Though many folks are meh on Microsoft’s Kinect 2 for gaming, in the hands of a 3D animator it can do wondrous things. Case in point is the Momentum art project from a group called Schnellebuntebilder. Using custom software, they captured a live action actor with a Kinect 2, and convert him into a series of swirling cube particles and light rays, all in real time (see below). The team doesn’t explain how it works, but it looks like they modeled the actor beforehand and then mapped his particle-effect avatar onto the live action video. On top of making us trip balls, doing all that in real time is quite the technical achievement.
