CheezeStage

choosing a scene
choosing a character
calibrate...
Recording!
Replay in App

The Issue

Creating 3D/2D cartoons is costly and takes time. To produce a 60-90 second clip. It will take you around 6 weeks with a cost of approximately $6,000. There are a lot of people who are aspiring artists, directors, and producers. What glued the team together was our love for the kids. We wanted to do something different and special for them. That perhaps one day even kids can make their own movies.

Out Magic Solution

Our app uses motion detection that can be used to animate cartoon characters. In the past, it was very costly and tedious by using a green screen with mockups and painstakingly programming it bit by bit. But with our solution: green screen, mockups, and programming each frame is all gone. We can reduce the price and reduce production time down to 85%.

How I built it

I used the Azure Kinect DK to transfer movement of people to a selected (rigged) 3d Model. All the movement is than recorded and cam be replayed on machine or anywhere using different "Player"-Apps. (During the Hackathon only a Player for Android (ARCore) and Nreal glasses got build.)

Challenges I ran into

Custom rigged Rotations of rigged model joints and received kinect joints differ a lot.
Right now there wasn't an out of the box C# wrapper for the Kinect.