A New Era for Motion Capture Has Arrived: Vicon to Launch its Markerless Motion Capture Technology at GDC
After years of Research & Development and an expansive beta program with some of the biggest names in VFX, Vicon's Markerless solution will empower creative and previsualization teams to bring ideas to life with greater speed and ease than ever before
OXFORD, United Kingdom, March 11, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Motion capture leader, Vicon, today announced it will launch its highly anticipated Markerless Motion Capture solution next week at the Game Developer Conference (GDC) in San Francisco.
The launch follows an immersive exhibition of the Vicon Markerless prototype at SIGGRAPH 2023. The technology was extensively beta-tested via Vicon's Visual Effects (VFX) Pioneer Program, through which the VFX and virtual production communities had the opportunity to discover, understand and define how markerless motion capture could be applied in their industries. Beta participants included Industrial Light & Magic, Gearbox Entertainment, Dimension | DNEG360, Dreamscape Immersive, Framestore Pre-production Services and others. The culmination of those efforts will be the general availability of Vicon Markerless for VFX on March 19.
Maximizing Creative Iteration
Vicon Markerless is built on 40 years of experience building high-fidelity motion capture solutions for industry leaders in media, entertainment, engineering and life sciences. It completely transforms rapid creative iteration by allowing users to instantly visualize ideas for better creativity early on. Vicon's markerless system comprises a new markerless motion-tracking camera ('Vanguard') and new software incorporating advanced computer vision, machine learning and proven algorithms to capture human performance without markers ('Shōgun Markerless' and 'Shōgun Post').
'Vicon's Markerless Motion Capture is like magic – providing Gearbox incredible flexibility and speed in the development and storytelling of our games,' said Randy Pitchford, founder and president of Gearbox Entertainment. 'Anyone of us at Gearbox, including me, can quickly jump into our Vicon Markerless Motion Capture volume – even in our street clothes – to quickly get the data we need as we work to bring exciting potential future projects to life, including Borderlands.'
'Vicon Markerless, developed over several years with meticulous attention to detail, sets a new standard for motion capture across games, film, episodic TV and immersive experiences,' said Vicon CEO Imogen O'Connor. 'It enables VFX teams to rapidly refine early creative ideas and iterations marker-free and offers a seamless transition to optical motion capture as needed. Markerless motion capture opens up a world of possibilities for the VFX industry and delivers greater efficiency in creating innovative entertainment.'
Pre-Visualization and Rapid Prototyping
Without flexible and accessible options for previsualization, real-time discovery, location set-up, blocking, rehearsing and other use cases, studios are forced to rely on manual animation and full motion capture shoots with fewer iterations.
With seamless pipeline and ecosystem integration, Vicon Markerless reduces time to visualization, enabling rapid iteration from prototyping and previsualization to real-time animation – even with props. Creative teams can quickly explore ideas marker-free and transition efficiently to full optical motion capture when required.
'The new markerless system from Vicon has significantly accelerated our creative process, enabling us to reach results faster,' said Ben Kolakovic, Virtual Production Operations Manager at Industrial Light & Magic, a beta participant. '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. This streamlined workflow not only fosters creativity but also enhances our ability to iterate efficiently and fine-tune performances.'
Vicon Markerless integrates seamlessly into existing Vicon optical motion capture pipelines and increases team efficiency with a single ecosystem across calibration, capture and data cleaning pipelines.
See What Markerless Can Do For You
Vicon welcomes GDC attendees to visit booth #S335 during expo hours March 19-21.
To pre-schedule a meeting at the show, please email [email protected].
For those not attending the show, please visit www.vicon.com/markerless to learn more.
About Vicon
Established in 1984, Vicon is an award-winning, leading provider of tailored motion capture systems for the life sciences, media and entertainment, location-based virtual reality, and engineering industries.
Vicon's pioneering motion capture technologies push the traditional definition of the term and enable the capture and analysis of all kinds of motion, whatever the modality: optical, inertial or markerless.
Vicon has worked with a large range of global clients in the entertainment industry, including Dreamworks, Byte Dance, Electronic Arts (EA), EPIC Games, Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), Lux Machina, Pearl Abyss, Sony, Square Enix, Ubisoft, Warner Bros and many more.
Vicon is a subsidiary of Oxford Metrics (LSE:OMG), the smart sensing and software company servicing life science, entertainment, engineering and smart manufacturing markets.
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