Computer Puppetry

Overview

Computer puppetry transforms the movements of a performer to an animated character in real time. The immediacy of computer puppetry makes it useful for providing live performances and as a visualization tool for traditional cinematic animation. However, this immediacy creates a number of challenges, as solutions to animation issues must be handled in an on-line, real-time manner. A computer puppetry system must capture the movements of the performer, interpret the important aspects of this motion, and determine the movements required to make the character reproduce these important aspects of the performance. Our goal is to map as much of the important aspects of the motion to the target character as possible, while meeting the on-line, real-time demands of computer puppetry. We explores the notion of dynamic importance that allows us to determine what aspects of the performance must be kept in the resulting motion.

Video

    PangPang, Dance instructor for children's TV shows (9.39 MB)

     Aliang, News reporter (21MB)

Publications

• Hyun Joon Shin, Jehee Lee, Michael Gleicher, and Sung Yong Shin, Computer Puppetry: An Importance-based Approach, ACM Transactions on Graphics, volume 20, number 2, 67-94, April 2001.
  PS(9.3M) / PDF(11M)

Personnel

• Hyun Joon Shin (KAIST)

• Jehee Lee (Seoul National University)

• Michael Gleicher (Univ. of Wisconsin)

• Sung Yong Shin (KAIST)

[Last modified : Feb 11, 2003]