Motion Capture
A full-fledged motion capture rig costs anywhere from 5k to 100k making it way outside my price range, however, I plan on getting a motion capture system for under £200, This cheap and dirty motion capture system will consist of 1-3 Xbox Kinects the more I have the more accurate the animation will be.
Motion capture is better than Keyframing & while it feels like cheating in some ways it’s actually not since lots of companies use motion capture in some form or another to reduce the amount of time it takes to make animations & its actually cheaper than hand keyframing since it saves a lot of time which costs money.
Below is a quick video showing you that it works for blender and this is why I want to get it.
(Blender + Kinect rigging & Animation (Part 1) – hardware 2020)
I will now list some of the addons I own that I will use & some of the ones I want to get to use in my project, there may be some addons I use later on that are not listed here but I will reference those when the time comes.
Props
When doing the motion capture I want it to be as realistic as possible when I make the animations so I’m looking to get my hands on some props, These two wooden prop sets are what I am looking at getting since they are great for what I am planning to make + they can be used in the future for more animations.
Owned Addons
Boxcutter (Boxcutter 7.1.9 : Seax) is one of the best addons I purchased it allows me to draw what I want onto a grid and cut that shape out making a lot of painful modelling into one quick action, however, when I last attempted to use it the addon did not work I will attempt to fix this.
Random Flow
Random flow (Random flow) is a very useful addon for blender since it creates random geometry to give the model you are working on some depth, but it does this at the cost of performance since It adds lots of detail which adds more complexity, however, these details can be turned into a texture through baking which removes the performance issue.
(fadespell, Random flow 2021)
Poligon Material Conventer
I own a bunch of free materials from Poligon (Textures, models and hdris for 3D rendering) which I could use in both of the Animations for my final major project but I also have one or two paid-for textures, as well as some credits left to buy one or two more then using the Material converter addon (Poliigon material converter addon for Blender) I can easily import those textures into blender without having to do it manually every time.
Spring Bones & Wiggle Bones
Both spring bones (Artellblender, Artellblender/springbones) & wiggle bones (Supply, Wiggle bones addon – blender 2020) do the same thing but in a slightly different way, they add jiggle physics to bones which are primarily used for female breast bones so they don’t look like static parts of the body with no life in them, This kind of movement is crucial on female characters so I will be taking advantage of these add-ons though I’m not sure which of the two I will be using.
(Blender 2.82 : Jiggle physics (in 30 Seconds!!!) 2020)
Wanted Addons For Purchase
Instant Imposters
With Instant Impostors, users can automatically convert any mesh into an optimized low-poly impostor, massively increasing performance in large-scale scenes. Using advanced shader-based rendering, the impostors display a detailed representation of the original mesh (Instant impostors v1.0: One-click impostor generation (eevee)) its something I think I will really need to reduce the amount of time it will take to render my scenes, It’s a shame that its only for the Eevee Render engine at the moment but I can still work with that if I actually get it.
(Instant impostors | blender addon trailer 2022)
Vegetation
Creating trees, bushes & grass is not as easy as it sounds however with this addon I can focus on what’s important in my project rather than figuring out how to make all these assets myself, With the vegetation addon I can create animated trees and place them into my scene without too much hassle & “The incredible 4 seasons function allows you to create landscapes under the snow or in summer, but also autumn and spring.” (Tree vegetation – tree and Plant Animation Library Addon) Its the perfect addon.
(Vegetation V5 addon for Blender – demo 2022)
Artellblender (no date) Artellblender/springbones: Blender addon to add spring/bouncy dynamic effect to bones, GitHub. Available at: https://github.com/artellblender/springbones (Accessed: December 2, 2022).
Blender 2.82 : Jiggle physics (in 30 Seconds!!!) (2020) YouTube. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m0LyMiN-Ik (Accessed: December 4, 2022).
Blender + Kinect rigging & Animation (Part 1) – hardware (2020) YouTube. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwNuXe9R17s (Accessed: December 4, 2022).
Boxcutter 7.1.9 : Seax (no date) Blender Market. Available at: https://blendermarket.com/products/boxcutter (Accessed: December 4, 2022).
Fabric Leather Cowhide milled 002 (no date) Poliigon. Available at: https://www.poliigon.com/texture/fabric-leather-cowhide-milled-002/4339 (Accessed: December 4, 2022).
fadespell (2021) Random flow, YouTube. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKnrCqHT5_Y&feature=emb_title (Accessed: December 4, 2022).
Ground dirt rocky 012 (no date) Poliigon. Available at: https://www.poliigon.com/texture/ground-dirt-rocky-012/7001 (Accessed: December 4, 2022).
Instant impostors v1.0: One-click impostor generation (eevee) (no date) Blender Market. Available at: https://blendermarket.com/products/instant-impostors–one-click-impostor-generation-eevee (Accessed: December 2, 2022).
Industrial rough steel texture, black (no date) Poliigon. Available at: https://www.poliigon.com/texture/industrial-rough-steel-texture-black/7183 (Accessed: December 4, 2022).
Instant impostors | blender addon trailer (2022) YouTube. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=18&v=RpdWNEm_qZk&feature=emb_title (Accessed: December 2, 2022).
Poliigon material converter addon for Blender (no date) Poliigon Help Center. Available at: https://help.poliigon.com/en/articles/2540839-poliigon-material-converter-addon-for-blender (Accessed: December 4, 2022).
Random flow (no date) Blender Market. Available at: https://blendermarket.com/products/random-flow (Accessed: December 4, 2022).
Supply, N.M. (2020) Wiggle bones addon – blender, Blender Addons. Available at: https://blender-addons.org/wiggle-bones-addon/ (Accessed: December 2, 2022).
Textures, models and hdris for 3D rendering (no date) Poliigon. Available at: https://www.poliigon.com/ (Accessed: December 4, 2022).
Tree vegetation – tree and Plant Animation Library Addon (no date) Blender Market. Available at: https://blendermarket.com/products/vegetation-tree-addon-animation/?ref=110 (Accessed: December 8, 2022).
Vegetation V5 addon for Blender – demo (2022) YouTube. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDtmLTS3tW8 (Accessed: December 8, 2022).
Wooden Toy Sword and knight shield with free scabbard sheath – etsy UK (no date) Wooden Toy Sword and Knight Shield With Free Scabbard sheath – Etsy UK. Available at: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1206501945/wooden-toy-sword-and-knight-shield-with?click_key=da099e1cd5b56992d599ac9e33ceb01d5a941cf6%3A1206501945&click_sum=561d0888&ref=shop_home_active_1&frs=1&crt=1&sts=1 (Accessed: December 8, 2022).
Wooden Bow 3 arrows free personalization free UK – Etsy UK (no date) Wooden Bow 3 Arrows FREE Personalization FREE UK – Etsy UK. Available at: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/711578356/wooden-bow-3-arrows-free-personalization?click_key=52c384710d4e845ffe83691625b46906562530f8%3A711578356&click_sum=656794ff&ref=shop_home_active_8&frs=1&sts=1 (Accessed: December 8, 2022).
