3D Motion capture is a medium that plots motion, typically human motion, converting it into a form that can be represented digitally. It is a fast evolving field and recent inertial technology may provide new artistic possibilities for its use in live performance. Although not often used in this context, motion capture has a combination of attributes that can provide unique forms of collaboration with performance arts. The inertial motion capture suit used for this study has orientation sensors placed at strategic points on the body to map body motion. Its portability, real-time performance, ease of use, and its immunity from line-of-sight problems inherent in optical systems suggest it would work well as a live performance technology. Many animation techniques can be used in real-time. This research examines a broad cross-section of these techniques using four practice-led cases to assess the suitability of inertial motion capture to live performance. Although each case explores different visual possibilities, all make use of the performativity of the medium, using either an improvisational format or interactivity among stage, audience and screen that would be difficult to emulate any other way. A real-time environment is not capable of reproducing the depth and sophistication of animation people have come to expect through media. These environments take many hours to render. In time the combination of what can be produced in real-time and the tools available in a 3D environment will no doubt create their own tree of aesthetic directions in live performance. The case study looks at the potential of interactivity that this technology offers.

With high emphasis on the need of combining recent research and technology regarding automatic facial rig generation with the artistic aspect and the usage of digital humans within film production pipelines, this thesis project presents a scalable blendshape optimization framework that is adapted to fit within a VFX-pipeline, provides stability for various kinds of usage and makes the workflow of creating facial rigs more efficient. The framework successfully generates per-actor based facial rigs adapted towards sample data while ensuring that the semantics of the input rig are kept in the process. With the core in a reusable generic model, gradient based deformations, user-driven regularization terms, rigid alignment, and the possibility to split blendshapes in symmetrical halves, the proposed framework provides a stable algorithm that can be applied to any target blendshape. The proposed framework serves as a source for investigating and evaluating parameters and solutions related to automatic facial rig generation and optimization. / <p>Examensarbetet är utfört vid Institutionen för teknik och naturvetenskap (ITN) vid Tekniska fakulteten, Linköpings universitet</p>

Dopo l’avvento del sonoro e quello del colore, la settima arte sta attraversando una terza, forse più radicale, fase di rivoluzione: un vero e proprio tsunami che corrisponde all’avvento del digitale, dove il video insidia il primato della pellicola e la Computer Grafica è sempre più dilagante nel campo degli effetti speciali. Muovendosi all’interno di questo quadro di sostanziale cambiamento la presente ricerca, intitolata "Il corpo nell’era digitale: dal simulacro alla Performance Capture", si sofferma in particolare sull’analisi delle nuove prospettive che il corpo (attoriale) deve affrontare con la smaterializzazione dell’elemento organico. A partire da una panoramica storica sull’avvento del digitale nel cinema contemporaneo, si arriva a tracciare una linea evolutiva del corpo e del volto per meglio contestualizzare i campi di azione della Performance Capture. Il digitale e la Performance Capture sono fenomeni il cui sviluppo è ancora pienamente in atto, dagli esiti futuri ancora imprevedibili. Il proposito di questa ricerca è stabilire se il cinema stia diventando come paventa Lev Manovich, “a slave to the computer” o se, al contrario, le nuove tecnologie possano rafforzare le capacità artistiche, e perciò profondamente umane, del mezzo. / After the revolutionary phases brought by the introduction of sound and color, the seventh art is going through another, even more radical, renewal: the digital tsunami, where video is taking over the film and Computer Graphic is ruling the field of special effects. This project , situated inside a perspective of substantial change, is focused on the analysis of the role of the new actor and of his body, reconstructed after the disappearance of the organic elements in favor of the digital ones. Starting from an historical overview on the advent of digital cinema, this research aims to follow the development of Performance Capture, a technique capable to rewrite the rules of acting and directing. Digital moviemaking, CGI and Performance Capture, in particular, are phenomena in constant development, whose future effects are still not predictable. The purpose of this research is to establish whether cinema is becoming, like Manovich suggests, like Lev Manovich says, a “slave to the computer” , or if, on the contrary, new technologies will be able to strengthen its artistic, therefore human, sides.

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Les auteurs contemporains, des plasticiens aux réalisateurs de blockbusters, créent des images où le réel et le virtuel semblent de la même étoffe. Leurs films, vidéos et installations exposent un monde qui émerge de l’immatérialité des écrans.À la différence des images qui procèdent de l'imprégnation de la lumière réelle sur des surfaces photosensibles, les simulacres numériques résultent du langage binaire. Ils correspondent à du code informatique qui transforme l’image en une somme de données.Dès lors, ceux-ci entraînent-ils une mutation de notre rapport à l’image ? En quoi induisent-ils une nouvelle perception des représentations artistiques où prime l’apport d’une subjectivité ?Les simulacres numériques apparaissent après des millénaires d’images qui relèvent de l’ontologie et entretiennent un lien sensible avec le réel. Le spectateur ayant besoin de se projeter dans ce qui emprunte à sa nature et ce qui interroge ses aspirations, ses sentiments comme ses croyances, il attend de la simulation numérique la même capacité d’incarnation et de transfiguration que les autres moyens d’expression.Entrelaçant la tradition et le contemporain, cette recherche analyse l’éloquence sensible du simulacre numérique au défi du vivant dans le cinéma et les arts plastiques des années 2000-2010 selon les concepts de présence, représentation et simulation.Comment le numérique actualise-t-il des codes culturels et esthétiques hérités de l’histoire de l’art ? Cette recherche tente de comprendre la nature et le sens des simulacres numériques du vivant en tant qu’ils conjuguent l’incorporel synthétique à l’argument ontologique. / The contemporary authors, from visual artists to blockbusters’ directors, create images where the real and the virtual seem from the same cloth. Theirs movies, videos and installations show a world which emerges from the immateriality of the screens.Unlike images which are the result of the impregnation of the actual light on photosensitive surfaces, digital simulacra stem from binary language. They are made of pure computer code that can transform the image into a sum of data.Therefore, will the digital simulacra change our relationship to images? How do these digital sham images induce a new perception of artistic performances where subjectivity and its contributions are the prime factors?We are confronted with these digital simulacra of images after millennia of imagery that relate from ontology and that maintain a significant link with reality. The viewer, having the need to project himself into something that borrows from his nature and that questions his aspirations, his feelings as well as his beliefs, expects from the digital simulation the same capacity for incarnation and transfiguration that he experiences from others means of expression.Confronting and intertwining the traditional and the contemporary, this research analyses the sensitive eloquence of digital simulacra and how they face the challenge of real life, through film and in visual arts over the decade 2000-2010, based on the concepts of presence, representation and simulation.How do the various uses of digital technology force us to update the cultural and aesthetic codes that we inherited from Art history? Thus, this research attempts to understand the substance and the meaning of the digital pretence of life, which combines the synthetic intangible with an ontological argument.