Completing the Idea

The first thing I wanted to do after my intial idea was to find out if my mocap face idea was actually do-able. The first thing I did was search for tutorials on live motion capture; I couldn't find any. Although there seem to be plenty of motion capture tutorials that involve processing the animation, there are none that feed back to the mesh in real time. This, however, does not mean that the idea is not do-able or even difficult, only that there is no demand for it as a tutorial. Next I began looking into the technology and software available to see if any of this could pull off the feat of motion capturing a face in realtime. The best software I have found for the purpose of motion capturing faces is Image Metric's FaceWare.

This software tracks the motion of the face without reflective markers. This means it can track things like eye movement which could not be tracked with reflective markers before. The biggest problems is the ability to render a detailed enough image at a fast enough rate to look good when played back in realtime. Although we know this can be done from looking at the more and more realisistic capabilities of game engines like CryEngine 3, it is mixing this with the motion capture technology that I believe will be tricky.However, we can also see that this is possible by looking at the Microsoft Kinect which is capable of capturing fairly complex degree of movement, without the use of reflective markers and with relativly cheap equipment, and use it to animate meshes with moderate poly counts with very little latency. This, to me, says that my idea of real time motion capture is more than possible with the right help and equipment. However, I will still be developing an alternative idea for the face as insurance.

The next thing that I needed to do was to go to the uni and figure which wall would be the best to project onto. The wall needs to be somewhere visitors will immediatly see it and somewhere and projector can see from. I decided that the best place to start would be the courtyard. Although the Guntons building and the main building opposite give a bigger screen to project onto, the podium that I want to use to allow the crowd to ineract with the projection would get in the way of passers by if it were placed at a far enough distance away to allow the whole screen to be viewed. I believe a similar problem would occur if a crowd stopped to observe the screen. This, I think, would cause the passers by to see the event as some kind of annoyance as opposed to something they might want to get involved in. If we want members of the public to come and have a look, as opposed to specified visitors, It would be much better to have them lured into the courtyard using a sign saying something promotional and then "ALL ARE WELCOME" in big letters.
I decided that the best spot would be the wall to the left of the entrance to the university bar.

I chose this wall for a number of reasons:

• The interaction podium can be in the middle of the courtyard where it will not be in the way and can allow people to choose to go up to it at will.
• It can be easily found and viewed.
• The "olden days" feel works with the feel of what I want to project onto the wall.

The only remaining problem is that of the projector. Depending upon the prefered range of the projector, the projector could be placed in the front of the podium. However, if the projector needs to be further away there is a very annoying tree that gets in the way of the view from the photography building opposite. The projector could be placed on the far right, ground floor window of the photography building, but this means that people are likely to get in the way of the projector. I think the best way to perform this task is to have two projectors, each projecting one half of the image from two seperate windows in the photography studio.

view from the first window on the left when walking through the photography studio. Half the "screen wall" can be seen.

View from the third window on the left when walking through the photography studio. The half that cannot be seen through the first window can be seen through this window.

Now having the face idea and the scene sorted, I wanted to add more of an interactive element to the projection. In order to make this fit, I needed to work out the layout of the projection.

This layout is only a starting point and may need to be shifted around to make more room for the face. Wanting to have something more than just a face, I came up with the idea of having the windows smash and form into some form of being that could be controlled by the audience via iPad.

Glass Fairy: Initial Design

The two screens on either side of the face are there to show off animation and moving image showreels, as well as any other kind of showreel that needs to be displayed. If the audience member in control of one of the glass creatures taps on the iPad while the glass creature is over one of the screens and the face is not already answering a question, the face will talk about the current piece of work showing on the screen.
There will be two glass creatures and two iPads, one for each. The iPad will be either side of the microphone used to communicate with the face on the podium. This means up to three people can be interacting with the projection at any one time.
For the game, I wanted the gameplay to be quick and survival based so that players can drop in and drop out, giving anyone who wants to play a turn. I also wanted to use the game to help exhibit some of the university's work. The players can dip in and out of the game at anytime, allowing both glass creature to be in the same game at the same time. If the player crashes or gets hit by an enemy, they shatter and reform outside the game, allowing another person to play. The scenery and enemies are all based around students work. For instance, the background will show a scrolling gallery of 2D work the students have done, banners will be hung on the obstacles that exhibit some of the textiles student's work and enemies will be based around character's designed by students.
I believe that I now have a formed enough idea to begin the design document.