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MOTION CAPTURE BUYER’S GUIDE FOR ENTERTAINMENT
The motion capture market can be complex. Your buying decision doesn’t have to be.
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The Motion Capture Behind the World's Greatest Entertainment
For over 40 years, Vicon has powered the performances, characters, and worlds that define modern entertainment. From blockbuster films and AAA game titles to virtual production stages and immersive experiences, Vicon delivers the accuracy, speed, and reliability that the industry’s most demanding productions depend on.
Where Performance Becomes Art
Great storytelling lives in the details, a subtle gesture, a weight shift, a glance. Vicon’s motion capture systems are built to capture all of it. Our technology captures every nuance of motion, bringing unprecedented realism and emotional depth to stories, characters, props, and VFX moments. Vicon Whether you’re animating a single hero character or driving a full virtual production pipeline, Vicon gives your creative team the tools to realise their vision without compromise.
AS TRUSTED BY:
Borderlands 4: The Motion Capture Story Behind Gaming's Most Expressive World
Borderlands is a franchise built on personality, explosive combat, larger-than-life characters, and performances that push every gesture to the limit. To capture that energy at scale, Gearbox deployed Vicon’s optical system alongside Vicon Markerless, giving their team the precision to capture complex multi-actor scenes and the freedom to iterate rapidly without a full traditional setup every time.
Full-body and finger tracking captured the nuance behind Borderlands’ exaggerated performances while keeping cleanup to a minimum, and real-time review let directors validate takes instantly. Vicon The result: more expressive characters, faster turnaround, and a pipeline that could keep pace with one of gaming’s most ambitious franchises. Give it a watch…
Who Is Using Vicon Motion Capture Today?
Film & VFX Facilities
Vicon counts the best effects houses in the entertainment world among its users, with a proven track record across major theatrical releases and streaming productions. Flexible system configurations, open pipelines, and deep compositing tool integration make Vicon the trusted choice for facilities working at the highest level.
AAA Game Studios
Volume, velocity, and uncompromising quality. Vicon supports high-throughput game development pipelines with direct engine integration, real-time previsualization, and the data fidelity that modern players demand, from full-body performance to detailed finger and facial capture.
Independent Studios & Boutique Facilities
High-end motion capture shouldn’t be out of reach. Vicon’s scalable system configurations let smaller studios access the same quality of data as the world’s largest facilities, with workflows designed to maximise the output of lean teams and tight schedules.
Virtual Production Stages
Vicon’s combined camera tracking and full-body mocap pipeline was built for the demands of modern LED volume and virtual production stages, delivering the low-latency, high-accuracy data that in-camera VFX requires.
Virtual Talent & Digital Humans
Vicon gives studios and technology teams the capture fidelity needed to create virtual talent that audiences genuinely believe in. From full CG character animation to real-time performance, Vicon’s systems capture every nuance – the subtle expressions, weighted movement, and fine hand detail that separate a compelling digital human from one that falls into the uncanny valley.
Immersive & Location-Based Experiences
When audiences step inside your world, every moment of tracking has to hold up to scrutiny. Vicon’s precision and low-latency performance pipelines are trusted by leading immersive experience studios to deliver seamless real-time interaction at scale, whether that’s a theme park attraction, a live entertainment event, or a location-based VR experience.
“The new markerless system from Vicon has significantly accelerated our creative process, enabling us to reach results faster. We now receive mocap data much more quickly than before, which allows our artists to experiment with new ideas in a fraction of the time.”
Ben Kolakovic
Virtual Production Operations Manager, Industrial Light & Magic
FAQs
What entertainment productions has Vicon been used on?
Vicon has contributed to some of the most celebrated productions in film and games, with clients including ILM, Sony, DreamWorks, Ubisoft, Epic Games, Warner Bros, EA, and Square Enix. Productions supported by Vicon partners include The Mandalorian, House of the Dragon, Barbie, and Masters of the Air, among many others.
What is Vicon Shōgun and how does it work?
Shōgun is Vicon’s motion capture software platform for entertainment, consisting of two executables: Shōgun Live and Shōgun Post. Shōgun Live handles real-time capture, subject calibration, and live streaming to game engines, while Shōgun Post manages cleaning, retargeting, and exporting final-quality skeletal data, all within a single, integrated environment.
Does Vicon offer markerless motion capture?
Yes. Vicon Markerless uses advanced machine learning and computer vision to capture human performance without suits or reflective markers. It integrates directly into existing Vicon optical pipelines, making it easy for teams to move between markerless previz and full optical capture as a production evolves.
Which game engines and software does Vicon integrate with?
Vicon provides plugins for all major game engines, including Unreal Engine and Unity, as well as direct integration with industry-standard animation tools like Maya and MotionBuilder. Open APIs and flexible data export options ensure Vicon fits into virtually any existing production pipeline.
Can Vicon handle outdoor or on-location capture?
Vicon motion capture systems work wherever you do, whether that’s in a studio, on a sports field, or at the beach. Winter or summer, indoors or outdoors, Vicon has a system for you.
How does Vicon support virtual production?
Vicon’s virtual production tools, built into the Shōgun platform, enable simultaneous camera tracking and full-body performance capture with real-time Unreal Engine integration. This supports the full virtual production workflow, from VR scouting and previsualization through to live in-camera VFX on set.
Is Vicon suitable for smaller studios and independent facilities?
Absolutely. Vicon’s camera range spans from the accessible Vero system through to the flagship Valkyrie, meaning studios of every size can build a system matched to their budget, capture volume, and production requirements, with a clear path to scale as their work grows.