Moving on up: motion capture has moved to the forefront in CG films, animated television series, and games.(Motion Capture)

In this Part 2 of a two-part series, we look at entertainment-related applications of mocap.

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This year, two feature films that used computer graphics to create principal characters won Oscars--Happy Feet (Best Animated Feature Film) and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (Best Achievement in Visual Effects). But, they had something else in common as well: For both films, the animators based the performances of the CG stars--the animated penguins in Happy Feet and the tentacled Davy Jones and his half-dead crew in Pirates--on state-of-the-art motion-capture techniques for their performances.

For Happy Feet, Giant ...