...

3/4 Jun (Wed/Thur) OJT - Motion Builder (Trainer: Satou-san)
Over the past 2 days, we looked at more functionality of Motion Builder, a highly complex piece of software packed full with features. In actual game production at PA, a lot of the functionality are not actually necessarily, and the main use of the tool is to edit motion (both captured and hand-created) for game character action and cut scenes.

Satou-san showed use his method of mapping the mocap action of someone wielding a 2-handed weapon onto a game character with different body proportions. His self-developed technique is difficult to understand, but retains the essense of the mocap actor's original performance while modifying the action to fit a different body. We also looked at some functions such as time warp and camera switching.

Ultimately, the best way to learn this software is still experimentation and self-study.

5 Jun (Fri) Game Visual II - Motion Capture Studio (Trainer: Kawashima-san)
Today we visited the Tokyo University of Technology again. This time we went by rail, taking the Yamanote Line (山手線) to Shinjuku (新宿), then changing to the Chu-o Line (中央線) to Hachioji (八王子), then changing again to the Yokohama Line (横浜線) to Hachioji-Minamino (八王子みなみ野). After that, we took a free shuttle bus from the station to the University.

We had been to the Digital Motion Caption (DMC) studio before, but this time, we weren't just touring. Kawashima sensei gave a lesson on mocap and some of his students helped to demonstrate the process. We met Kenneth Chan, a student of TUT from Hong Kong, who went through a similar PS3 training at Hong Kong Cyberport. He was part of the team that made the shooting mini-game on the PS3, and he told us that out of the 11-member team, there were 3 programmers, 3 artists, and 5 people who didn't really contributed to the project. Comparatively, we had 1 programmers and 2 artists for our mini-game project. The SG team pwns ;P