Notch Notch Manual 0.9.23
 Light | Dark
Kinect2 Skeleton

Kinect2 Skeleton

Control skeletal rigs from a Kinect 2.

Method #

This node controls the Kinect Skeleton tracked from a Kinect 2 camera sensor.

If this node is hashed out with red, this means the node isn’t active for some reason. Usually :

  • Kinect isn’t on or hasn’t been connected to Notch.
  • Kinect Skeletons have not been enabled in the project settings window.
  • A suitable skeleton hasn’t been found yet (there is a slight delay with the Kinect 2 detecting bodies).

A skeleton stream (*.skel) file imported into resources can be applied for playback to the skeleton node with no active sensor required. Capturing a skeleton stream file during sensor playback is performed from the Devices/Capture Kinect1/Kinect2/Kinect4 data menu or by using Alt+K (once to start, once to end recording).

To visualise the tracked skeleton joints and their orientations, make sure to enable bounding box visualisation “BB” in the Nodegraph and this node is selected in the scene graph.

You will need to activate the Kinect camera you want to use by going to Devices > VideoIn/Camera/Kinect Settings and enabling it. Otherwise, it will not be initialized by Notch. This is by design, so Notch does not lock the device from the use by other software when you are not actively using it in Notch

Parameters

These properties control the 3D transforms of the node. Transforms will generally be inherited by child nodes, although they can be ignored through the Inherit Transform Channels attributes.

ParameterDetails
Position XMove along the local x-axis.
Position YMove along the local y-axis.
Position ZMove along the local z-axis.
Rotation HeadingRotate around the local y-axis.
Rotation PitchRotate around the local x-axis.
Rotation BankRotate around the local z-axis.
Scale XScale along the local x-axis.
Scale YScale along the local y-axis.
Scale ZScale along the local z-axis.

Toggle which transform channels should be inherited from the parent node. By default, all transforms will be inherited.

ParameterDetails
Position XToggle inheritance of the X Position from the parent.
Position YToggle inheritance of the Y Position from the parent.
Position ZToggle inheritance of the Z Position from the parent.
Rotation HeadingToggle inheritance of the Rotation Heading from the parent.
Rotation PitchToggle inheritance of the Rotation Pitch from the parent.
Rotation BankToggle inheritance of the Rotation Bank from the parent.
Scale XToggle inheritance of the X Scale from the parent.
Scale YToggle inheritance of the Y Scale from the parent.
Scale ZToggle inheritance of the Z Scale from the parent.
World Position OnlyInherit the world position from the parent only, rotation and scale will be ignored. Overrides above properties.
Inherit TimeToggle inheritance of time from the parent.

These properties control the core behaviours of the node.

ParameterDetails
Kinect Skeleton StreamKinect Skeleton stream (*.skel) resource for playback
Use Active SkeletonWhen enabled, automatically select the currently active skeleton.
Avatar IndexSelect which Skeleton to use from the avatar index. Only functional with Use Active Skeleton is disabled.
Input Skeleton ScaleScale the size of the input skeleton.
SmoothingHow much smoothing is applied to the output skeletons motion.
Derive Rotations (Don't Use Kinect SDK Rotations}Use internally calculated rotations instead of rotations from the Kinect SDK.
MirroredMirror the movements of the incoming mobcap data along the x axis.
Flip ZFlip the Z axis of the skeleton, to match a model with a flipped z axis.

These properties control the playback properties of recorded Kinect 2 data.

ParameterDetails
Stream Start FrameStart frame of Kinect Skeleton stream playback
Stream End FrameEnd frame of Kinect Skeleton stream playback
Stream Frame RateKinect Skeleton stream playback frame rate

Inputs

NameDescriptionTypical Input
Hierarchy RootConnect the skeleton root node to drive the rest of the skeleton from.Imported 3D Scene
Transform ModifiersApply the transforms of another node to this node.Null
Target NodeModifiy the rotations of the node to always direct the z axis towards the input.Null
Local Transform OverrideApply the transforms of another node to this node, relative to its parent.Null