Question (Face capture tech) How much hdd space do these use?

[Echo84]

I saw a behind the scenes thing of Death Stranding, and saw them use their face capture solution, it's basically a bunch of commercial cameras stacked and layered around the actor, each individually taking Lord-knows in what resolution video!

So let's say you have 50 cameras, all taking about 5 hours worth of 4k video, how much capacity would this require, I get that the final product is definitely scaled down and stitched up for the game, but prior to that, these video assets must be enormous.

 

[I Will Haunt You]

Uncompressed 4k video can take up to 110 GB of space per hour.

 

[Echo84]

Uncompressed 4k video can take up to 110 GB of space per hour.

PER device?!

I don't think this face capture technique is very cheap...

 

[I Will Haunt You]

PER device?!

I don't think this face capture technique is very cheap...

It not cheap at all. Not having seen the video myself I couldn't tell you what they are specifically recording. Most motion capture tech just records raw data from interconnected points in 3D space which is significantly less data. If they were recording actual video it probably wasn't much, just enough to get accurate texture details and perhaps facial measurments for modeling the 3D character.

That's just a guess though. I'm really not up to date on motion capture tech these days.

 

[Echo84]

It not cheap at all. Not having seen the video myself I couldn't tell you what they are specifically recording. Most motion capture tech just records raw data from interconnected points in 3D space which is significantly less data. If they were recording actual video it probably wasn't much, just enough to get accurate texture details and perhaps facial measurments for modeling the 3D character.

That's just a guess though. I'm really not up to date on motion capture tech these days.

If they only crop the recording to a certain square then yeah that would definitely reduce storage capacity requirement, though the cameras they use seem to be standard commercial ones, not at all familiar with the software or firmware they use, maybe it's possible to only record a certain cropping? Who knows, but storing all that raw data from like 50 cameras is nutty!

 

[Lutfij]

Motion pictures are actually a very good business due to the equipment and the crew that operates them. If you remember how many cameras were used for the stop motion technique when Neo dodges bullets fired by an agent, then you'll know that wasn't a cheap feat.

For game engines, capturing content from an actor(without factoring in their wages) and then translating that into a game isn't a cheap feat either.

Then is the matter about the storage space. You're looking at servers worth of data and then servers worth of hardware to develop games.

In short, you need a hefty investment if you want to get into game development, unless you're Bruce Wayne...or Thomas Wayne