009 - Working Title

I believe a good title is important. It's usually the first point of contact/entry for creative projects.

I knew I had to find a suitable title for this project. A title that would encapsulate the whole spectrum and scope of the project. I did some brainstorming exercises trying to come up with a suitable name, making numerous lists. In the end the title found me when I wasn't looking for it (as is so often the case).

Miasma.

I stumbled upon this word one day a few months ago whilst playing the video game Dark Souls on my PlayStation 3. A character mentioned the phrase, "A miasma of death and disease" during an opening cinematic cut-scene. I liked how the word sounded (plus it's morose connotations) so in my usual curious way I decided to research the word's meaning and history. I found the below quote from Wikipedia.

Miasma - 'In Greek mythology, a miasma is a contagious power that has an independent life of its own. Until purged by the sacrificial death of the wrongdoer, society would be chronically infected by catastrophe.'

This instantly it sent my imagination into overdrive. What could cause the Miasma? What could it represent? How could it be defeated? All these questions flowed through my mind during the initial idea and writing process. I realised I could fit my existing ideas into this title whilst developing the concept even further. The title informed the story as much as the story informed the title.

I designed a haphazard, hand-written style logo then made a few test screens (placing the logo on top of various photographs and backdrops) to see how the title could look in a visual sense at the start of the short film. I wanted to test it's impact and tone, set in the realistic space and ratio of the screen.

Initially I was not so impressed with how it looked on-screen but it has grown on me considerably since I first researched it months ago. I can't imagine calling this project by any other name.

008 - Motion Capture Software

We just recently got two copies of Qualisys Track Manager installed in our lab to process the 3D motion capture data we recorded. I've spent some time reviewing what we did and learning how to get the best output possible.

Me doing some contemporary dance movements

At first I though this was going to be a complicated process, but it's more fidgety and time-consuming than difficult. Every dot on my body that I wore during the motion capture recording is represented by a green or red dot in the program's view screen. Green dots are good because it means the software has automatically synced-up the correct positions. However if a red dot appears it means that dot has to be manually reassigned to it's proper body part.

Generating an 'AIM Model' can help in this process. Firstly you take a short piece of recorded footage from your data and correctly assign all the dot placements manually. Then you can export the model as an 'Aim Model' to apply to other raw capture data. The software uses the information saved in the Aim Model to automatically calculate and assign dot positions. It's not a perfect system as some dots lose their connections during complicated movements like turns and spins. However it does provide a good starting point to then get in there manually and fill in the blanks.

I personally like the feature of being able to add line streaks before or after the characters movement. It allows you to gauge the smoothness of limb movements and the quality of the capture. Jagged streaks would need some manual correction later on to smooth the end result.

The next stage will be taking this data into Autodesk Motion Builder and prepare it for connection to the 3ds Max character model.