Henson's Skrumps premiere on Yahoo Kids

[MGov]

I think the far more interesting part of the Skrumps is that it renders in real time. When the puppeteer is performing the character is when you see the character. On the "Jim Henson Hour" episode "Secrets of the Muppets", he showed a computer generated character they were using (was it called Waldo? don't remember) and when he performed the character live, it was very rough animation because the computers at that time weren't able to render it fast enough, in real time.

Now the computers are a million times faster* and can instantly render the character as it is performed.

So it is now possible to have a live animated television show! The puppeteers are the animators and they can perform the characters instantly.

Wrap your head around that.



*"a million times faster" is a rough estimate. Your mileage may vary.

 

[Super Scooter]

Yeah, the Henson Digital Performance System is incredible! I'm liking some of the stuff they're doing with it.

You can now take a look Behind-the-Scenes at Henson.com.

 

[beaker]

I wish this was being done with puppets(personally), as the cgi looks...well I guess cgi over at JHC hasnt changed much since 1989 for some reason.

Is it me or does the cgi look way over a decade old or older?

Wishbone's "in your face" attitude screams 1998, but I dig the mokey like "Raisins".

Is the article correct in that they created puppets originally?

 

[PopoverFroggy]

My thoughts so far:

Not a big fan of the videogame character aesthetic in a TV show. Also, the movement is not as compelling as good animation, good puppetry, or bad enough to be funny like South Park or Team America. Then again, there have never been any real-time CGI star characters yet, and if this show gets picked up, we could finally witness the birth of one.

I'm not sold on the whole show idea yet, but I think it's because we're looking at a quick "Let's show what we can do" reel, not a fully-written, developed sequence. If you ever watch the pilot for the The Muppet Show, you'll see what I mean -- lots of potential, but you don't get behind the characters yet.

Julie and Victor are wonderful performers, so with enough time and a good writing staff, I think there's hope.

 

[GelflingWaldo]

Four new Skrump videos were posted on Yahoo! Kids in July.

http://muppetnewsflash.blogspot.com/2007/08/more-stuff-from-skrumpland.html


Check 'em out!

 

[GelflingWaldo]

Three more Skrumps videos were posted last week.

http://muppetnewsflash.blogspot.com/2007/09/dreaming-skrumps.html

Check 'em out!

 

[dwayne1115]

Well after watching a few shows i think I would love to see Muppet world brought back. they had some wonderful little shows in CGI that looked great, anyone rember that.