When we think about motion capture, we often picture large film studios, cameras and actors covered in markers.
Today, however, this technology can be much simpler and more accessible.
With the Rokoko Smartsuit Pro II, a person’s movement can be captured through a sensor-equipped suit and transformed directly into a three-dimensional animation.
For Metagate, this technology is interesting not only for creating more realistic avatars, but above all because of a broader concept: capturing the way a person moves and turning it into reusable digital content.
How Rokoko Smartsuit Pro II works
Smartsuit Pro II is an inertial motion capture suit.
Several sensors distributed throughout the suit continuously detect the orientation and movement of different parts of the body. Rokoko Studio uses this data to reconstruct a digital skeleton in real time that replicates the person’s movements.
If the person wearing the suit walks, runs, bends, jumps or moves their arms, an avatar can perform the same movements at the same time.
The system can capture data up to 200 times per second and is designed to handle fast and dynamic movements.
Unlike traditional optical motion capture systems, it does not necessarily require a studio surrounded by cameras. This means it can also be used in an office, a gym, on a stage or directly in the environment where a specific activity is normally performed.
Hands and fingers can be captured too
The suit can be combined with Smartgloves II, designed to capture the movements of hands and fingers as well.
This becomes particularly important when the action involves more than just the body.
Think of a technician using a tool, a musician, or an athlete holding an object. In these cases, it is important to know precisely not only the position of the hands, but also the position of the subject’s fingers.
This makes it possible to obtain a much more complete representation of the performance.
From real movement to an avatar
For Metagate, one of the most interesting aspects is the possibility of integrating this data directly into Unity, the engine used to develop our experiences.
The captured movement can be applied to different 3D avatars through a process called retargeting.
This means that the person being recorded and the final character do not necessarily need to look the same. An actor can animate a historical character. An athlete can become a digital avatar. A technician can become a virtual instructor.
The same recording can also be saved and reused in other experiences.
Capturing the movements of professionals
This is probably where motion capture becomes most interesting.
As mentioned above, one of Rokoko’s most interesting capabilities is the possibility of capturing the way a professional performs a specific action.
Think of a professional football player.
The suit can capture the complete movement of the run-up, the rotation of the torso, the movement of the legs and the posture used when taking a shot. That sequence can then be faithfully reproduced by an avatar inside an XR experience.
The same principle can be applied to many other fields:
- an athlete performing an exercise;
- a dancer recording a choreography;
- an actor or performer recording a performance;
- a technician demonstrating a procedure;
- a craftsperson using a tool;
- an operator correctly performing a safety activity.
And the result is different from a standard video.
A video shows movement from a single perspective. A motion capture recording instead creates a three-dimensional representation of movement that can be observed from any angle.
A virtual instructor in Mixed Reality
This possibility directly connects with Metagate’s work in immersive training.
Imagine capturing the movement of a professional and then placing it inside a Mixed Reality experience.
The user could see a life-size avatar performing a procedure correctly in front of them: they could walk around it, slow down the movement, replay it or simply observe it from a different perspective.
Instead of watching a tutorial on a screen, the instruction would become a three-dimensional element placed directly within the real environment.
This model could be applied to industrial training, safety, sports, cultural experiences and many other activities in which movement is a fundamental part of knowledge.
More realistic avatars for OpenGate XR
Rokoko can also directly contribute to the development of OpenGate XR.
Today, many digital avatars appear unrealistic not so much because of how they look, but because of how they move.
Posture, gestures, weight distribution and hand movements are elements we perceive immediately, so the possibility of capturing real performances makes it possible to create libraries of much more natural animations.
The same animation can then be applied to different characters and reused across different experiences.
In real time as well
The movement does not necessarily need to be recorded beforehand.
Rokoko can also stream data to Unity in real time.
A person can therefore move while a digital avatar simultaneously reproduces their performance, opening up interesting possibilities for events, museums, performances and interactive installations.
A performer, for example, could control a virtual character while users see it inside a Mixed Reality environment.
In this case, behind the avatar there is neither a prerecorded animation nor necessarily an Artificial Intelligence system, but a real person.
Movement as digital content
For Metagate, therefore, Rokoko is not simply a tool for creating animations: it makes it possible to transform human movement into a digital asset.
A sports gesture, a technical procedure, an artistic performance, a professional movement...
All of this can be captured, stored and later integrated into a Mixed Reality experience.