Slashdot Mirror
Linux Powers Digital Muppets
Darren Alcorn writes "Red Hat and Jim Henson have teamed up to bring you digital animatronics through the use of Red Hat Linux." I bet thats a fun system to see in operation.
The article is light on technical stuff, but discusses the computerized puppeteering system
a little.
kernel the frog
I can't believe it's not lard!
RedHat has restored Jim Henson to life? I KNEW linux was miraculous ! !
Z
enough is too much
All right! The Muppets meet Linux! What could be cooler.
We're going to make information free Mr. Anderson, whether you like it, or not.
So let's see the Hensen Creatureworks bring Tux to fully animated life!
www.eFax.com are spammers
As I recall Jim Henson is dead. Its quite the shame. Also I was under the impression that his company "Jim Henson Productions" had been sold off to the highest bidder. Do they even exist anymore?
J
I love idealists not because I am one, but because they make life bearable for pragmatists such as myself.
I understand the main characters have been renamed to 'Kernel the Frog' and 'Miss SWIGgy'. ;-)
Ugh, such poor puns. But it's Linux, so it's OK.
I'm tired of waltzing for pancakes - Gwen Mezzrow
Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
"For its recent hit "Shrek," DreamWorks used Linux servers to create detailed images for the movie." - I thought that another report said that Linux boxes were just used for the rendering - not the actual creation.
Video Game cheats, hints a
The article is rather vague, so maybe I'm not getting this right (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). But it sounds to me like they're saying that they're actually doing the work on software running under Linux? I'm just sort of wondering.. where are they getting this software? Last I checked there's not a huge abundancy of high-end digital animation production software floating around for Linux. It took me awhile to find software that would suit my own purposes for audio recording. Even then, I can do everything and about 3 times more on a Mac with ProTool/Logic or on a PC with SoundForge/ProTools/Cakewalk...
I mean, not that I'm criticizing... it's major step forward for these companies to crank enough power out of RedHat servers to power a production studio. But the article is little more than a vague plug for Linux without some sort of specifics about what exactly is going on.
Sorry... can't resist... seeing as this fell right after the article on transformers... does this mean that the new transformers will run under RedHat? Will Kermit know how to use them? The world may soon know...
The Internet, one place where if you're not right, someone else will set you straight... maybe.
You may want to amend that to Jim Henson Studios. I'm not sure he'd approve of this deal anyway.
one segfault ha ha ha
two segfaults ha ha ha
three segfaults ha ha ha
-- The Count
I might be out of the loop, but isn't Jim Henson Studios owned by Disney, or at least the intellectual rights to the muppets?
Isn't that a case of strange bedfellows -- Linux and Disney. Wonder what Hollings thinks about this anti drm OS handling such precious, marketable creations.
http://cincyboys.blogspot.com/ Everything Cincinnati. Including the word 'Finnih'
Don't people think before posting a headline? Obviously, read the story before posting... But, come on, that headline is pretty bad... Red Hat is contacting the dead?
considering Jim Henson died a few years ago.. RedHat must have some crazy voodoo magick or something..
And Oscar the Grouch now lives in a core dump.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
AMD!
How's that for underdog geekiness. When I was at SIGGRAPH last year, the AMD booth had a display booth with a dude using the the Henson "Muppet-tronics" platform running on a AMD-Powered Linux workstation. I think the control software said something like version 0.8. It was pretty neat.
Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati
The other day something awful had to remove a parody of Muppet movies, with funny things like "DAS BERT" instead of "DAS BOAT," etc. Kyanaka received a letter, which is shown here.
Needless to say I was shocked to see that someone who was making no money form parodying the Muppets, which are simply carpeting glued to wood, was asked to remove parody content.
