More About New Henson/PBS Digital Puppetry Show

Sid The Science Kid is the star of a forthcoming digital puppetry series for kids.

The Muppet Newsflash reports that work is continuing on the forthcoming Jim Henson Company/PBS Kids digital puppetry series What's The Big Idea? (see previous post), but the show has been retitled Sid The Science Kid. The series' concept is using short sketches to teach children lessons about science and discovery and is being produced using the Henson Company's HDPS Digital Puppetry System. Forty half-hour episodes of the show are currently in production; there's no word whether or not it has been affected by the current writer's strike in the United States.

Look for Sid The Science Kid on PBS sometime in 2008.

Multi-touch Interface using the Wii Remote

This is another incredibly cool Wiimote hack from Johnny Chung Lee (see previous post) that suggests all kinds of interesting possibilities for controlling digital puppet characters in real-time. Since the Wii tracks IR lights, Johnny has discovered that almost any surface - a projector screen, a tabletop, or an LCD - can be turned into a multi-touch screen that you can use like the iPod touch or iPhone. All you need is the Wiimote, a ball point pen equipped with an LED and some free software that can be downloaded here. Watch the video for details.

And as cool as it is, I'm even more excited to see the results of what Johnny is working on next - 3D tracking and head tracking with the Wiimote!

Special thanks to Brian for sending this to me!

Track Fingers With The Wiimote

Here's another potentially cool user interface for creating digital puppetry and Machinima...Johnny Lee at Carnegie Mellon University has worked out a method for tracking his fingers using the Wiimote's infrared camera. The basic idea is very similar to the iPhone and the Gesturetek technology I wrote about back in March.

Via MAKE.

Virtual Puppeteer Goes In To The Dragon's Den

Virtual Puppet, a UK company that "specializes in motion capture technologies and involves itself with the production of advertising, face to face experiential marketing and performance for theatre and live interactive television," was featured this past weekend on the British edition of Dragon's Den. For those unfamiliar with the show, the idea behind Dragon's Den is that entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to secure investment from a panel of business experts and self-made millionaires ("The Dragons"). The rules of the show stipulate that an entrepreneur must secure all of the financing they request from one or more Dragons or they go home with nothing. Virtual Puppet's Creative Director David Field appeared on the show to pitch the Dragons for £200,000 (roughly $410,000 US).

Virtual Puppet performs digital puppets at trade shows and retail locations using Alias' MotionBuilder software and the Gypsy motion capture system manufactured by Animazoo. You can see some examples of Virtual Puppet at work in the video above.

Wondering how David made out? Find out for yourself this clip from the show (sorry, but IE on a Windows machine required to view the clip).

Low Budget Real-Time Animation System

This is a very cool demonstration of a low-budget realtime animation system that Roland Dell'Mour developed for his diploma-thesis. The system uses Maya, PIE, a midi-motion-capture-server and several other tools. The neat-looking controllers are Saitek Cyborg EVO joysticks with game pads attached. I use Cyborg EVOs myself now for digital puppetry and I like them a lot.

Halloween Themed Digital Puppets Available To Download

Now this is a pretty cool use of digital puppetry and something fun for Halloween; a company called ImaginEERIEing sells some basic computer programs that display a digital puppet on a Windows of Mac computer that can be controlled using a keyboard or microphone. It's also possible to playback a prerecorded performance too. It looks especially effective when the computer screen is hidden in a facade like it is in the video above.

There are currently three different characters available. The "Magic Mirror" character seen in the video can be downloaded for free; there's also a skull and a talking pumpkin available for $15 US each.

Via The Odd-Lot Puppetry Company.

Henson Announces New Digital Puppetry Series

The Jim Henson Company is partnering with PBS’ KCET to produce a new educational digital puppetry series entitled What's the Big Idea? using Henson's HDPS real-time animation/digital puppetry system. The goal of the series is to promote science readiness in preschool children. Forty-eight episodes of the series have been ordered. The show is scheduled to debut in the United States on PBS stations next year.