I discovered a wealth of motion capture data from Carnegie Mellon University’s website that is free to use (commercial or noncommercial), convert and redistribute with no need for permissions.

Wait a minute… Carnegie Mellon… Why does that sound so familiar? Yes! It was host to one of the most famous lectures delivered in our time by mere human (The Sermon on the Mount, even minus the booming voice, doesn’t qualify). I am talking about “The Last Lecture” by Randy Pausch. It was made popular by Oprah. A book was also created to better spread its message. If you are about to watch the clip, make sure you’ve got something to wipe your eyes with, the air strangely dries up when Randy Pausch delivers his jokes.

I know Mr. Pausch isn’t solely responsible for the free motion capture data, but I am positive he is involved in one way or the other. This page hints towards my hunch.

Regardless of whom to thank, Carnegie Mellon infuses the same kind of generous spirit we adore in the Randy Pausch. An entire database worth over 4 gigabytes of motion captured data.

To be honest, I’m no mocap fan. But I do acknowledge a lot of its advantages. One need only mention one word. Avatar. After that movie, James Cameron placed “motion capture” on an even par with key animation, making it a worthy alternative.

The mocap data from CMU Graphics Lab Motion Capture Database would fail in comparison to the mocap of Avatar. But that shouldn’t be anything anyone should be ashamed of. It is usually through similar endeavors of research grants, unwavering toils and knowledge sharing, that technology is pushed to its boundaries and beyond. The CMU graphics lab probably more instrumental to Avatar than we think. What I’d give to be part of a similar endeavor.