Immersion CyberGloves Usage

#1

Hey guys,

I’m currently working on a project for my school research and in the project we need to map motion data of hand gestures (more specifically American Sign Language Signs) to a 3D character. I’ve never worked with the Immersion CyberGloves, the gloves that are compatible with Motionbuilder and I was wondering if anyone out there has worked with them or is working with them and could give me a brief run down on how they work and how to record movement with them into motionbuilder. Thanks in advance.

-Tux

#2

Hi,
First you need to connect the gloves to the machine recording the data. If you haven’t got two serial ports you can get cheap adapters to convert USB to serial. Then in MotionBuilder drag two glove devices (one for each glove). Create a model from Model Binding menu, choose left or right hand, select the Port (or Autodetect) and press Online. If it does not connect try with lower speed such as 38400. Calibrata (look help for hand poses). When you want record the data check the recording, press Rec in Transport controls and Play to start recording. Briefly that’s all. Notice also when you want to play the clip uncheck the Recording and Live from glove device…for retargeting to a character use Actor. Actor has Glove reference boxes in marker set of the fingers. (drag the glove models top node in that…works also live) If you have any qustions don’t hesitate to ask…hope this gets you started.
Anssi

#3

Anssi,

Thanks so much - your information thus far has proven quite useful. THe system at my school has no documentation so its really hard to get started. Yea, I managed to get the gloves calibrated all right - at least it didn’t give me any errors while doing so. Now I’m going to try and get them moving with an actor. I am able to make a sort of dummy hand to at least see that the hand is moving. Do I use that to show my recording and THEN map the marker set to an actor, or is it possible to map the marker set first then record. THe recording phase is the place that I am a bit fuzzy on so more infoon that process would be just great. Thanks again for all your help. :slight_smile:

-Tux

#4

Hello there,
so far so good, if you have the dummy hand moving. It shouldn’t matter if you record the data first and then map it to the actor (the dummy hand is just there to store the data). Which ever way you decide to do at some point you need to map the hand to actor in order to retarget the movement. Drag the actor in the scene and create marker set (top right in actor settings) (lock the view)Click the circle representing fingers and you’ll find the Glove reference, then you should find the dummy hand model in either schematic view or from the navigator and Alt-drag the CyberGlove:hand in the slot. Now the actors hands should move according to the glove.

Now for the recording part. The recording check box should be pressed in all the devices you want record (in your case both CyberGlove devices). That means when recording the data is stored to a new take. When you start recording press the red rec button in Transport controls and then Play (MB will ask if you want a new take or something…) Now when you done with recording and you want to watch the movement uncheck Live and Recording from both glove devices (as mentioned earlier) otherwise you won’t be able see the animation since the Live will overdrive everything and you are in recording mode.
Next you need the characterized character (actor input) to plot to and you should be off to tweak and correct the animations by hand if needed.

Hope this helps,
Anssi

#5

Anssi,

Thanks to you I was able to get some movement mapped to an Actor. Is proud unfortunately I don’t have a character to map the actor to, but I would assume that that process is the same for gloves as it is for a suit. (characterization first and all that, right?)

Well, all in all - I’ve only had a short time to learn our motion capture system as a whole, let alone the gloves and as I said before, there is little documentation. But after working with it for a while, I think I’m getting the hang of it. Again, thank you for all of your help in this endeavor. I’ll poke you again should I have anymore questions.

-Tux

#6

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