type-two 7819e12a5a Lane B / B1: pose-model bake-off + SMPL decision gate

Fresh SOTA survey (per PLAN — distrust the snapshot). Findings:
- MoCapAnything V2 (MIT code+weights, no SMPL, BVH-direct onto arbitrary
  rig) is the pick — sidesteps the SMPL commercial-license hard-stop and
  collapses the SMPL->mixamorig mapper + most of Lane C retarget.
- GVHMR: best accuracy but non-commercial code license -> reference only.
- GEM-X: commercial-clean + perfect output but CUDA-only -> off-fleet.

Stopped at the John-decision gate (docs/DECISIONS.md): confirm engine,
clear m3ultra disk (97% full), supply test footage. Inference eyeball,
B2 service-ize, B3 jitter remain.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>

2026-07-17 01:10:26 +10:00

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Decisions needing John

Lane B stops here per the PLAN's John-decision protocol. Full analysis in B1_BAKEOFF.md.

Headline: the SMPL hard-stop is (probably) avoided

The gate the plan feared — "SOTA model needs SMPL, which is research-licensed, so a commercial license decision blocks everything" — does not fire for the recommended engine. The fresh search turned up MoCapAnything V2: MIT code + MIT weights, commercial use permitted, no SMPL anywhere, and it emits BVH straight onto our mixamorig rig. So the remaining decision is lighter and strategic, not a legal wall.

Decision 1 — pose engine (the real choice)

Option	Pros	Cons
A. MoCapAnything V2 (recommended)	commercial-clean (MIT/MIT), no SMPL, BVH-direct onto mixamorig (kills a spec file + most of Lane C), runs on the fleet, cross-species bonus for centaurs	newer/less battle-tested; linked code is a re-implementation; global-trajectory + MPS not yet proven (cheap to verify)
B. Pay for GVHMR-grade	best measured accuracy (beats WHAM 18–28%)	GVHMR code is non-commercial → must negotiate a paid ZJU license and separately clear SMPL. Two negotiations for one engine.
C. GEM-X	cleanest license + best output format	CUDA-only — needs an NVIDIA box the fleet doesn't have; renting cloud CUDA breaks the zero-cloud rule

Recommendation: A. Go MoCapAnything V2. It's the only option that is commercial-clean, on-fleet, and BVH-direct at once. Verify its two unknowns (global trajectory, MPS) on the sample data next session before committing B2 code to it. Keep GVHMR as a research-only accuracy yardstick if you ever want to know what B would buy.

→ John: confirm "go MoCapAnything," or say if you want the paid-GVHMR route explored.

Decision 2 — clear m3ultra disk (blocker)

~ on m3ultra is 97% full — 29 GB free of 926 GB. Enough for one torch env + weights, too tight to be comfortable, and MODELBEAST shares the box. Please free some space (or point me at what's safe to prune) before the install session.

→ John: free space on m3ultra, or greenlight me to find prunable caches.

Decision 3 — test footage (blocker for the real quality call)

capture/inbox/ is empty. I can smoke-test MoCapAnything on its bundled sample, but the honest walk/dance/pick-up-object quality verdict — and all of B2/B3 + the acceptance check — needs your clips. Film the PLAN's three per docs/CAPTURE.md (T-pose bookends, feet in frame) and drop them in the inbox, then python3 ingest.py.

→ John: film + ingest walk / dance / pick-up-object when convenient.

Once Decision 1 is confirmed and 2–3 are unblocked, the next session installs MoCapAnything on m3ultra, proves MPS + global trajectory, and proceeds to B2 (service-ize) / B3 (jitter).

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