It's the end of the world as we know it...

We've had a lot of work recently capturing crowd data for feature films. This scene from Roland Emmerich's disaster epic 2012 features our own Mike Hedges and ex-What's Your News cast member Brian Herring performing numerous panic reactions.

The magic of the film making process was slightly unmined for me when I saw that an amazing scene such as this was really just two fellas in lyrca running up and down our volume waving their arms. And Hedges fell over. Several times. He's such a method actor...

A YouTube sensation! (Not the cat playing a piano)

In April 2009, Centroid joined forces with Partizan and MPC to shoot the legendary Evian rollerskating babies commercial, which recieved 24 million hits on YouTube in it's first month!

We covered the volume floor with tongue and groove to give the performers(from Starlight Express) a fast surface to skate on and for a day the studio became a roller disco! Thankfully, leg warmers were banned.

And no, we didn't actually capture babies in rollerskates...



The making of the Evian babies commercial...

Man babies!
The Centroid roller rink
Director Michael Gracey watches the action...

DJ Centroid feat. MC Mocap

In July 2009, a collection of young ladies and gentlemen visited the studio to get down and generally shake their groove thang for the opening sequence for DJ Hero. (That is how young people speak isn't it?)
We gave them a polished roll of lino, stood back and watched them be offensively athletic, funky and 'street'. At one point someone even said 'yo'.

Directed by Marco Puig for Warp Films, with post production duties going to Framestore, here's the final piece in all it's glory. It is a bit loud though...


poo

Young people and their music...

Then he fell over...

Ahh...a bit of culture...

The Virtual Cellist was the brainchild of William Todd Jones, who we had previously worked with Centroid on What's Your News? The concept was a fusion of the beautiful music of classical cellist Matthew Barley with visuals of the performance, captured live and applied to various character models. These visuals would be mixed with pre-recorded footage by Yeast Culture VJ Nick Hillel. The performance took place at King's Place in Central London and was also streamed live over the web!

Another Centroid slam dunk!

In July 2008, we set up our mobile system in one of the epic stages on the Pinewood lot to shoot a commericial for Glassworks. It involved motorbikes that transformed into robots to play a late night game of basketball. That's exactly how the whole Terminator thing started.

Here's the finished piece in all it's shiny glory!

This actually happens more often than you'd think.

Insert a 'dribble' and 'ball' gag here...

No basketball players were hurt in the making of this commercial.

Well, not many...

You need hands...

Our very own technical manger, Mike 'the Hedge' Hedges is always only too willing to jump into a mocap suit in the name of research. Some speculate he wears one under his normal clothes, just in case. Much like Superman.

This time, the excuse for donning tights was to further test capturing live finger data. Using new velco friendly gloves which ensure the stability of the markers, the results were great!
Capturing finger or 'mitten' data can save a client considerable time and money in post and is one of the many additional services we offer at Centroid over and above full body capture. We can even throw in signed pictures of Mike in a variety of tasteful and artistic poses.

Like a heavily armed mocap gnome.

I really want to see those fingers...

What's Your News? on Nick Jnr!

Following a six month shoot at Shepperton Studios in the later half of 2007, What's Your News? is now coming to the small screen thanks to TT Animation and those nice people at Nick Jnr. Not to mention to the hard working gentlemen of Centroid!

Following the news reporting adventures of Grant the ant and Antony the anteater (tricky partnership that one) it's perfect for keeping little kiddies entertained and amused!

What's Your News? can be found on Nick Jnr everyday at 7.30am and 4.00pm.

Centroid online goes....online!

The Centroid online motion capture library has launched! First choice for high quality, affordable mocap data in a variety of formats (but no strawberry flavour).
The library is an ongoing endevour for Centroid and more content will be added all the time, so come back and visit often to see what's new! You don't even have to keep your voice down while browsing.

We've got something for everyone - horses, pirates, zombies, martial artists, dead people, people with guns, people having a bit of a dance, the list goes on and on! Use our shiny new previewing tool to watch each take in full 3D to ensure that what you buy is what you want!

Come and visit us at http://centroidonline.com/.

Martial arts (hi-yah!)


Pirates (arr!)


Horses (horsey noise)

Bask in it's splendor!

Shop til you drop!

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!