I would be very careful if I was RedHat. Its funny how companies like the Church of Scientology (The cult I mean) have more lawyers after the leader dies, in the SOC case, Hubbar croaks, and people are marauding around using racketeering and extortion on "worshippers." Such is the case, to a smaller degree obviously, with Henson. Because the magician, the creator, the worthy one is dead they assemble a cabal of lawyers to viciously and rabidly attack anyone "using" the franchise because they now are charge with protecting against something that is non-Novel, replaceable, duplicateable, old. On another note, Tolkein's son, who tries to "continue" the LOTR franchise by printing his father's notes, was against the move LOTR. JRR's grandson was for it. Its time to let go, and let more creative people take a stab at things sometimes - we are all glad that JRR's son wasn't able to stop the movie. Excerpt - I think some stories are meant to be read, not to be seen. Before seeing this Oscar-nominated movie, Tolkien's son Christopher said, "My own position is that The Lord of the Rings is peculiarly unsuitable to transformation into visual dramatic form." Filmmakers disagree. Two sequels based on Tolkien's Rings characters, filmed at the same time as The Fellowship of the Ring, are scheduled for release in 2002 and 2003. Ah, yes. The franchise cometh.
I really hate when opportunists feed on the carcasses of things. This sort of activity as displayed by the Muppets franchise is so completely wrong. Its not as if Disney was slandering Henson, or parodying and making money off the parody. This company will go so far as to harass independent site owners on the web, they have lawyers trolling to make trouble. I cant say how upset I am at the Henson franchise.
My letter to Henson:
Legalize the constitution. Think for yourself question authority.
Mrs. Bob (Todd): Oh, thank you both so much for finally having us over to your new place.
...(?)... Mrs. Bob: That's awful, eating run-over muppet!
Steve (Mike S): Well, we are so happy you could be here.
Kerri: I'm going to the kitchen, would anybody like anything else?
Bob (Ken): Yeah, yeah. Could I get some more of this neon blue...I think it's meat?
Kerri: Sure Bob. Bob: What is it, it's terrific!
Steve: Isn't it? Bob: Yeah.
Steve: We never had any until we moved to the area, but now we are hooked!
Mrs. Bob: Is it fish? Kerri: No, it's muppet.
Bob: I'll be darned. I didn't know you could eat muppet.
Kerri: Well, yeah, it was Steve's idea. We backed over one our first night here. Bob: Huh?
Steve: Yeah, the little guy was learning his numbers off the licence plate, and it seemed like a waste to bury it, so I said, "Hey, let's fry it up!"
Bob: Waste, not want
Kerri: Oh, no. We didn't run over this one. Steve's become quite the hunter, haven't you sweetie?
Steve: Honey... Kerri: Why don't you show 'em?
Steve: All right. Bob: Come on Steve, (mumbles)
Steve: You're gonna love it, you're gonna love it.
(out the window) I sure could use some help counting to four.
Muppet: Well, we could start by counting the legs on our table. Wha-ooww! (As Steve breaks its neck)
Bob: Oh no. Now, I'll never know how many legs a table has.
All: (laugh) Bob: Hey, they got a lot of meat on there.
Kerri: Oh, but that's a green one. Try for a blue one, Steve. We only have red wine.
Bob: Oh, ooh! Can I try? Would that be okay? Steve: Sure, yeah.
Bob: I wanna give it a shot. Gee, the bus station is far. I wonder what's near.
Big Monster Muppet: Near. Steve: Show us...far.
Big Monster Muppet: Far.... Steve: Yikes! Bob: I was full anyway.
Kerri: Why don't you take one home as a pet?
Bob: That's a great idea.
Steve: The kids will love it! Boy, I sure do wish I knew how to tie my shoes...I may trip...I wonder what words start with the letter "O"...I wonder...
David: Well, let's sing the "O" song, then. And it's gonna help you tie your shoes, too. Did you know that I love that letter "O" Tie up my old shoe-
Mrs. Bob: (over David's singing) I'm not taking that home to my son, because I'll end up cleaning up after it.
David: Hey, let's sing a song about Oregon, Oh!
OH!!! (as Steve breaks his neck.)
Kerri: Stay for desert? Bob: Sure, always have room for that.
With all of these gaping holes that Red Hat's linux installs by default, will this allow me r00t Snuffleupagus? Should I make everyone's favorite wooly mammoth go on a muderous rampage down 123 Sesame St.?
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
Way back when, I worked for a company that made (almost as a sideline) Animatronics! One of our clients (In fact, it may have been the only one) was Sesame Park. We made a couple of "Oscars" and "Cookies", and the muppeteers came in to program them - Our breakthrough was the teaching machine. Very cool.
