Virtual camera

Real-time recording and motion tracking

Virtual cameras have been developed which allow a director to film motion capture and view the digital character's movements in real time in a pre-constructed digital environment, such as a house or spaceship. Resident Evil 5 was the first video game to use the technology, which was developed for the 2009 film Avatar. The use of motion capture to control the position and orientation of a virtual camera enables the operator to intuitively move and aim the virtual camera by simply walking about and turning the virtual camera rig. A virtual camera rig consists of a portable monitor or tablet device, motion sensors, an optional support framework, and optional joystick or button controls that are commonly used to start or stop recording and adjust lens properties. In 1992, Michael McKenna of MIT's Media Lab demonstrated the earliest documented virtual camera rig when he fixed a Polhemus magnetic motion sensor and a 3.2 inch portable LCD TV to a wooden ruler. The Walkthrough Project at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill produced a number of physical input devices for virtual camera view control including dual three-axis joysticks and a billiard-ball shaped prop known as the UNC Eyeball that featured an embedded six-degree of freedom motion tracker and a digital button.