Upgrading...

Just upgraded Machin-X to the new Blogger Beta last night. As a result the RSS feed is a little wonky. Everything should be fixed in the next day or so.

Laugh Pad

Here's some test footage for Laugh Pad, a new digital puppetry series developed by The Jim Henson Company and The Dan Clark Company. I love the main character (is Lagoon his name?) and his infectious laugh. It looks like this show could be lots of silly fun and it's one of the best examples of digital puppetry I've seen. Hopefully it will become a series!

Via Puppeteers Unite!

Creepy-Looking Digital Puppet

Here's a creepy/cool flash-based digital puppet from the web site of indie rock band Modest Mouse. It looks a little bit like an evil Grover!

Link via Anders.

CGI Twiddlebugs on Sesame Street

The Twiddlebugs, a small family of insects that live in Ernie's window box, have been a stable of Sesame Street for decades. Traditionally, they've always been conventional puppets, but the show's newest season has been featuring new CGI versions of the Twiddlebugs this year.

I'm not sure if these CGI Twiddlebugs were created with conventional 3D animation, or if they are actually created using digital puppetry like Elmo's World. Does anyone out there know for sure?

Either way, things have certainly come a long way since the good old days.

Machinima Application Design Requirements

Brian Stokes has posted a great piece on his blog about Machinima/Digital puppetry application design requirements; essentially laying out what's lacking in the tools currently available for Machinima creators. I really agree wholeheartedly with all of his thoughts, especially the need for better assets and really kick-ass sequencer software. Be sure to check it out.

Atlas Puppetry Gloves?

Could these be do-it-yourself digital puppetry gloves?

Here's a tutorial for making yourself a pair of DIY Atlas gloves that can be used to control Google Earth using hand gestures. The way they work is that each glove has a small light and a web cam detects your hand gestures and interprets them as commands for Google Earth. It's a neat idea and of course I can't help but wonder how these could be used as some sort of digital puppetry interface.

Hmmmm...

Burger King's Subserviant Hand Puppet

What should Burger King call this...a Subserviant Hand Puppet?

Remember Burger King's Subserviant Chicken? Well, I suppose they can call this their Subserviant Hand Puppet.

It's another of those Flash-based digital puppet toys (see related posts over at PuppetVision), but in a bit of a twist this one allows you to control the dance moves of one of those cheap plastic Burger King hand puppets (like the kind that used to come in kid's meals in the `70s and `80s) who appears to be performed from behind a couch like a bad YouTube video. It's a neat little digital puppet I suppose, but I don't see how it will sell any hamburgers.

Link via AdRants.