PuppetTime

An intriguing expansion of Quicktime has come to light recently. PuppetTime is an expansion of Quicktime that will allow it to use "digital actors," rendered on the user's computer but controlled by a script contained in Quicktime.

Um ... What's so interesting and what are you saying, anyway?

For a full understanding of what I am talking about, head over to PuppetTime's Website. But I'll see if I can give the general drift here.

The way Quicktime is currently, if you want to watch a play - say Hamlet - to view it on your computer someone has to go to a showing of Hamlet with a video camera, tape the entire event, convert it to a Quicktime movie and then have you play that movie. With puppettime, what happens is that some puppets are defined, the way they walk, talk, look and act, then "PuppetScripts" are sent to these puppets - things like "walk there," "wave," "speak this," - these "PuppetScripts" would contain the full script for our play of Hamlet, and the "Puppets" would act our the play for us.

The benefits of this is that all these commands are just simple script, they are not full picture renditions like a move would be. They are extremely small in size and can be easily sent down the Internet. Also, the PuppetScripts can be created in real time, i.e., as the program runs, so they are ideal for things such as games. Puppets can react to the current state of gameplay. Game designers can have characters in their games that react to the user, no more cut scene movies with little or no relation to the current game. Best of all is that puppettime is an expansion of Quicktime, so it is immediately available to all programs that make use of the Quicktime architecture.

And the downside is?

The characters are all created on the user's computer - not too much of a problem for those using G3's or 3D accelerators (the puppets are created in the quicktime 3D environment). For those of us with slower computers, however, we will be restricted to using low-quality puppets with fewer "lifelike" movements.

The Puppets will be restricted to voice "bubbles" (like in cartoons) or computer-generated voices - anyone for Apple's "Fred" voice as Hamlet? Lifeless, emotionless, and with that lovable ability to spell out any word not in its lexicon ... shudder .. anyone else reminded of school English classes on Friday afternoon?

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