Nov 04, 2020 23:10:00

Asia's largest motion capture studio 'Opakis' equipped with 100 cameras, 'Opakis' tour report, what are the props and props that support cutting-edge images?

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GANTZ: O ' and ' Death Note Light up the NEW world ', the game series ' Yakuza ' a number of known for the production of 3DCG work such as Digital Frontier boasts Asia's largest motion capture studio is the 'Opakisu' .. Recently, there are cases where it is used for social games, etc., and there are also cases where it is used for remote demand due to the influence of the pandemic, so the schedule is tightly filled. However, this time, there was only one day free, so I was asked to see the inside of Opakis four years after the interview with the head office in 2016 .

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I arrived at the nearest station, Yurikamome Telecom Center Station , to head to Opakis (Odaiba Performance Capture Studio). It's a little far from here, so I moved by car.

Arrived at

Aomi Distribution Center Building No. 1 where Opakis is located.

The surrounding area is the Aomi Container Terminal at Tokyo Harbor, where trucks come and go and containers are piled up.

For a moment, I was wondering if I had come to the wrong place, but on the 3rd floor there was the word 'Digital Frontier Co., Ltd.'.

'Opakis' is the part on the 3rd floor where 'Digital Frontier' is written.

The entrance to Opakis looks like this. The lower right is the door for people to enter and exit, so you can see how huge the Digital Frontier logo is displayed.

When you enter the room, first check the temperature and disinfect.

This is the capture area of Opakis. 100 motion capture cameras,

Vicon T160 , for about 8 million yen are installed in a rectangular parallelepiped area of 15m x 10m x 4.5m surrounded by a red frame. It is one of the largest in Asia and has a track record of simultaneous capture of 12 people, and it is possible to shoot up to 15 people at the same time.

Mr. Hiroki Koshida (left), General Manager of Motion Capture Office, Digital Frontier CG Production Department, and Mr. Kokita, Executive Officer, General Manager of Corporate Planning and Sales Promotion Office, and Director of

Virtual Line Studio, who showed us the inside of Opakis this time. I asked Mr. Teppei (right) to stand in the capture area to show the size of the capture area. It is convincing that 15 people can shoot at the same time.

Opakis is characterized by the fact that many cameras are installed at the feet as well as the beams installed so as to surround the capture area. In the case of a sitting action, if the camera is only above, it may be blocked by the body and it may not be possible to capture well, but by having it at your feet, the blind spot of the camera above is covered.

Lined up on the hangers are the suits worn by the performers when performing motion capture.

Many are standard sizes, but some have special suits. This is the lower body of the capture suit that can be worn by basketball players over 2m tall.

There are also suits for children.

Suits are expensive, with hats, belts, gloves, shoes, and shoe covers in the upper and lower sets, which

cost about 150,000 yen, so some suits were handmade.

Stick this marker on your suit when doing motion capture. The marker is also handmade by sticking

retroreflective tape on a rubber ball. If the markers are too large, the markers will interfere with each other, so the smaller the markers, the higher the capture accuracy. However, it is also a problem if it is too small because it is necessary to capture the marker with the camera. Since Opakis can capture markers firmly with the number of cameras of 100, it is possible to use smaller markers than other studios, and the accuracy of final motion capture will be higher.

The outer periphery of the area is a storage room, and the props and props used for capture are lined up in a narrow space.

The 'door' of the shooting set. The skeleton is designed to reduce the blind spot of the camera during capture.

You can combine skeleton blocks to make a chair or adjust the height.

There are also horses used to capture car seats and horseback riding. Horses are not a skeleton, but this is to ensure that they are strong enough for people to ride.

This is a prop used for shooting. There are various types, from something like a urethane stick to a wooden sword with a well-prepared handle, but since there are many movements during action shooting, use a light one so that it does not become a burden and pose. This is because the weight of the weapon is heavier so that it is reflected in the stance. When capturing action with a long sword, attach a bamboo stick to avoid passing through places where the tip of the sword would not normally pass, or use a

gas blowback air gun to reproduce the recoil of the gun. And, various ideas were incorporated to perform various shootings.

Kewpie dolls with extra-thick eyebrows are used in place of babies. The weight is adjusted by stuffing sand so that you can reproduce the movement when you hold the baby, and when you lift it, it has a heavy weight that you can not think of as a Kewpie doll. The eyebrows are velcro tape, which was attached because there was a request to attach a marker at the time of shooting.

Shogun is used as the motion capture tool. By migrating from Blade one generation ago to Shogun, it seems that work efficiency has improved significantly.

Capturing the movement of five fingers without breaking. If you show me the actually captured video, you can see that the movements of each of the five fingers are accurately captured.

It looks like you are checking the captured video. Since the camera can be operated with the PlayStation 3

controller , even directors and directors who are not accustomed to operating 3DCG software can easily operate it.

When it comes to filming movies and TV dramas, there is an image that many people come to the studio, but after the spread of the new coronavirus infection, only the performers come to the studio, and the director and director shoot remotely. It seems that participation in has increased. Therefore, a microphone is installed to support remote shooting ...

The performer is using FM radio to receive remote instructions.

As a measure against infection, partitions are also installed in the rest space. Due to the large space required, the rest space extends not only to the original rest room but also to the outer circumference of the capture area.

Even though it was outside the capture area, the capture camera was installed right next to it, so a tsuitate was installed to prevent the performer's marker during the break from being picked up.

The installed T-160 is one generation ago as a Vicon capture camera, but the difference in specifications is small compared to the latest V16, and it is not inferior at all. However, the gap that analog techniques are used for props was also a very interesting part when shooting in a studio that uses the latest technology to produce cutting-edge images.

Opakis has been used in various video productions so far, but after the Corona disaster, the number of jobs related to game apps has increased, it is useful for remote recording, and the studio space is large, so it takes a social distance. I have the impression that it is easy to make full use of its strengths. In the future, it will be used for more and more shooting, and there may be more opportunities to unknowingly touch the images produced by Opakis.