Motion capture for TV, film and videogame projects is not a new technology, and by this point you will have no doubt seen many a person clad in black with what look like ping pong balls attached to them. In the same vein you’ll have likely seen people using facial recognition technology, and actors performing their roles with a face full of blue dots to record the facial movements.
For virtual reality (VR) it all becomes a little bit more tricky. However, unlike standard motion capture it also provides an additional and intriguing solution: What if the actor was able to perform their roles as a character within the digital space itself? It’s something that Cloudhead Games are already doing as they discuss the process in their latest behind the scenes video discussing work on the next title in their VR videogame series The Gallery.
In the video representatives from the studio discuss how the actors are able to react to the digital environment. How, thanks to what is essentially an in-VR teleprompter, they are able to make changes to the script “on the fly”. How it all affects VR audio and how it affects the composition and the way a scene is acted at all.
“[The actors] actually end up acting more like theatre actors, because the player could be far away.” Producer and Audio Director Joel Green explains at one point. “Anybody, no matter where they are, is still going to get the empotional effect of the scene.”
The Gallery – Episode 2: Heart of the Emberstone is due out 2017 and is the sequel to 2016’s The Gallery – Episode 1: Call of the Starseed. You can read VRFocus‘ review of the latter here.
VRFocus will bring you more updates on The Gallery series as they are made available.