Animating Live Footage

[brooklotzkar]

Hello, I was wondering if their is a cost-effective and relatively easy method to animate a real life human. Specifically, I want to film a human, but animate his actions (mostly so he can do advanced and complex dance moves) and most of the joints in his body. I doubt I can do this in Maya, and in that case, do you know what materials are required in order to begin this project, and what computer program is the most effective as well?

Thanks,
Brook

[ptb]

This is probably one of the most difficult tasks in 3d. There is no push-button-program for this. One could mention Poser, but it will not nearly look real and especially not match your live footage. Just take a look at the 3d-Neo in Matrix 2 or 3 (the rain scene and others) -> this SUCKED, and it was done by a lot of Pros.

You could buy a good human model if you don't want to do the modeling and perhaps use Motion Builder for intuitive animation. Then render in maya oder max or whatever. Actually Maya is sufficient for all of this. But no matter how you'll do it - You will need a lot of skill and years of experience.

So, if you are a beginner, then forget it and do easier Projects (like a fictional character dancing around)

[brooklotzkar]

QUOTE(Ptb @ 11/13/07, 05:18 AM) [snapback]276425[/snapback]
This is probably one of the most difficult tasks in 3d. There is no push-button-program for this. One could mention Poser, but it will not nearly look real and especially not match your live footage. Just take a look at the 3d-Neo in Matrix 2 or 3 (the rain scene and others) -> this SUCKED, and it was done by a lot of Pros.

You could buy a good human model if you don't want to do the modeling and perhaps use Motion Builder for intuitive animation. Then render in maya oder max or whatever. Actually Maya is sufficient for all of this. But no matter how you'll do it - You will need a lot of skill and years of experience.

So, if you are a beginner, then forget it and do easier Projects (like a fictional character dancing around)

How do you use the Poser program. I am not trying to make it look too realistic. Thanks

[ptb]

QUOTE(brooklotzka @ 11/13/07, 04:25 PM) [snapback]276466[/snapback]
How do you use the Poser program. I am not trying to make it look too realistic. Thanks

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poser

http://www.e-frontier.com/

[brooklotzkar]

QUOTE(Ptb @ 11/14/07, 03:53 AM) [snapback]276481[/snapback]
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poser]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poser[/url]

http://www.e-frontier.com/

Sorry, I meant if you know how to use that program in order to animate an actual human from live footage. I have looked at multiple tutorials around the web, but nothing comes up with how to animate that sort of figure. Thanks for all the input so far!