OptiTrack releases Motive motion-capture software
OptiTrack has relased Motive, its new software platform for setting up, calibrating, solving and streaming data from its optical motion-capture systems.
The OptiTrack website provides a long list of features for Motive, which we won’t duplicate here, but the software seems to play a similar role to that of Blade in Vicon systems.
However, notable features include an endorsement from Autodesk in the news release (below), and the price.
To the best of our knowledge, OptiTrack is the only major optical mocap manufacturer to publish its prices publicly, making exact comparisons difficult, but $999 doesn’t feel a lot for a high-end system of this type.
You do pay $1,499 for the Body module, which permits simultaneous full-body and finger tracking, but that still makes the total cost significantly less than a licence of MotionBuilder, into which Motive streams the data.
PRESS RELEASE (Excerpts)
Motion capture provider OptiTrack™ today announced the launch of Motive, a unified software platform designed to eliminate the complexities historically associated with motion capture workflows. Motive delivers cleaner motion data, enables larger capture volumes and can be tailored to meet a full range of production studio and research facility needs. With an easy-to-navigate interface, Motive provides a high-performance solution for data management and processing as well as skeleton solving. When customized with the Motive Body Module add-on, the system delivers simultaneous full body and finger tracking, even in very large capture areas.
““Robust motion capture is an essential part of the Autodesk virtual production pipeline and OptiTrack has completely upped their game with the Prime 41 cameras and Motive,”” noted Bruno Sargeant, Autodesk Senior Product Manager.
Beta versions of Motive have been available to select OptiTrack customers and the software is already positively impacting their workflows.
“”We chose OptiTrack for several reasons. The Prime 41 cameras outperformed their competition, and the Motive software suite is unparalleled,”” explained Chuck Ghislandi, Motion & Animation Director of Game On Audio. “”This combination of superior hardware and 64 bit software allowed us to design and build a very large capture stage, and gave us confidence that we could capture more actors for longer takes. The OptiTrack system is completely scalable so we know that we can continue to enhance our system to meet the growing expectations of next-gen games and films.””
Motive key features include:
- 64-bit, multi-threaded architecture facilitates the tracking of more objects and actors, longer recordings, and support for hundreds of cameras per system
- Body Module add-on provides one-click subject calibration, precision finger tracking (with Flex 13 or Prime cameras) and kinematic labeling for clean real-time output
- System setup has been simplified to reduce prep time by 75 percent and can be handled by a single operator
- Flexible architecture and free SDKs offer users to access data at any stage, providing users a truly open motion capture platform
- New shot management system, with drag and drop asset selection
- Easy export of Motive skeleton to a fully proportioned Autodesk® MotionBuilder® actor with markerset
Motive is available for $999 and the Body Module add-on is available for $1499. Existing OptiTrack customers with current software licenses will be upgraded to Motive at no additional cost.