The Mocopi takes the form of five colour-coded motion tracking sensors that strap around your wrists, ankles, and head, and one that clips to your hip. They fit into a neat carrying case when not in use. Hooking up to a dedicated smartphone app, the data captured from your movements can be mapped to an anime-like avatar, which can then be applied to real time AR services like VRChat. This can be placed in real world situations using AR or metaverse software. “Normally, video production using motion capture requires dedicated equipment and operators,” explains Sony (via machine translation). “Mocopi” realizes high-precision motion measurement with a small number of sensors by utilizing our own algorithm”. Sony reckons this will make Mocopi ideal for online VR content creators as well as film and animation production. To that end, Sony has also announced a software development kit (SDK) that will let you import the motion data captured by the Mocopi into 3D animation apps like Unity and MotionBuilder, as well as to various Metaverse services. Mocopi is set to launch to the Japanese market in January, with pre-orders set to start in mid-December. It’ll be priced at 49,500 yen, which works out to about £300. The SDK will be available on December 15. There’s no word on wider availability for the Mocopi system, indicating it could be one of Sony’s out-there experiments, of which there have been many over the years.