The system was all analog, with the signal FSK recorded onto 30 minute carts. I spent a week each spring recording new carts from the masters. 20 hours of listening to Cookie, 20 hours listening to Oscar
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
Microsoft has been powering the puppets in D.C for ages.
--
Im glad they are calling Linux by its proper name: The Operating System
Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
they've been doing this for years - look at this
Good grief moderators. When will you figure out that posting the text of a story in a comment is NOT informative? It's redundant at best, and a copyright violation at worst. Please quit encouraging this!
Says they chose Redhat due to the RHN software update feature... obviously they haven't used it recently
The two grumpy guys up in the balcony are now Ballmer and Gates.
The real article wasn't misleading, but the
slashdot synopsis is. Jim Henson Studios did not
"team up" with redhat. Redhat is just giddy over
the fact that JH's Studios bought a bunch of
copies. I like seeing linux advance as the rest
of us, but comon. Lets go with REAL advances.
If Mercedes Benz bought 2k copies of XP for their
existing servers, we woudln't say MB teams up with
MS.
You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.
Back in 1988, Graham Walters and I, at PDI, built a system in collaboration with Jim Henson and his creature shop, and with Kirk Thatcher (who since went on to greater things at Henson), to build the 'Waldo' character for The Jim Henson Hour. The idea was that this character would be controlled by a waldo, which would sense the position, orientation, and mouth angles, and display the character, blue-screen keyed onto the image on the screen in real time.
The beauty of this system is that Henson puppeteers always work by watching their images on TV monitors, so this kind of digital character wasn't even second-nature to them -- it was exactly how they'd been performing characters all along. Among the nice things about Waldo is that he didn't have to hang out at the bottom of the screen with all of the rest of the other puppets. This system was implemented and run on an old Power Series SGI borrowed from Sheridan College.
I saw Davey Goelz (Gonzo, and others) at Siggraph this year, at the Henson booth on the show floor. They're selling a somewhat improved version of the same waldo mechanism that we used 14 years ago. Davey got us out of a jam on the first Henson Hour show, as somehow we lost the mouth-opening information from the tracks that Henson recorded on the set. Davey lived right near us at PDI, and came down and laid those back in, mimicing Jim's style. I don't think that he ever found our, and it's tragically too late now.
Anyway, The Jim Henson Hour was too good, and perhaps a little too different, for American TV, and only 12 episodes were ever made.
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
Does anyone else remember Waldo, the CG Muppet? Let's hope he doesn't make it into a patch of OpenOffice.
"It looks like you're writing a letter! Whoopeee!"
char sig[120] = "\0"
I said it before, and I'll say it again - we need some new moderation categories:
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
Kudos to redhat and all the production studios who are willing to buck the trend and push linux. Next up are all the T.V. production studios. It make take a while for it to all trickle down to the average desktop user, but rest assured linux has a bright a/v future.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
This just conjures up some unsavory images that I'd rather not think about....Those poor, poor muppets... :-)
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
Great, perhaps Linux can help Miss Piggy stop crashing.
I think the muppets are great, let's just hope they can get the writing to where it once was.
And "Cats and Dogs" was mismarketed and not the good.
Come on.... I've been using Kermit in Unix for close to a decade now.
Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag
It's supposed to read:
He's dead Jim. I can't do anything for him.
Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor, not a puppeteer (as he ducks his two heads under one foreleg, and kicks Jim with his rear leg).
First, Something Awful makes a Muppets Photoshop Phriday.
Second, the Jim Henson Company orders SomethingAwful.com to cease and desist their Muppets Photoshop Phriday.
The Jim Henson Company was using Linux to send that email!
What does this mean, you ask? Well, folllowing an infallible line of deductive logic, it is not too hard to see that Linux is an evil entity, bent on crushing free speech. Damn you Linux!
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you.
Hell, my daughter still cracks up over the post last month about Yoda facing the Count.
:)
"One, Two, Three. Three Jedi, ha ha ha."
Five year olds are so strange.
It's all coded in perl with the Mod::Ressurection package.
Don't mess with Elmo. He was far more influence and power than you think.
As for Disney, if my history is correct, right before Jim Henson died, he was negotiating to sell the studio to Disney but, after his death, his sons nixed the deal.
Green Frog Linux!
