Radical

What is Radical?

Radical is a real-time motion capture tool that turns a single camera into a full-body animation tracker. It is aimed at game streamers, virtual creators, indie developers and hobbyists who want to control a 3D character live, without a mocap suit or a room full of cameras.

The software runs locally on your computer and works with the webcam you already have. Because it is real-time, the character mirrors your movements as you make them, which makes it a natural fit for live streaming and interactive content.

Radical is a young product from a startup that raised early funding to push single-camera mocap further, and the team has focused on making setup fast and accessible.

Key Features

• Real-time full-body 3D motion capture from a single webcam
• Live avatar control for streaming and virtual characters
• Runs locally on your own machine
• Supports popular avatar and game engines via live data output
• Easy setup with just a camera and the desktop app
• Designed for creators as much as for animation professionals

How to get started

Download the Radical app for your desktop platform and make sure your webcam is set up with the whole upper body visible. The app calibrates your space quickly and starts tracking your motion in real time.

Once the character is tracking, you can use the motion in your streaming software, game engine or 3D tool. The Radical website has guides for the common integrations.

• Download and install the Radical desktop app
• Connect your webcam and stand in frame
• Run the quick calibration
• See your avatar mirror your motion in real time
• Send the live motion data to your stream or engine

Use cases

• Live streaming with a 3D avatar that mirrors your movements
• Virtual creator and virtual influencer performances
• Real-time character animation for game development
• Interactive installations and live events
• Quick performance capture without suits or studios

Pricing and licensing

Radical offers a free tier that gives creators a taste of real-time mocap, with paid plans for more features and professional use.

Pricing details and plan boundaries change as the product matures, so check the official website for the current offering.

Pros and cons

The killer feature is immediacy: single-camera, real-time tracking with no suits, no studio and no cloud round-trip. It lowers the barrier to live 3D character work dramatically.

Single-camera tracking has limits compared to multi-camera or suit systems: occlusions and complex motions can glitch, and quality is best when the camera has a clear view of the whole body. The product is also young, so features are still expanding.

Alternatives

• Move AI: markerless mocap with multi-camera fidelity
• DeepMotion: browser mocap with a physics-based character controller
• Rokoko Vision: free video mocap for offline capture
• Rokoko Smartsuit Pro: full inertial mocap suits for professional capture
• Plask: browser mocap and animation editing