How did Rainbow Studios...

I'm not honestly sure where it started, but I can tell you some ways it has evolved and continued to happen. Not everyone here was a moto person when they came, though, I'm positive my background with the sport definitely helped in the interview.  In fact, being passionate about the MX games in general are why a lot of us applied here.  One of our guys for instance, went to school just to work here.  He didn't want to work on games, he wanted to make MX games at Rainbow.   As for those that maybe aren't here because they loved the games before hand, and aren't here because they know MX, well, we infect them with the moto bug!  Not a day goes by that there isn't MX playing on a TV or computer, that photos aren't going around through email, and that bench racing isn't going on.  I mean, as you all know, once you are exposed to the MX bug, it pulls you in; so it isn't that hard to infect the studio with an MX vibe.  We're lucky we have a rich history and an amazing base to build off of because of amazing people that have stepped foot into the doors of this place. Also, we are always having our industry friends, whether it's motor guys, suspension guys, gear companies, etc. and any top pro that wants to come down touring the studio.  Don't be surprised to see an MX bike sitting in the hallway or by the front lobby on any given day, MX is everywhere.  Jerseys, tires, helmets are our office decorations, and it's just we live an MX lifestyle here.

What would they have a pro rider motion capture in a studio? I do not know the techonology that much but I could see them going out to a track and putting the sensors all over the rider and have a log of it and then once they get back to the studio they put the log back onto the computer and divulge from there.

Motion capture has to be done in a controlled environment.  What you usually don't see during all of those sessions that they show is that there are tons of cameras high up from different angles capturing the footage which is relayed to the computer and the computer picks up those dots as reference points for fluidity.  That's why you'll see most people start a mocap session with them standing straight up and arms outstretched and end in the same way which is referred to as the da Vinci pose.  It helps for reference points to do it that way so at this time being able to motion capture someone riding a full track is not really possible or economically feasible.  A lot of the cinematics that you see and idol positions that the rider does were mocapped in the studio on a bike or a set up similar to what a vehicle would be otherwise the animators pour through hours and hours of footage to recreate positions on the rider while the bike is in motion....phew writers cramp.

We used one of the actual 30 second girls to mocap her moves and one of the designers who also rides did the movement for the rider.  if you go to MX Affiliate's site they are doing a 9 part video series on the creation of the game and the first segment which came out a few weeks ago goes over how they motion captured and animated some of the sequences.  You can get to it from the forum's main page.