MoCap was a way for me to step into the characters and figure out who they were before I ever touched a bone in Blender. When I act the scenes myself, I catch emotional beats and physical habits I would completely miss if I were animating from a distance. It was insanely tiring work. But that exhaustion shaped the film in ways I could never force with keyframes alone. This is a breakdown of every clip and why each one mattered.
artroom__v1 – Mother in the Flashback
• She slumps over the table, almost melting into it. This was my first attempt at showing her exhaustion and emotional weight before I even knew the details of her story.
• This was the foundation for the “see no evil hear no evil speak no evil” idea that carries through every flashback.
• The environment was already doing half the storytelling. Her posture confirmed the rest.
artroom__v2 – Looser, Softer Version of the Mother
• Same setting, same idea, but she carries herself with a slightly easier breath.
• Captured this in case her flashback needed a more peaceful energy.
couch_v1 – First Impression of the Father
• He sits like a man who’s half alive. Leg out, shoulders slack, eyes somewhere else entirely.
• I wanted him human first, broken later.
• This was the pose that made me realise he needed to feel familiar before he became frightening.
couch_v2 to couch_v5 – Exploring Variations of Comfort and Collapse
• These takes were all about finding subtle differences in how a drunk, checked-out father might sit.
• Small shifts, new angles, different weights on the couch.
• These are the moments that build believability without saying anything.
couch_v6 – First Hint of Possession
• He tries to stand up but something in the motion betrays him.
• A little too stiff. A little too deliberate.
• This was my first successful attempt at showing a man who thinks he’s in control, while the audience slowly realises he isn’t.
couch_v7 – Leaning Into the Uncanny
• Rigid but not robotic.
• A step closer to that uncomfortable ambiguity where the viewer can’t tell if he’s drunk, injured, or becoming something else entirely.
couch_v8 – Adding Steps With Purpose
• Introduced more force in the footwork.
• Helps sell key dramatic beats when the scene needs it.
couch_v9 and couch_v10 – Expanding His Presence in the Room
• Tested how he moves through larger space, not just the couch.
• These takes helped me understand how he carries himself when he thinks he’s alone.
crouchrun_v1 – Lina Crawling Through the Tunnel
• One of the hardest motions I had to perform. A child’s centre of gravity is completely different from mine.
• I had to slow things down and stylise the movement to stop it from collapsing under its own weight.
• Lina crawls out, shivers, then pushes on without hesitation. I want her to feel fragile and unstoppable at the same time.
demonictv_b1 – First Contact With the Table and TV
• I wanted to test the idea of the demon using the room against the character, not just appearing inside it.
• Leaning, touching, feeling the tension in the shoulders.
• Scenes where horror interacts with actual objects always hit harder.
demonictv_b2 – More Forward Lean, More Distortion
• Practising unnatural weight shifts, trying to find that sweet spot between grounded and wrong.
demonictv_b3 – Pushing the Body Further
• A slightly riskier take, with heavier leaning and a sense that the body wants to fall.
• This helped me understand how a possessed figure might break the rules of posture without looking weightless.
getupCold_v1 – Lina Emerging From the Tunnel
• Crawls through, shivers, then stands. No moment of safety.
• I wanted a mix of cold, fear, and a weird confidence that keeps her moving forward.
lina_bedroom_v1 – Lina At Rest
• She sits on the bed playing with the lighter. Innocent, almost absent-minded.
• This needed to ground her character before everything collapses around her.
lina_bedroom_v2 – Small Jumps and Micro Reactions
• Tiny, skittish movements. Quick head turns.
• These micro beats matter because the painterly style removes facial detail.
lina_bedroom_v3 – Turning Toward the Closet
• Has her grab what she needs and move out.
• This was more of a reference take to understand pacing and body turns.
lina_bedroom_v4 – Replaying the Lighter Interactions
• Just trying different hand motions until something felt right.
lina_bedroom_v5 – End-of-Session Exhaustion
• This one shows real tiredness, which honestly fit Lina well.
• Even fatigue becomes character acting when you’re deep enough into the session.
mother_kitchen_v1 – Establishing Her Routine
• She cooks, places things down, moves like someone who has a system.