I can't believe it still shows the logo I did three years ago when I couldn't draw. *blushes of shame*
(FYI, http://www.webhost.cl/~lugonzal/ doesn't exist anymore. It's now http://www.lgm.cl/) :)
--- Sueños del Sur - a webcomic about four young siblings
This stuff is really neat to see in person. Using HDPS, a trained puppeteer can create computer graphics facial animations in realtime that might take a team of animators several weeks. There are some images of our system in use available.
You can email me (dhelfman at la.creatureshop.henson.com) if you've got any questions.
"Red Hat and Jim Henson have teamed up"
They must be using the Johnathan Edwards API hack.
Jim's Dead Jim
Ever notice how if a /. story is about anything Linux related that the zealots come out en masse and mod down almost 50% of the comments? This thread is a good example.
The growing trend of censorship by the left (which Linux advocates certainly qualify for) is frightening. We rely on the Left to provide progressive and enlightened contributions to the betterment of society. Censorship, in any form, flies directly in the face of this.
What are the Linux zealots so afraid of? To read that someone thinks their OS sucks? This is ridiculous. Regardless of your choice of an OS, there are millions of geeks ready and chomping at the bit to inform you that your choice sucks, is miguided, ignorant, facsist, criminal, etc...
Linux is failing because the Linux community has been growing increasingly dysfunctional and childish. It was a compelling option for a desktop OS a few years ago but for some reason things have gotten seriously broken in the open source world.
I am advocate for open source and the philosophy behind it. We need to leverage our democratic right for the public to own its own property. But there needs to be a serious reality injection into the open source community. They need to understand the dynamics that make software appeal to the mass market. They have utterly and completely missed the ball on this one, imho.
mje0w!!!1!
I was lucky enough to see that particular feature before it was pulled. It wasn't the best Photoshop Phriday, but it was rather large and had a few gems. My favorite? A reworked Dirty Harry poster starring The Sweedish Chef. "Do yoo veel looki, POONK?!"
So anyone got a mirror? I hope I can't get sued for describing or asking for a "copyright-infringing image." I probably can.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
Well, this may be their big chance...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I will now eat a rubber tire to the tune of "cat /dev/urandom > /dev/audio"
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
Maybe I've just had a long day, but the first line from the story: "Red Hat and Jim Henson have teamed up..." gave me quite a chuckle.
I mean no disrespect; Jim Henson was an amazing man and created some of the most memorable moments of my young (and older) life via The Muppet Show. When I went to college in the late 1988, me and my dorm buddies used to sit around and drink beer from 6:30 to 7:00 and watch reruns of The Muppet Show, then rush off to the dining hall to grab dinner before they closed at 7:30. Those are some of my fondest memories of college.
I also just recently re-watched "The Dark Crystal" on DVD, remastered, and it's even more beautiful seen as an adult.
Looks like the Simpsons foretells the future again...[#AABF20 "Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo]
... when I worked at Loki, I gave a talk at a LUG (San Gabriel was it? I lived in OC at the time so I didn't know the area at all) in the LA area that was modestly attended. At the end a fellow from Jim Henson's shop came up and chatted Scott and I up, and even invited us to come out to their studio and check things out. We never got around to it, but I wish I had, and of course this article doesn't surprise me as a result of meeting him.
m.
"Sebastian you're in a mess. They called you King of all the Hipsters, is it true or are you still the Queen?" -- B
Redhat also announce the new network called a Ouija board net /dev/belief must be full using GPrayer or the AfterLifeStep Window Manager
it allows users to talk to the dead in a similar manar to ethernet
howver in stead of the standard tools ifconfig
stiffconfig or ifcorpsfig must be used
it only works if the computer really believes so
It is believed the KDE team are already working on a KPrayer, but unlike GPrayer, which was built from scratch, KPrayer is really only a hack on top of WMAfterlife
a spoksmen said "we believe that this give linux and redhat the edge it has already allowed us to sigg this deal and we are talking to the funding farthers drying to get you must use linux as part of the constitution and moses to add the as the 11th commandment"
Ever notice how if a /. story is about anything Linux related that the zealots come out en masse and mod down almost 50% of the comments? This thread is a good example.
The growing trend of censorship by the left (which Linux advocates certainly qualify for) is frightening. We rely on the Left to provide progressive and enlightened contributions to the betterment of society. Censorship, in any form, flies directly in the face of this.
