Virtual Theatre: Motion Capture


Virtual Theatre Talent ShowThe increased popularity of virtual worlds and multiuser games has opened up new possibilities for distributed performance. Theatrical performances can now be produced completely within a virtual space with participants in different physical locales. However, interfaces to many virtual worlds systems can be cumbersome and are not suited to the theatrical process. We describe a theatrical interface that can be used to adapt a virtual world system thus enabling a more natural and intuitive means for realizing theatre performances in virtual spaces.

This is the final chapter, and culminating project of our original Virtual Theatre Project.  

The show, which was not formally produced, was a talent show akin to America's Got Talent and that showcased interaction between actors on the virtual stage using full body motion capture from two separate mocap spaces.

Collaborators
  • Marla Schweppe,  College of Imaging Arts and Sciences, Rochester Institute of Technology
  • David Huynh, Namco Games
  • Brian Johnstone, Darkwind Media
  • Kirk Lansman, College of Imaging Arts and Sciences, Rochester Institute of Technology
  • Yuqiong Wang, Gollisano College of Computing and Information Sciences, Rochester Institute of Technology
  • Laura Wieme, Department of Computer Science, Rochester Institute of Technology
  • Publications
  • J. Geigel, M. Schweppe, D. Huynh, and B. Johnstone. Adapting a virtual world for theatrical performance. Computer, 44(12):33 –38, dec. 2011.
  • J. Geigel and M. Schweppe. Motion capture for realtime control of virtual actors in live, distributed, theatrical performances. In Automatic Face Gesture Recognition and Workshops (FG 2011), 2011 IEEE International Conference on, pages 774 –779, march 2011.
  • Demonstrations
  • Motion Capture for Virtual Theatre, ImagineRIT 2010, Rochester Institute of Technology