Thank you for the kind words Oliver! I'm also excited with the possibilities and I'm glad this looked useful to you too!
Please bear in mind that this is, like you mentioned, an alpha release. I was the only tester, so there will definitely be few bugs. Please feel free to report them on the github repo. Some things that might get in the way:
- VML streamer needs a working webcam to start! (have not implemented video only solution yet)
- Video playback might crash depending on which file you load (due to video size/codec type/random). Prefer smaller ~300px wide videos
- Avoid adding too many streams at once(specially for MediaPipe. Try working on one MP stream at a time)
- Sometimes the body tracker stops working for no apparent reason, only a program restart will fix it.
As far as mocap data, MP does NOT produce true 3d coordinates unfortunately, so the use case is limited (ie: not a replacement for body/facial mocap). Hands do work good enough for more things, hence more examples in the video. On top of that **MP is not GPU accelerated on Windows** (so if you can, use Linux!).
I like to do all the disclaimers so people don't make too much assumptions about the tool at its current state.
Anyway that said, the main plugin design is done now, I tried to pave the way for some future tech, so if a better mocap solution comes up (and its free) I can plug into the tool relatively easy.
But right now just having bare hands/body/face as an interface for anything inside Houdini is too much fun! I can't stop thinking of ways I can drive stuff. Camera, rigs, geo deformations, a virtual theremin where hand trackers control pitch and volume in a chop node generates (oh sorry too specific! :lol
Regarding donations, don't worry! If enough people use it, I'll defintely keep improving! If you still like to contribute thou, google my name and "patreon" (I don't want to spam this thread with the link). Alternatively just email me (fabricio.chamon@gmail.com) with any suggestions and questions, I'll be happy to help!!