The new scientist is running an article on full body capture techniques. From the article: A 3D animation technique that could take the hard work out of acting has been developed by German researchers. It allows a high-resolution 3D scan of one person to be pasted on to another person’s movements.
Team members from the Max Planck Institute for Computer Science in Saarbrücken, Germany, say their technique is faster than traditional animation methods. Usually animators must design a skeleton to go inside a character and ensure its movements translate into realistic deformations of the outer surface.
A demo video is avaliable from the New Scentist site and is reproduced below: