Alternative Performance Capturing

For the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the federal state Baden-Württemberg an interdisciplinary project was developed with the joint efforts of students and staff of the Filmakademie, actors from the Academy of Performing Arts and musicians from the Popakademie. The project was a theater play that combined musical and satiric elements, where the actors performing the representatives of Baden-Württemberg were arguing on various hymns that would represent the federal state at its best. As part of the play, the Research & Development group of the Filmakademie developed an Alternative Performance Capture system, which was used by the german comedian Dominik Kuhn to perform a virtual representation of the Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg.

The Alternative Motion Capture system utilities the Frapper framework and Kinect depth sensors to capture body and facial performance at the same time. The performer was also able to trigger additional, more complex, animations via a Wiimote controller in each hand. The facial performance capture was realized through our collaboration with the recently founded startup company FaceShift.

This is a short making-of of the show:

The system was also presented during a Studio Talk at Siggraph 2013, see publications.