Medialab Paris was one of the very first production houses to explore digital puppetry.
Since 1989 Medialab team as built several dozens of real-time puppets and explore many different interaction techniques. MediaLab open a second house in LA, but what happen to all of this stuff ?
Here is a link to a very interesting documentary about real-time animation and Medialab´s production pipeline, a documentary directed by Pascal Tosi.
The Phenakistocope is a moving image toy or an early animation device developed by Joseph Plateau in 1841.
An early animation device consisting of a disc or drum which rotated, showing successive images through slits, often via a mirror, thus producing the illusion of motion.
‘phenakistoscope’ means cheat device
phenakisto = cheat
scope = device
Synchronous Objects is very interesting framework for visualizing choreographic structures from dance into virtual objects.
A detailed scientific approach to the art of dance emphasizing the benefits of data visualization in the understanding of the fundamental form of human expression.
Synchronous Objects is an unique project developed by the choreographer William Forsythe and Ohio State University””””””””s Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design (ACCAD) and the Department of Dance. Their goal was to create a visualization tools based on a very large set of data for understanding and analyzing choreographies. The quantification through the collection of data and the transformation into a series of virtual objects – synchronous objects – to explore choreographic structures and reveal their patterns. As the authors explain: “Our goal in creating these objects is to engage a broad public, explore cross-disciplinary research, and spur creative discovery for specialists and non-specialists alike.”
http://synchronousobjects.osu.edu
A music videoclip using the Wayang Kinekt from antonius (http://antoni.us/post/5155623291/nature-of-code-final)
An example of using digital puppetry in animation where novel technology meets the old traditional puppetry of Wayang.
Wayang Kinekt technology and animation by Antonius Wiriadjaja
Théâtre de Guignol numérique.
Guignol went to the virtual world. An impressive virtual puppet play developed by Wizarbox in 2009 for the Futur en Seine, an international digital festival in France.
They developed a virtual puppetry system using Wiimotes and Nunchucks as digital controllers plus voice for lip-sync.
Replacing the glove puppets by the video-game controller technologies, this theatre puts in scene virtual characters handled by the voice and the gestures of the puppeteer.
To meet one of the traditions of Guignol, a theatrical character created in the 19th century, Wizarbox developed 3D CGI characters that were very similar to the original ones for better identification. The way they were controlled was also similar to the way puppeteers handle Guignol puppets.
the public also had the opportunity to influence the story by interacting vocally with virtual characters.
Henson Digital puppetry studio
The state of the art of digital puppetry in television.
Henson company inherit the vision of is master puppeteer, Jim Henson. They are exploring new techniques to create performance animation and real-time shows.
They mix the optical with Waldo´s motion capture for body and hand performance.
Delicode release NI Mate 1.9 version, a great tool for digital puppetry.
It captures Microsoft Kinect sends the information via OSC or MIDI to animation, sound and game applications.
A very interesting idea to extend books making storytelling a real/virtual experience.
Made by Delicode, a Finland company that made NI mate, a powerful midware to be use in digital puppetry.
