What do you think about Cheap Royaltfree Mocap services?

Someone would be willing to hire MOCAP Services for about $ 2USD per animation?
Or it would be an insult to professional animators?
I'm asking this because I am working on a project and had to build a MOCAP studio.
And we are in need of extra income to pay some extra expenses.

I would like to hear from you.

 

Well I would most definitely make use of your Mocap services. Unfortunately not yet though but towards the end of the year. I'm sure others would be interested too.

 

I think you'll find raw mocap is too messy for most people, and almost all mocap will have to be processed, so raw mocap for $2 might just be a market that doesn't materialise? The other thing is its quite a lot to expect of oneself to produce a clip for $2 - even raw, plus all the customer support etc. You'd be better off incorporating a motion editor and polishing the motions at a price that will sustain your business better I reckon.

 

So I think as follows.
Customers would send me a video with the example of animation they want and so we would ship the animation.
$ 2USD is a reasonable price for the work involved and the cost of the studio here in the country where I live.
Thanks for the comments, I wonder if anyone else has opinion about the subject.

 

Hippo why don't you just make as many animations as possible then sell them cheap on asset store.

I spent the whole of last week searching the internet for mocap anims and was surprised to see companies not having a completed range.

for example they would have shooting but no reloading

If i had this pro mocap suit i would make animations complete.

Animations for each weapon.

gun "x"
shoot from hip
shoot aiming
reloading
draw weapon
drop weapon
throw weapon
swing weapon
ect

if you did this for many different types of guns then I think you would be the only one to do this.

Sell them each on asset store or build a site and sell them.

Fill the void and you will make money.
Mixamo was a huge disappointment with their range. Also they charge too much, I know people are going to say no it's cheap compared to mocap studio prices. but for indie it's expensive.

 

Actually, animation cost should always be measured by animations frames. Lets say 0.20$ per frame for a custom work. If your animations have a total of 2000 frames, you will charge 500$.
As for royalty free animation work that anyone can get (let's say on your website), you'll be charging less than custom work but always based on the animation length (frames). For example 0.02$ each frame.

 

I thought about it, I came to two forms of contract.
1 - $ 2USD per animation at most 30 seconds.
2 - $ 30USD for the rental of an actor and the studio for a period of 24 hours. *

* plus $ 20USD per extra actor.

What do you think?

 

I would like to use your mocap services. Can you please contact me at:
tatoforever AT psychozinteractive DOT com
Cheers,

 

@Half Hippo : Thumbs up there.

Good idea indeed. When your studio is not booked up, build up a collection of animations.

do you have a website for your services? are you going to have a website?


"1 - $ 2USD per animation at most 30 seconds."

I wouldn't think putting a cap of 30 seconds is a good idea, why make things rigid, it's not going to work in you favor. This whole idea that you should charge per frame worked well in the old days when animators had to rely on key frame animation but now with the introduction of mocapm, kinect ect you don't need to do it that way.

what if they want it 25fps or 30 or more...
it just makes things complecated and messy.

1: 2USD per animation
2: bulk packages = shooting, idles, bla bla bla
3: $ 30USD rental of an actor period of 24 hours
4: $40.00 Live link + rental of an actor period of 24 hours (setup a webcam link so your client can direct)
5: + plus $ 20USD per extra actor.

I think you have a great idea here Hippo, good luck.

If you get this setup then pm me so I can promote your services accros the web. Indie developers would benifit from this and need this option.

I've just had an idea, pm me with prices of how you would charge per week, per month, per 3month ect

Also can you pm me the details of the mocap equipment you will be using

 

Sounds like a great idea, as some has mentioned here i guess you will only deliver raw mocap data?
If so, will you also offer cleaned up animations for a higher price?

 

So, I'm finishing the assembly of the rest of the studio and that's why I was away during the weekend.
I liked your opinions "MoHoe" I separated a room just for Mocap.
The configuration I'm using is the following:
4 IR Cameras by Optitrack + Suit + Software by OptiTrack (Hand capture but less precision+more work on cleaning).
or
2 Depth sensors + Software by Ipi(no hand capture but i use axis controlers to track the rotation.).
Core I7 3820 - 16GB G.Skil - GA-X79-D3H - 1TB - SSD 120GB - SLI GTX 680 - 1300w. + 6 Years of experience in mocap.

"Virror", i'll smoth the mocap data and try to deliver the better animation possible.

 

Will most likely give it a try with a few animations in a month or so : )

 

@Half Hippo,
Can you please contact me for an inquiry? We got gazillions (a lot) animations for you to do.
Cheers,

 

Tatoforever i pmed you with my e-mail adress.

 

Still working with this?

 

Are you still free to do some work? PM me if so

 

If you will decide to sell animations as raw data which will be then cleaned and used in characters and animation collections I often visit you shop in the market in order to find and to will buy some.

And even will order some special animations like dancing which hard to make only buy hand.

Also MOKAP can be very useful to make animation scenes for trailers especially where several characters act together.

Sometimes you can use MOCAP raw animations only as time and place reference for animation you build by hand, It may be very useful.

In any case I wish you good luck!