3D Puppetry

3D Puppetry: A Kinect-based Interface for 3D Animation

Teaser Frames

Who we are:

Robert T. Held
Ankit Gupta
Brian Curless
Maneesh Agrawala

What we made:

To create a 3D animation, one usually has three choices: take time to learn complex, keyframe-based animation software, invest in an expensive motion-capture setup, or capture a simple video of a physical puppet show. We provide an alternative that combines strengths from each of these options. Our system allows puppeteers to directly perform animations using physical toys in front of a Kinect depth sensor. Our system tracks the puppets in real time and re-renders them in a virtual scene using stored 3D models. We combine the ease-of-use of a physical puppet show with the 3D camera and lighting controls afforded by animation software. Even novices with no prior animation experience can produce entertaining shorts after using our system for only 30 minutes.

This site is desiged to share our code and allow home users to try our system. We include links to the video and article detailing the system, as well as instructions on how to download and install the software.

Watch the video:

Read the paper:

Please see our Project Website to access a PDF of our UIST 2012 publication, as well as more example videos.

Try it out:

1)First, download and install our code and get your performance space setup.

2)Then go through our tutorials to make movies or add your own puppets to the system