A top down view of a scene from SR2, used for blocking the actors at the mocap shoot
After the animatic was approved, a nifty little “mocap prep” tool was used to chart out the positions of the characters and furniture, so that we could accurately recreate the scene in the mocap volume. All of the positions were graphed out, and automatically entered into an Excel spreadsheet. At each position, there was a description of what the actor was supposed to be doing, and what props they had an interacted with. It really helped to have this information during the mocap shoot, since it contained all everything that the characters did, and when.
Here is a video of some of the mocap for House Party, done at Perspective Studios in Glen Cove, NY. I’m in the green shirt, Steve Jaros (SR2’s lead writer) is in red, Tim Borrelli (SR2’s lead animator) is in white. It’s just a short compilation of clips. If I have time later, I’ll post the video of the mocap actor who played Maero during the big fight scene with the PC. He actually volunteered to fall off of a twenty foot high scaffolding. He didn’t volunteer to land on his head, but he did, and it hurt.