IR’s solution is extremely reliable, comprising of 42 Canon DSLR’s networked over 5 PC’s, using Breeze Software to trigger and download with Agisoft Photoscan Pro to build.

The scanning system is able to capture a single moment in time, within a bounding box volume of about 1.5m x 1.5m x 2m Heigh. Allowing for lots of dynamic poses! The Cameras are synchronized so you can capture very quickly and at super high resolution.

Video showing the Models inside ZBrush4R3, retopologized and with Unwrapped UV’s, displaying 8K Colour Texture Maps

Click here to view the embedded video.

Various angles viewed in ZBrush 4R3:

…more poses, costumes and beauty shots to come.

This new Studio Space is “The Light Room” (all White) there is also “The Dark Room” (all Black) for sound proofed 3D/4D dedicated Face Capture.

Female Model booked for the 16th for a full 360 Degree single shot test run! Fingers crossed the 56 Cameras 42 Cameras work!

**Update**

They worked but I need moooiirree!! another 20 to be precise. I am praying to the #Canon Gods daily.

I’m planning to move Studio space very soon, which will facilitate in continued research with 360 Degree Capture. I’ve found that 42 Cameras is not quite enough, especially anything under 18MP’s, plus you need allot of licenses (Breeze Systems, highly recommend them), plus you need laptops, networking gear and trigger devices with allot of studio space!

The beauty of this system is that it’s point, pose and shoot just like you would do in a normal Photographic Studio Setup. Meaning you can be quite creative and not have to worry about Capture Speed.

I got tired of building semi “look a like characters” from scratch, no matter how good you are at sculpting, no matter how much knowledge you have of anatomy I truly believe you can never beat the real thing, only augment it. 3D Scans and Motion Capture have since proven this in the VFX and Games Industry, with more and more studios relying on these techniques for realism. So I ditched sculpting and hand crafting (for the time being) in pursuit of the real deal.

The following images are a demonstration of 180 degree captures, as I don’t have the room to test 360 just yet.

WARNING these are not for the faint hearted. First I pimped out my head, which is all over the internet being used for tech demos, SSS skin demos, and general ghastly in carnations.

All this in preparation for the “proper” models!

…look away now if the sight of rippling muscles intimidates your fragile sensibilities.

360 Scan Merge of 2x 180 Degree Capture:

Accompanied with 13824×20736 texture slices. Roughly 72MP’s x 6 angles. With a 6 Camera Face Capture system built in.

180 Degree Pose tests:

..the things I do for “art”..

(hopefully soon Agisoft might have some new built in UV Mapping tools, so watch this space..)

Ideal Unwrap on a 5 million Polygon model:

Not ideal UV Mapping:

This processing stage(not including build time) takes around 10-30 minutes, depending on how complex your data is. Not just a couple of minutes. Rushing this stage will leave the quality of the assets flawed and difficult to deal with.

Baring in mind the length of time per asset, it can be a long process when dealing with allot of expressive captures. It’s a long slog but the hard work is worth it in the end. This process is all before the last stage when you then bake onto the low resolution face mask used in the production pipeline. This is my current pipeline at the moment.

Example FACS session properly un-wrapped (from an upcoming feature film):

It’s also not a good idea to rely heavily on Highpass techniques to try and make the data look more detailed than it actually is, along with heavy smoothing, this distorts and destroys any low to mid frequency information. Using Agisoft and a particular Camera setup it is possible to get near pore, crease and wrinkle details without the need to use heavy Smoothing and Highpass techniques at all.

Using the Highpass filter or quickly mapped textures is OK but it’s nothing in comparison to proper UV mapping and texturing. Or even better Normal Map “displacement” maybe even Messoscopic bump hallucination similar to the Disney technique.

RAW Capture and details from Photogrammetry (no High pass embossing):

So to any other artists out there or production companies playing with Agisoft and/or Photogrammetry, just a gentle reminder to follow some best practices when mapping your Captured data! Your client will thank you for it.

Reasons to upgrade to Agisoft Pro Edition

1. It kicks ass!
2. It has useful tools to set scale and orientation
3. The “Ultra Build” Geometry addition adds in ALLOT of hidden detail that the HIGH setting cannot pick out  Ultra High is now apart of Agisoft Standard addition, as of build 1376.
4. It helps support Alexey pasumansky and his team at Agisoft to further improve the application
5. Python Scripting

(I have been implementing techniques taught to me by Helmut Kungl from xyz-rgb, at the company who made the awesome Scanner-Killer application. Helmut kindly supplied IR (at a good price) with some excellent rail systems to mount Stereo Pairs and over the last year provided a great deal of insight into how best to synchronize and capture with a Photogrammetry system. For the time being I am using Agisoft but I hope to see Scanner-Killer implement similar features as each applications have their own benefits and drawbacks)

Below is an example of why Agisoft Pro is a great upgrade, I didn’t think the Ultra settings would do anything apart from increase Processing times exponentially but it seams there is even more hidden detail to be taken from the Photographs. This all depends how well you setup and configure your Camera array. BUT you need shed loads of RAM, no less than 24 GB.

