’s® 3D Studio Max®, Alias|Wavefront's® Maya™ and Kaydara’s Filmbox™. This leap in technology optimizes the production pipeline for traditional motion capture use in film, episodic animation and gaming— and now offers broadcast professionals a viable mo-cap solution for virtual sets and live broadcast entertainment.

"Real-time motion capture puts optical motion capture under the director’s complete control. On the set, rendered character animation allows instant performer feedback and in-plate direction of the animated character," commented Julian Morris, Chairman, Vicon Motion Capture. "Real-time motion capture dramatically speeds up production time by putting motion data directly into an animation package for immediate project integration."

"We evaluated several systems when we decided to diversify our business into motion capture," commented Kei Taniguchi, Marketing Director, LocoMotion Studios. "We looked at several other technologies, but the decision to choose Vicon 8 was clear. Our purchase was made based on the production-proven quality of the system, and the personal attention and accessibility of the Vicon development team. Vicon has worked closely with us integrate the system with our production efforts and have even modified software to accommodate specific needs for us. With the release of their real-time system they truly dominate the high-end motion capture market."

Vicon 8Rt Key Features
Vicon 8Rt is based on the production-proven optical motion capture hardware used for "Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace," "The Mummy," "Titanic," and hundreds of computer games, commercials, music videos, and TV productions. It is a TCP/IP server delivering real-time character motion directly to computer animation packages such as 3D Studio Max, Softimage, and FilmBox. Vicon 8Rt delivers animations as fast as your 3D graphics displays them. Vicon 8Rt continues to provide the most accurate data available, and now delivers it at real-time rates. The subtlety of motion is retained, making it suitable for foreground characters, while the scene is concurrently viewed and recorded. Vicon 8Rt understands human movement and matches its internal model to all available observations -- even those from a single camera.

Just walk into the capture space, and Vicon 8Rt recognizes a human (or animal) shape and starts tracking. Even when markers are obscured from view, Vicon8Rt continues to track until the last body segment is lost, then re-initializes on the fly. Vicon 8Rt delivers accurate 3D marker tracks and model degrees-of-freedom in real-time, recorded by your 3D animation application or by the integrated Vicon 8Rt recorder. Vicon 8Rt and the rest of the Vicon motion capture tools operate in the Intel/Windows NT environment. Vicon 8Rt character motion can be used to drive 3D animations on any suitable TCP/IP-networked workstation, independent of architecture and operating system.

Vicon Motion Systems is a wholly owned subsidiary of Oxford Metrics, Ltd. For over 15 years Oxford Metrics, Ltd. has been providing professionals with the latest tools to accurately capture the subtleties of motion. For more information on Vicon browse to www.vicon.com or contact Brian Nilles, Product Manager, at (714) 259-1232 or Brian@vicon.com.