Motion Capture Database

#1 This was brought up a year or two ago. The general concensus IIRC was that at least at the time, other than 3DSMax, no tool at the time could import these. I don't know if this has changed as of late though.

#2 They provided a link on how to do it in Maya:

mocap.cs.cmu.edu/asfamcmel/asfamcmel.php

And there are free tools, including one for converting .c3d to ASCII format, which I can imagine would be generic enough to convert to other formats as well. If we're lucky, maybe there's already an existing way to get it converted to BVH from ASCII. Since the .c3d format specification is public domain, there may be a chance someone has written python scripts for Blender.

Just a thought.


Update:
After some more googling, I came accross an elysiun forum thread on the topic, which referred to MotView, a motion capture viewer and editor, which can load and save different formats (including acclaim files and BVH).

I'll look more into this, and if all this info is useful for game production in TGE, I'll submit a TDN resource on it.

#3 PaceMaker is another viewer and editor, I don't know how it performs though.

#4 I know Blender supports one of the formats, I think...

#5 Note that it's free for research purposes. In other words, good for prototyping, bad for business.

#6 I think they said free for research projects, and if you make research publications based on the data, then give acknoledgements to them as being your source of data. Just like writing any paper on something, you need to declare your sources of data/information.

If you read the FAQ it says:

Quote:
The motion capture data may be copied, modified, or redistributed without permission.

Disclaimer 1: We do not guarantee the quality of the data.

Disclaimer 2: Data classification is provided to assist users. The sincerest efforts have been to describe and categorize our motion data, so as to be generally helpful to all motion capture data seekers. However, as all motions are subject to individual interpretation, we cannot be held responsible for inaccuracies or mispresentations of data, arising from our classification.

The first line boldly speaks for itself. And nowhere on the site does it mention any restrictions for commercial use. And when in doubt, there's always asking for permission just to make sure. Even if it were non-commercial, this information can still be used by people making free games.

I'm not seriously planning on using mocaps for my game (I don't mind doing it myself in Blender), I just figured I'd share this information for those who may be interested.

#7 Nice site, thanks Jeffrey.

#8 @Cameron: Blender supposedly supports BVH but I haven't got it to work yet...
www.centralsource.com/blender/bvh/files.htm