Introduction to Motion Capture:
Marker-Based and Markerless Techniques and Applications
Many aspects including the structure of this class and syllabus was inspired/ adopted/ adapted from Prof. Jordan Boyd-Graber’s NLP CMSC 470 course.
Class Location: IRB 0110 (IMD Lab)
Schedule: Thursdays, 3:30pm – 6:00pm EST
Office Hours: IRB 0110 / Online: By appointment
Course Credit: 3 Hours class, 1 day a week (3 Credits)
Course Syllabus Page:
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Schedule
| Date | Main Concepts | Topics |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | Fundamentals | Course Overview/ Logistics Mocap Applications Prereq. Review (Math) |
| Setup Software/ Environment Prereq. Continued (Unity) | ||
| Week 2 | Intro | Intro to Mocap: Maker-based and Marker-less (Visual, IMU, MM etc.) |
| Hands on Vicon and Captury Demo | ||
| Week 3 | Marker-based Mocap (Vicon Shogun and Nexus) | Camera concepts Calibration |
| Rigid Objects Deformable Objects Existing Models | ||
| Week 4 | Human Body Structure Marker Placement Kinematic Model | |
| New Subject/ Object Creation | ||
| Week 5 | Data Collection and Tracking Time Sync and Reference Camera | |
| Data Processing and Refinement (Reconstruction, Fine Tuning, and Exporting) | ||
| Week 6 | Marker-less Mocap (Captury and MediaPipe) | Setup and Calibration Data Collection |
| << MIDTERMS >> | ||
| Week 7 | Brainstorming, Storyboarding, Low, Mid, and High Fidelity Prototyping | |
| Class Project Ideation and Team Formation | ||
| Week 8 | Animation (Blender and Unity) | Principles of Animation Green Screening |
| Character Animation (Rigging, Forward Kinematics, Inverse Kinematics) | ||
| Week 9 | Streaming and Retargeting | |
| Fine Tuning | ||
| Week 10 | Interaction (Unity and Sensing) | Sensors, Unity Sensing, User Input |
| Unity Physics and Collision | ||
| Week 11 | << Project Milestone Presentation and Peer Evaluations >> | |
| Assets and Animator | ||
| Week 12 | Animation Scripting | |
| Animation Scripting Hands On | ||
| Week 13 | Application | Beyond lab recorded data — Other alternative techs Current state of the art Strengths and limitations |
| Working sessions | ||
| Week 14 | Working sessions | |
| Working sessions | ||
| Week 15 | << Final Project Demo and Evaluation >> | |