Using a puppet for motion tracking

[ErikAtMapache]

Here is a (rather crude) test I made using Anime Studio's video tracking.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCDwegroiPI

I snatched one of my kid's puppets and taped balloons to the top an bottom of its mouth. I then used a camcorder to record myself moving the puppet's mouth. I put the premiere elements and used a chromakey effect to black out the background and saved the new file. Finally, I brought the video into AS and used the balloons as tracking points for the head/body layer and the jaw layer.

I haven't seen any mention of this idea before, so I thought I would pass it on.

Erik

[Víctor Paredes]

It's very nice. Maybe I will use it with my cousins. You can create several simple characters and make the boys act and boom, animation!
Very nice.

[Danimal]

That was really cool!

[madrobot]

Cute.

Once I did a freelance gig making characters in Lightwave, rigged to be driven by nulls which were tied to motion data. They shot puppets on blue screen, the puppets were just skeletal frames with tracking balls on them. Anyway yeah Lightwave did my head in but apart from that it was interesting.

(Another software app which advertises something it can;t deliver. For LW it was "cloth physics".)

[rogermate]

I put the premiere elements and used a chromakey effect to black out the background and saved the new file. Finally, I brought the video into AS and used the balloons as tracking points for the head/body layer and the jaw layer.

Haven't tried motion tracking yet myself, but I don't think you need to chroma key it first. I think the motion tracking would be able to detect the balloons. Perhaps just a small dot, like a sticker, would work well. Balloons can wiggle around.

Cool test. And a great way to bring a wide range of ages and talents into a project.

[Víctor Paredes]

I just saw this
http://bryoncaldwell.blogspot.com/2010/ ... inect.html
It looks so cool. Let's dream you could make AS character and assign actions to it according to some gestures.