• I chose cooking over washing dishes because it feels warmer and fits her role in the story.
mother_kitchen_v2 – Turning Between Tasks
• She ties her child’s laces, moves back to the stove, checks something on the counter.
• Built the sense that this was once a functional, loving kitchen.
mother_kitchen_v3 – Lifting Boxes and Shifting Workflow
• More routine, more motions that feed the “before everything went wrong” atmosphere.
mother_kitchen_v4 – Calm Domestic Moment
• Just her sitting and breathing for a second.
• I needed one warm, quiet moment for contrast.
mother_kitchen_v5 – Adjusting Hands for Better Silhouettes
• Painterly style forces me to think in shapes.
• Her hands had to be visible to read the motion.
mother_kitchen_v6 and mother_kitchen_v7 – Final Variations
• More of the same, but necessary to refine pacing and flow.
ReachFor_v3 – First Attempt at a Possessed Lean
• This clip was all about understanding how someone leans against their own body.
• I needed the motion to feel unnatural but not physically impossible.
ReachFor_v5 – Slower, Heavier, Better
• Same motion, but more tension and clearer silhouettes.
Stepnail_v1 – Pain Reaction Test
• The first time I acted out stepping on the nail.
• I went too dramatic here, but the pause was useful.
Stepnail_v2 – Pain Suppressed, Possession Clear
• He feels it. He reacts internally.
• But he moves anyway, like something behind him refuses to let the pain stop him.
• This one captured exactly what I needed.
Final Thoughts on the MoCap Session
The hardest part of the entire session was stamina, not just physical but mental. After hours of crawling, leaning, snapping into poses, and switching between Lina and the father and the mother and the demon, your brain starts drifting. You redo takes because something felt off, then redo them again because it suddenly feels different. And the wildest part is how different everything looks once it’s inside the 3D software. Half the time it feels like watching a stranger.
But acting these motions myself forced me to think like the characters. It gave the film weight, literally and figuratively. Every clip taught me something new about how these characters behave under stress, how they respond to their environment, and what it means for a body to move when emotion or possession or fear is driving it.
Acting for animation and the value of micro gestures
A lot of my MoCap clips revolve around tiny adjustments in posture, hand tension, and breathing. That aligns with animation research that talks about micro gestures as the real carriers of emotion. The big motions tell you what is happening. The micro motions tell you how it feels. My painterly style reduces facial readability, so gesture language becomes the emotional backbone.
Stylising child movement and altered centres of gravity
When I crawled as Lina, I realised how different a child’s weight distribution actually is. Motion capture studies highlight how children have faster shifts in balance, shorter weight transfer arcs, and more abrupt posture changes. Because I physically could not replicate a child’s biomechanics perfectly, I leaned into stylisation. That decision falls in line with research on translating MoCap for non adult characters.
Horror embodiment and unnatural weight shifts
My demon clips were built around wrongness in posture, especially the unnatural forward leans and slow shivers. In horror research, unnatural weight distribution is a known tool for unsettling the viewer. Creatures that lean too far without falling or hold tension in the wrong joints break our internal physics model. That is exactly what I was experimenting with in demonictv_b1 to b3.
Domestic gesture realism as character grounding
All the kitchen MoCap clips were about building routine. Research on domestic realism in animation argues that everyday actions like tying laces or shifting objects on a counter make a character emotionally legible before the plot does. These MoCap takes are what convinced me the mother needed warmth and recognisable habits before the supernatural elements arrived.
Interaction with objects as psychological storytelling
A lot of these takes involve touching tables, leaning into TVs, lifting boxes, grabbing lighters. Research on environmental interaction notes that objects can act as emotional triggers. When the father leans on the table or fails to stand correctly, the object becomes a witness to his decline. When Lina holds the lighter, it becomes an anchor for her entire identity. These MoCap clips are the first place where that object driven psychology took shape.
Intentional silhouette clarity for painterly animation
Painterly rendering flattens details and prioritises shape, so my MoCap sessions kept forcing me to exaggerate silhouettes. Animation principles say that clarity of silhouette is essential when the face is not readable. Mother_kitchen_v5 is where I first realised how important this was, and it affected everything from how I posed the father to how Lina holds the lighter.