Tracking body animations

As we observed when setting up our Puppet Maker rigs, we can track our body with the webcam to record animation. We used this tracker for head turns when animating the Chatting with Chaz scene. But now, let’s take it a step further by implementing body tracker controls so that we can move our limbs using only the camera.

We will use a new forward-facing custom rig for this example as it will best show this feature. Also, if you plan to do this on your own, make sure you have plenty of room for the webcam to track your body and nice, even lighting.

With Chapter_13_Additional_Features.chproj still open, follow these steps:

1. Direct your attention to the BENIK_FRONT_TRACKING rig in the Project panel and double-click to open it.
2. Note that the rig setup is more simplified – for example, it’s lacking mouth, eye, and hand poses. We have tagged all the points on the body for animation as we just want to focus on that:

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