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Open source Kinect motion capture toolkit

37

meshonline writes:

Hello Everyone,

I had developed an open source Kinect motion capture toolkit, and put it on GitHub.

If you want to make your own motion capture system, this is your best choice, it is completely free.

You need to compile it yourself, I only use the it on macOS, you can try compiling it for Linux and Windows, it should work.

I have successfully use it in Blender, here are the steps:

  1. Use the toolkit to generate BVH file.
  2. Import the BVH file to blender.
  3. Bind the character to the armature.

If you are using Rigify's metabone, you just need to adjust the armature slightly, here are the steps:

  1. Select the armature, enter 'Edit' mode, select all bones, press 'Ctrl' + 'N', click 'Recalculate Roll->with Global -Y axis'.
  2. Select the armature, enter 'Pose' mode, rename some bones, let them match the bone names of the BVH armature, and change the rotation mode from 'Quaternion(WXYX)' to 'ZYX Euler'.
  3. Bind the character to the armature.
  4. Use the toolkit to generate BVH file.
  5. Import the BVH file to blender.
  6. Delete the BVH armature.
  7. Select the armature, switch to 'Dope Sheet->Action Editor' interface, attach the motion clip.

About the Author

Mingfen Wang

Indie developer.

37 Comments

    • Thank you so much for making this open source. It is now 2020, does anyone know the latest update /development with the Kinect V2, Blender and Windows? Thank you

  1. Hi ! Seems pretty awesome ! Been waiting for these king of tools for years. You need to make/link a demo to show some live footage Vs Capture (will allow me to know if i should acquire a Kinect ^^). BTW is it Kinect or Kinect2 ? Does it allow multiple Kinect for sharper/360 capture ?
    Thank you for releasing this.

    • Thank you for the live footage comparison. That's really neat. Though it has the limitations I expected (a bit shaky, some lost movements) I think it's the best you could get from a Kinect 1. This is a really a great tool, I'll definitely need to get a Kinect device (and learn to compile for windows). Thank you again for this. I see you have other really interesting project on your Github ! Yum !

  2. The unit of this BVH is centimeter, while the unit of Blender is meter, if you use Rigify armature, please scale the armature by 100, then apply scale on the armature, then scale the armature by 0.01, otherwise, the animation looks strange.

    I'll modify the source code to fit Blender's default unit, compile to Linux and Windows is not easy, you need to install drivers, I'll release the compiled version when finished.

    • It will automatically start recording when it detected your body, and automatically stop recording when it lost tracking, so you can record multiple animation clips at one time.
      Press 'ESC' key on the display window to quit the app.

  3. when I import into blender the armature is reversed left-right. the right arms and legs are on the left side and the left arms and legs are on the right side, and everything bends backwards, so reversing the armature doesn't fix the issue. any ideas how to address this? I'm using the windows port.

  4. This is a great tool, and I am very happy for this! My mistake probably, but I tried mocap for win. I have Kinect 1 and my laptop is Intel core i5 at 2700 GHz, with 8 GB ram and the operating system is Windows 10. I followed the instructions, but at tiltkinect I had no luck. I gave up after twenty times try. Please advise. Thank you.

      • I downloaded the latest version of Kinect driver and the SDK is perfect also. It works with N-iMate free version, correctly. That's why I think, I made a mistake at mocap for Windows.

        • It works well, now. The problem was with the Kinect 1.8. This was not removed before I installed the Kinect 2.0 SDK.
          Should happen.
          Thank you Mr. Wang for the software. Great job, you made if open source.

  5. Thank you so much for making this open source. It is now 2020, does anyone know the latest update /development with the Kinect V2, Blender and Windows? Thank you

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