Square Enix has shared a small development update for Final Fantasy XV. They gave us a look on what the motion capture team is currently working on.
The official Final Fantasy XV Twitter page tweeted out a GIF file showing how they do the motion capture work for the character of Prompto Argentum. We see that the dodge rolls are captured fully by an actor.
Square Enix posted on the official forums the steps they they have to take to motion capture characters in the game. It’s a lengthy process, but the end result will make the game look pretty cool. The steps below are what Square Enix had to do.
Step 1: “Starting off with animation! Using motion capture, we film our own movements. We normally put on special mo-cap suits but I felt like using the combat suit today (which is extremely heavy…)”
Step 2: “Next step is editing where we “polish” the recorded data (“polish” = to tweak and elaborate, it’s a process of perfecting the animations). This is when we adjust the poses and movements, adding finger animations, etc. – we are very detail oriented!”
Step 3: “Finally we implement the animations in the game. We check how the character movements flow in-game together with the clothes which are controlled via cloth simulator. Aside from animations, we also need to check a variety of things such as SFX and VFX.”
Now you know more about the amount of work that has to be done when animating a video game. Motion capture has become very important when making video games and movies these days.
