Vicon, the motion capture technology specialist for the entertainment, engineering and life science industries, today at SIGGRAPH announced the launch of two products, Pegasus and Pegasus Advanced, a new set of retargeting and solving tools developed with IKinema, as well as Blade 3, the newest version of the company’s capture and data processing software. The products offer a new level of flexibility, accessibility and increased value for money in motion capture.
Pegasus is the industry’s first off-the-shelf retargeter that simplifies the process of streaming real-time motion capture data from Vicon Blade onto game assets in engines like Unity or Unreal Engine (UE4). Previously, users would have to spend time and money on developing their own bespoke software to access the dynamic environment a game engine provides.
“Pegasus represents an unprecedented step forward for motion capture in enabling customers of all sizes to import their data into game engines for a more dynamic experience,” said Phil Elderfield, entertainment product manager, Vicon.
Pegasus Advanced
With all the benefits of Pegasus, Pegasus Advanced solves joints to rigid body data and streams from Vicon Tracker. Users can take advantage of the Pegasus Advanced solver and stream data into ubiquitous ergonomic packages such as Siemens’ Jack software or Dassault Systèmes’ DELMIA solutions, as well as flawless integration with Unreal and Unity.
“Pegasus Advanced is the first product of its kind to allow tracking data from rigid bodies to drive custom avatars or manikins in such a wide variety of platforms,” said Warren Lester, engineering product manager, Vicon. “This allows customers to easily drive their own models–in applications that they are familiar with–and place markers where the task demands, rather than being hamstrung by fixed marker sets or having to suffer poor data quality due to occlusion.”
Alexandre Pechev, CEO at IKinema, an animation technology company that developed Pegasus and Pegasus Advanced in conjunction with Vicon, said: “IKinema goes back to fundamental biomechanics to deliver realistic motion based on skeletal analysis of humanoid and creature forms. Our highly optimized heuristic algorithms bring the highest degree of realism and believability to the Pegasus solving pipeline.”
Blade 3
The new version of Vicon’s motion capture software, Blade 3, builds upon the power and performance of Blade 2 and Axiom–Blade’s live engine that reproduces fast, clean performances for real-time visualization. With the Axiom engine now also available offline, it can be used in a full, interactive post-processing pipeline. Other features of Blade 3 include the ability to calibrate Vicon’s Bonita video reference footage into the capture volume and overlay its images onto CG environments for easier character setup and solve quality assessment. Blade 3 also introduces compatibility with Python for the first time, allowing users to run scripts with offline Blade 3 data.
“The launch of Pegasus and Blade 3 continues our ongoing commitment to delivering innovative solutions to the motion capture community,” said Imogen Moorhouse, CEO, Vicon. “Pegasus enables direct connection to game engines for all customers, while the new features in Blade 3 continue to build on the advances made in Blade 2, making Vicon motion capture more accessible, efficient and cost effective.”
