Manus Core 2.0 | Recording Tab

Recording Details Panel

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In the Recording Details Panel, you can see an overview of the currently available sources you can record: gloves, polygon users, and unassigned trackers.

For each available source, you can decide if you want to hide or unhide them in the viewport.

Using the recording functionality you can save hand, body and tracker data to a file.

You can also load in previously recorded data, live stream this previously recorded data to applications with MANUS core integration and export a recording to FBX.

Before you record, it’s important to check you have everything configured for your needs.

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Recording Details

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Framerate

With the recording framerate setting you can set the frequency of your data recording.

You can select a frame rate at which you intend to use the recording afterwards, for example in your animation software or game engine.

Or you can also pick a frame rate which will easily down sample or up sample to the framerate you will use.

The framerate at the top refers to the viewport rendering frame rate in the Dashboard.

The Dashboard will record and render at your selected frame rate.

If you are using the MANUS Dashboard with a SteamVR headset, you have the option to see the viewport in VR as well.

With this option enabled, the framerate will refer to the frame rate of your SteamVR headset, for example 90FPS, 120HZor even 144Hz.

The MANUS Dashboard will still use your selected recording framerate when recording.

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Scale skeleton

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If you are recording full-body Polygon data, you can choose to include the physical dimensions of your actor to scale your recorded skeleton.

With this option disabled, the recorded skeleton will use the default MANUS Polygon skeleton dimensions.

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Timecode & Genlock

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With the timecode setting enabled, you can synchronize your recording with an external time code generator.

Make sure the MANUS Time Sync Cable is connected to your line-in audio jack and select the audio interface the cable is connected to in the Settings Tab.

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Recording

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With all recording settings explained, we can now record.

To start recording, press the recording button in the middle of the toolbar.

While recording, you can see the number of recorded frames and the duration of the recording increasing.

When you are finished, simply press the recording button again, to stop recording.

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Triggered Recording

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The Dashboard also has support for synchronized recording with OptiTrack Motive 2 and Vicon Shogun.

When you start recording in Motive or Shogun, the MANUS Dashboard will then also start to record.

Make sure you have the option enabled in your settings, and the trigger port is configured correctly.

For Motive you will need to enable the Remote Trigger functionality inside Motive.

Then in the MANUS Dashboard enable the Motive trigger and set the port 2 higher than your command port.

By default, this means your trigger port number will be 1512.

For Shogun you will need to enable the Triggered Capture functionality inside Shogun.

You can set your trigger port to a specific number, by default it is set to port 30.

Then in the MANUS Dashboard also enable the Shogun trigger and set the port to the same number as in Shogun.

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Saving, Loading & Clearing

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Saving

By default, a recording will be saved once you stop recording.

You can select the folder where these files are saved.

You can also easily open this folder to see your recorded files.

If you are using triggered recording, the files will be saved in the folder you configured in Motive or Shogun.

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Loading

You can also load previously saved files.

Simply click Load and select the recording you would like to open.

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Clearing

When you finish your recording, the recorded animation will be loaded automatically, so you can easily review and edit it.

When you want to go back to your live data, you can click the Clear button to unload the recorded data.

With Automatic save disabled, you can discard your unsaved recorded data, and go back to live data.

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Playback& Editing

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With a recording loaded you can play back and go through your recording.

You can use this functionality to both review your recording and to stream your recorded data, as if it were live data.

Simply click anywhere on the timeline to skip to that point and drag to go through the recorded data.

The play/pause button allows you to play and pause your recording.

You can also easily go to the beginning or ending of your timeline selection.

If you want some precision, you can step one frame at a time ahead or back.

With the set begin and set end buttons you can trim your timeline selection.

You can also do this by dragging the timeline handles.

With the loop button you can toggle the looping of the playback of your recording.

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Exporting

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With the recording done we can now export.[AvdB20]  If you trim your recording, only the selection will be exported.

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Selecting Sources

In this example we will export the polygon body data, so we will untick the glove and additional tracker data.

With trackers enabled, you can also export additional tracking data, for example when you’re using prop tracking.

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Export Settings

With the export mesh setting enabled, it is very easy to visualize your recording and also use your recording in Unreal.

No need to worry about setting up a character with a skeleton before importing your animations in Unreal.

When only exporting glove data, we could use the wrist rotation setting to select if we wanted to include the orientation of the hand in the exported animation.

With the Export tracker positions options, we can include the original tracking data which was used to solve the skeleton which we will export.

The Keyframe reduction option offers the ability to shrink the recording file size by discarding some data, but this will reduce tracking accuracy.

And using the naming convention we can make it easier to use the exported data after we export it.

Now simply press Export FBX, and you’re all done.

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