This paper discusses the methods, benefits, and challenges of motion capture as a means of producing computer animation.  Another goal of the paper is to convey the importance of understanding all aspects of the computer animation process and to make a clear distinction between this process and the common notion of what motion capture is.  

There are numerous methods for creating motion, such as key-framing, simulation, motion capture, and motion editing.  Motion capture is only a part of the entire animation process, which deals in building and representing abstractions of motion that can be applied to an arbitrary structure/skeleton/rigid body.  There are several different challenges of motion capture that are both fundamentally and non-fundamentally difficult to solve.