Case Study: University of Minnesota Duluth achieves motion-capture revival and student-led animated film with Vicon

University of Minnesota Duluth students learn ‘How to Fly’ with motion capture

University of Minnesota Duluth’s Viz & MMAD Lab, which runs a 12‑camera Vicon motion capture system with Vicon software (Nexus and Blade), faced a major skills gap after COVID closed labs and experienced staff and students departed. The team had largely used the system for biomechanics and had little animation experience with Blade, so when asked to deliver motion capture for a film project they needed to relearn operations and rebuild institutional knowledge quickly.

Using Vicon’s Blade tools, tutorial resources and responsive customer support (including help locating legacy files to integrate third‑party force plates), the MMAD Lab students and staff rebuilt workflows, processed mocap to animate Adobe Mixamo characters in Blender and produced the How to Fly short plus a behind‑the‑scenes video. The project took over 470 hours to complete, but the team has documented the process and now estimates similar projects will take roughly half the time—demonstrating a sustainable, interdisciplinary workflow enabled by Vicon.

University of Minnesota Duluth

Lisa Fitzpatrick

MMAD Lab Video Producer