Motion Capture

The theory of motion capture is quite simple: an actor puts on a full body suit with reflective markers on all limbs. Several cameras in the room track these markers and relay their coordinates to a computer, yielding a perfecly accurate digital representation of the actors movement. This representation – a “bone rig” – is then dressed up in 3D-application software like 3D Studio Max, Motion Builder to make the actor look like whatever we want. This is a huge time saver and yields significantly more realistic motions than animation done by hand.

GAME’s motion capture studio covers 35m² and is theoretically capable of tracking any number of actors and props simultaneously! Here’s some photos from when Andreas Wahlman (our in-house mocap expert) first tried out multi-capping in our studio. First year students Ragnar, Jonas and Stina volunteered to assist with the swinging of swords, throwing punches and pushing each other off high cliffs. 🙂

Alumni Days Christmas Party 2009

It’s that magical time of the year again; when we take a week out of our ordinary programming to invite our industry friends and former students to the island. This year we arranged three full days for our guests to hang out and hold awesome workshops and lectures with our current budding game developers.

As you’ve come to expect from us we end the event (and indeed – the semester) with a big (christmas) bang: a mocap studio filled with games and happy GAMErs, invited VIPs and DJ Doctor Dryg.

GAME Alumni:
Mikael HedbergFrictional Games
Tobias LundmarkStarbreeze Studios
Peter Stråhle – formerly with GRIN.
Johan Svahn – One Man Productions
Andreas Wieslander – Production Manager at Burning Man Studios
Annika Fogelgren – Founder and production manager at Cherrytech Studios

Industry Invites:
Nils Stadling – Microsoft Sweden
Carsten OrthbandPixeltamer
Emma MellanderNordic Game
Charlotte Ryberg – Disco Volante
Martin Ekdal – Donya Labs
Koshjar Hamedi – Donya Labs

Programming workshop with Akihiko Shirai

Prof. Akihiko Shirai teaching Processing and WiiMedia

Oh yes. The creator of WiiMedia and professor of interaction technology – Akihiko Shirai – quickly whipped our programmers into shape with Processing and let them loose with the Wiimotes.

He divided them into small teams of three to four students (each given a specific role) and – in just three short days – we saw them produce a pancake-frying simulation, darts, horse racing, space shooters, a classic artillery game and more.

The “winning” team (by votes among all participants) created a dueling game of spellcasting in a classic western setting, and were awarded Prof. Shirai’s personal blue Wiimote. 🙂