Streaming live Motion Capture data into TGE
by Steve Harris · in Torque Game Engine · 01/30/2008 (9:09 am) · 2 replies
Hi,
I have the opportunity to use a motion capture rig for two weeks, the IGS 190 from Animazoo. http://www.animazoo.com/IGS190.aspx and was wondering if anyone knew of any projects which have attempted to stream live motion capture data directly into the Torque Game Engine, so that the motion capture suit controls a character in-game. I'm comfortable with capturing motion capture data and applying it to a character rig in 3DSM, I'm more interested in streaming that same data directly into the engine.
I've read all the posts on this topic which I could find and they suggest that this is not possible, but the posts I did read are a few years old now. I have also had a dig around the C++ source code but I'm not having much luck finding somewhere to hook the data stream into. The IGS-190 does come with an SDK but I will not see it until I get the suit.
Any suggestions are welcome, even if it's along the lines of "Its still not possible"
thanks
I have the opportunity to use a motion capture rig for two weeks, the IGS 190 from Animazoo. http://www.animazoo.com/IGS190.aspx and was wondering if anyone knew of any projects which have attempted to stream live motion capture data directly into the Torque Game Engine, so that the motion capture suit controls a character in-game. I'm comfortable with capturing motion capture data and applying it to a character rig in 3DSM, I'm more interested in streaming that same data directly into the engine.
I've read all the posts on this topic which I could find and they suggest that this is not possible, but the posts I did read are a few years old now. I have also had a dig around the C++ source code but I'm not having much luck finding somewhere to hook the data stream into. The IGS-190 does come with an SDK but I will not see it until I get the suit.
Any suggestions are welcome, even if it's along the lines of "Its still not possible"
thanks
#2
02/01/2008 (8:26 am)
Thanks for the reply, thats given me a great place to start. If i do manage to get anywhere with it, I will let you know. Apologies for posting the the network forum, my mistake. 
Associate David Wyand
Gnometech Inc.
Sounds cool. I'd love to try out a motion capture rig.
I've never done this myself, but I feel it is entirely possible to do what you want. Although you'll have to get your hands into the code.
I'm a little rusty on the TGE TS code, but I believe you'll want to tie into TSShapeInstance::animateNodes(). You'll need to flag the nodes you want to animate as 'hands off' by the animation thread system. Use TSShapeInstance::setNodeAnimationState() for that. I can't really go into more detail as this isn't a private TGE forum. In fact this forum is for TNL. :o)
I can think of a few other obstacles you'll need to overcome:
1. Come up with a DTS shape that is built with the correct node positions and rotations (and number of nodes) to work with the IGS-190 SDK.
2. Transform coordinate systems between the IGS-190 SDK and Torque.
3. If you're doing full body motion capture then the Torque Player class may not be what you need, as the 3D position and orientation of the shape is completely controlled by the rig's SDK, rather than Torque's player rules. I'd recommend starting with one of the simpler shape classes that still supports animation threads.
4. Doing this in a single player (combined server/client) game should be fine. Networking this would take a lot more work.
I hope that helps. I'd be interested to hear how it goes.
- LightWave Dave