What are the Linux zealots so afraid of? To read that someone thinks their OS sucks? This is ridiculous. Regardless of your choice of an OS, there are millions of geeks ready and chomping at the bit to inform you that your choice sucks, is miguided, ignorant, facsist, criminal, etc...
Linux is failing because the Linux community has been growing increasingly dysfunctional and childish. It was a compelling option for a desktop OS a few years ago but for some reason things have gotten seriously broken in the open source world.
I am advocate for open source and the philosophy behind it. We need to leverage our democratic right for the public to own its own property. But there needs to be a serious reality injection into the open source community. They need to understand the dynamics that make software appeal to the mass market. They have utterly and completely missed the ball on this one, imho.
mje0w!!!1!
This is terrible!
When did Red Hat die?
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I was at the first MuppetFest in December 2001. One of the best weekends of my life. I saw this technology in action for about a half hour. It was one of the highlights of the festival.
Dave Goelz (Gonzo) and Steve Whitmire (Kermit) were on the right side of the stage, standing in front of these really-big-college-refrigerator-sized boxes, each containing a computer, and topped off with a control system and video monitor. The control system was basically the metal exoskeleton of a puppet head. They also had access to a keyboard and some other control, but they weren't highlighted.
They were just improving with Kemit and Gonzo for a half hour straight, on this big screen. These guys are freaking hysterical with their characters. We were blessed with about six hours of live improvisation during the whole festival...the puppeteers sitting on the stage, with their characters in their lap, just talking with each other and with us. Watching them in video form was no less magical. As I said, it was one of the highlights of the festival.
As far I could see, and as we were told...
The control system, to the puppeteer, feels exactly the same as when they use a normal puppet. Probably 80% freedom of movement, compared to an actual puppet. Of course, it is ultimately attached to the computer, but it was designed from the beginning to be as expressive and comfortable as possible.
To move a character around in its environment requires extra programming. During the demonstration, you only saw Gonzo and Kermit standing side by side. Extra programming is also required to do more complicated things, like moving individual fingers in a realistic fashion.
(Steve Whitmire was showing how he could move Kermit's finger, flexing his pointer finger back and forth for, like, fifteen seconds. Everyone quickly realized that the finger was right over his crotch, and started laughing. Steve was quite embarrassed :' )
Even cooler still: This system can be hooked up to a piece of software (to control virtual muppets, as I described) or to an animtronic device. This was also demonstrated.
They brought out the cat from the movie Cats and Dogs. The cat was sitting on a table, with five (!) people underneath it, each controlling an appendage (everything but the head and neck). The actual puppeteer's performance was recorded. The main computer/control mechanism was not to be seen. The cat performed a song, which I guess was in the movie (but since I refuse to see the movie, I can't know this for sure).
It was really cool. The cat's head and neck was controlled by the "recorded" performance, and he was belting it out like a real broadway singer.
Then the curtain pulled even farther out, and you saw that the performer was there. Singing and puppeteering. During the whole last verse of the song you saw both him and the cat. One moment in particular, the performer was really into his singing, and was leaning back and squinting his face, and you saw the cat having the exact same expression. So amazing.
(Kermit and Gonzo looked just fine, as we were watching them live on screen. But we we told that the performance can be recorded (SAVED, right?) and then the images can be rendered to look even more realistic. I personally was surprised, cause they looked perfectly acceptable to my eyes. Not to mention the backgrounds and clothing that can be added... One other thing this system makes possible: Puppeteers could be spread across the country, but perform their characters on the same screen, in all/just one of those locations. Wow.)
To see a few pictures, go to MuppetCentral. Here's the specific page (get there by clicking on "Articles" in the left-hand toolbar and then "MuppetFest" towards the top right).
Click on "MuppetFest Photo Gallery", which pops up a new window. Choose "Day Two" from the drop down, and then go about fifteen pictures forward. The first picture of note is the cat on the table. The next four or five pictures show the animitronic cat and then the virtual Kermit and Gonzo.
Here's a search on Google that shows a bit more information: http://www.google.com/search?q=henson+virtual+pupp eteering&sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0.
Linus sounds exactly like the Swedish Chef!
Unfortunatly, Bill Gates sounds exactly like Kermit.