All I Want For Christmas Is...a shiny new website!

Just in time for the festive season, the new and improved Centroid website launches like a robin into the blue blue skies of the internet!

The new site has everything - details of services, including full performance body and face capture; mobile studios and bespoke arrangements; a casting section to help select talent; and most importantly, a picture of me.

Come and have a look-see, at http://www.centroid3d.com/

Thank you interweb, for this joyous gift!

Pleasing to the eye...

Face, body, hands, knees and boomps-a-daisies!

As part of Centroid's ongoing mission to boldly go where no one has gone before, we spent a day in the studio testing camera setups with a combined face, hands and body shoot. It's not exactly punching a Klingon in the face, but sometimes you have to make you're own entertainment!

Utilising the thespian powers of resident performer Brian Herring, we shot numerous takes pushing the system and set-up as far as we could. There's a joke in there along the lines of 'she can't take no more capt'n', but the Star Trek thing has gone a bit far now.

The results have proved a great success with clients, and have led to other R&D projects, including controlling face and hand blendshapes with live marker data. Engage!

They never come off you know...

And you're back in the room...

It's a puppet!

Towards the end of 2008, Mr. Brian Herring joined Centroid for three months as our resident performer. In that time, as well as shooting large amounts of library data, we also dabbled with various different R&D tests (firing a cat into space was our most spectacular failure).

Being ex-Henson's, and also having a closet fetish for putting his forearm up things, Brian brought in one of his puppets and we began experimenting with live performance capture. Check it out!

Neville the puppet.

Strange insertion...

Centroid demo week!

During September 2008, Centroid opened the doors of it's Pinewood studio and invited companies from the film, television and games industries to see what we can do!

On show were numerous live pre-vis demos, including full face and body, a puppet (called Neville) and a spectacular martial arts set piece featuring a flying rig, a big gun, space and a small furry creature of unspecific origin. Behold!

The pre-vis cast.

The human cast, from left to right, Dave, Tamlyn and Brian.

Mike and Neville (with forearm supplied by Brian).

Tamlyn with the Flying FX guys.

Scan the man!

One of the many benefits of our creative partnership with face and full body scanning guru's Plowman Craven, was having our very own technical manager Mike Hedges immortalised for all time in 3D!

Sadly, his wish to be scanned naked was refused. Something about there not being a zoom.
Once the scan was complete, the model was re-topologised (nice long word, not sure what it means) and rigged so we could apply facial motion data and really bring our virtual Mike to life. God save us all.

The huge amounts of radiation involved caused Mike to loose all his hair.

Look at the size of our small balls.

Clearly unhappy.

Teetering on furious.

Ninja Theory visit!

Stuart Adcock and Andy Serkis from Ninja Theory (of Playstation3 hit Heavenly Sword fame) came down to visit the studio.

While chatting about the live face pre-vis demo we had put on with Andy, I kept losing my train of thought. Was it bad form to ask for an autograph and have it signed 'to my precious'?

From left to right, me, Phil, Andy, Carol, Stuart, Dave and who else but Mike in the suit.

Neigh lad...neigh

Centroid undertook it's own horse shoot at Sparsholt College in Hampshire! Not only did we come away with lots of amazing data, but thanks to the sterling efforts of the horses involved, my rhubarb is now thriving.

With a four man team and fifty two cameras, we captured three horses and four riders over the course of a day performing a wide variety of moves, tricks and set pieces. Immerse yourself in the sights (and smells) of the Centroid horse shoot!

Sparsholt Equestrian Centre - it smelt funny.

A view of the action from the control shed.

French stunt gentlemen Gilbert and Franco scrapping on horseback.

They agree to disagree and peace is restored.

The horse didn't like a marker taped there.

Creature feature!

When Brian said he could do something amazing with crutches and a pair of Poweriser stilts, the first thought was to involve the authorities. However, when it became apparent that what he really meant was to put his extensive experience in creature performance to use, we unlocked the door and let him in.

The results were great, and really expand the potential for motion capture to be used to drive weird and wonderful creatures! And what a great excuse to bound around in Poweriser stilts all day!

Centroid shoot Headcases!

Not literally of course, that would be scandellous.

During early 2008, Centroid joined forces with the nice people at Red Vision to capture topical sketches for their ITV comedy hit Headcases.
The Centroid3D team always look forward to the Headcases shoots - one reason being to see what large, heavy object the script writers have decided to drop on Piers Morgan that week!