I use a sneaky array, setup in a specific pattern, acquiring 20736×13824 pixels of information from each angle. I have no idea what MP that is, perhaps 72MP of data? that’s allot of useful Colour information to texture and build with.

I will be adding extra Cameras for other angles soon, to get a more over lapping 180 degree Capture.

It’s very hard to design a single shot capture array that can capture a large “dynamic” volume, this is the main focus of my current part-time research.

Capture examples with Agisoft (very early days, work in progress):

Raw Captures, no smoothing or High-Pass fiddles.

10 Minute build time

1 hour build time

5 hour build time

The trade off is build time ..but with more Ram and more CPU power this can be reduced easily. The benefit to this type of Capture system? Super High Fidelity and Instant Synchronized Volumetric Capture of Dynamic Poses.

I highly recommend Agisoft Photoscan Pro Edition

Time is flying by, I am not sure what happened over the last few months but Infinite-Realities has been crazy busy!

IR’s mobile Capture team just got back from a Face Capture Shoot in India working on a brand new super cool Bollywood film, I was over in LA for a few weeks working on a top secret dynamic capture system, working as a consultant, plus some recent work with a British actor for a very cool Develpment studio in Europe, with bits and pieces for other well known VFX and Games studios as well. All under NDA : (

In amongst all that I have just found time to upgrade my current Capture system from 16 mixed Cameras to 42 dedicated Canon 550 DSLR’s. These Cameras are incredible for “Volumetric Photogrammetry”.

Finding spare time in amongst contract work is hard but I have been able to setup some 360 Full Body tests (coming soon) as well as a dedicated 360 Degree Volumetric Head Capture system. As far as I know there is nothing quite like it in the world (at the moment) and the results are just a joy to work with.

Here is a glimpse at some very early RAW test results, it’s a homage to EA. I like to call my system “FACE Backwards™”

…..I kid! I kid! It’s not called anything. It’s a custom capture system that allows you to record multiple static images, at a single moment in time, synchronized. No special software or trigger hardware.

You can capture a face mid expression, with very minimal motion blur. Meaning you can get your actor to express extreme emotion in any facial pose and record that data, as 3D geometry.
A full FACS session, up to about 90 expressions can be captured between 30 minutes to 1 hour.

Some early results, no colour processing:

(High Details, 5.5 Million Polygons. 360 Degrees)

(Plenty of Pore details, it even Captures Eyelashes, 5.5 Million Polygons. 180 Degrees)

(Mid Level Capture, 750,000 Polygons. 180 Degrees)

(High Details, 5.5 Million Polygons. 360 Degrees)

These are RAW, high resolution Captures.

Last week I got to try out this Capture system with a very talented British Actor, he was able to turn on and off emotions in a split second. Amazing skillset. Great for FACS Capture, as well as custom emotions. Rage, Frustration, Smiling, Anger, Sadness etc

Using 10 DSLR’s recording Synchronized footage, the idea is to process exported frames in Agisoft with the help from Alexey Pasumansky. Alexey is developing a script to batch process the data, to then stream back in Softimage with colour information to track with.

The only draw back with using DSLR’s is the awful built in compression! it really affects 3D Stereo Extraction but I have some other Cameras on order to overcome this issue. For now the DSLR’s are pretty good. It means anyone can build a 4D Capture array for under £5k, unlike most commercial systems that can vary from £50k to £150k.

Click here to view the embedded video.

4D Mesh Data Processed in Agisoft Photoscan

Click here to view the embedded video.

Alexey kindly  processed some of the data in Agisoft Photoscan Pro, we wanted to test the pipeline in Agisoft to prove the 4D system could work and I think the results are pretty good. Unlike most commercial 4D Systems because of the multi camera array and the way the data is processed you get very little stretching or seaming, it’s far more “Volumetric”

8GB’s of data streamed in Softimage using Thiago Costa’s OBJ Sequencer with some extra ICE and Softimage trickery (best viewed at 720p)

Examples of me, trying to act tough ala Matrix style (performance is inspired by the research of George Borshukov for the Matrix films in 2003)

AGisoft “Frame-00124″ Test:

Synchronized Video Streams:

wmode=transparent[/youtube]

Despite the bonus of no calibration what so ever, being able to process old 3D captures taken with my DI3D kit as well as some older stereo photographs, I think the results are pretty incredible. Using up to 16 fixed synchronized DSLR’s, I am now able to capture a slice of time in 3D from multiple angles. Currently stitching the full body data using a motorized turntable but I hope to upgrade to more Cameras soon for 180-360 capture. It also includes a built in Face capture system into the Camera array, instead of being separate.

Infinite-Realities can now offer a custom built mobile 360 degree Full Body/Face Capture service to rival that of any Cyberware or Mephisto system but with 100′s of Megapixels of Color data to utilize, without having to use lasers or expensive structured light systems that are prone to error, subject discomfort and movement.

These are the very first prototype captures, processed rigidly into a water tight 360 Mesh, using off the shelf Cameras and some super cheap but very powerful Software. I hope to improve the output over the coming weeks.

360 Closed Mesh

Individual Slices:

You can choose from a variety of Cameras to texture with, adding upto 100′s of Megapixels of combined data. Most front shots are suitable to just use roughly 36MP’s for the body and about 20-24MP’s for the face.