continued... Computer Graphics World

A work in progress, 'Digging in the Dark' incorporates motion data of Lomask that was captured during a session at the Los Angeles studio House of Moves (HOM) using a 24-camera Vicon V-8 mocap system. After cleaning up the data in HOM's Diva editing software, technical project manager Joshua Ochoa and technical director Garry Gray applied the motions to a 3D skeleton of a synthetic dancer that Vargas had created in Alias Systems' Maya. Vargas then skinned the skeletal model and rigged it with additional controls so many of the dynamic simulations could be achieved. "In one scene," he says, "it appears as if the character is dancing in a particle cloud."

For the most part, the group is using the 3D models—which are projected onto large background screens—to create an intimacy between the movement of the dancers and the motion graphics. For example, in the second scene of the show, titled Majestic Body, Majestic Earth, the performers move slowly in front of an animated 3D model that's textured with geophysical maps and data and whose movements parallel those being executed on stage. "We are relating the body and the movement of the body to the Earth and the movement of the Earth," Lomask explains, "and describing the body [through the use of textures] as terrain."

In a different scene, the motion derived from the HOM capture session is used to illustrate imagery of convection currents (which scientists believe shift the Earth's magnetic fields). By packaging the imagery and motion in this way, Capacitor is able to visually represent complex and often abstract theories and processes addressed in its production. When you add scientific and technological content into that relationship, says Lomask, the audience is better able to connect to the "what" and the "why" of the performance.

According to Vargas, the biggest challenge thus far has been getting the various tools and technologies to work together. For this project, he had to incorporate geological tomography data as a set of Cartesian coordinates within Maya, where he would program a camera to move through the data particle system and, at times, have a 3D character interact with the information.