MoCap for Artists

11 Puppetry Capture

Motion capture of puppets, or “puppetry capture,” is capturing a puppet’s movement that a puppeteer creates. Markers are attached to the puppet and the puppeteer’s motion is captured indirectly.

Physical puppets that you motion capture do not have to be real puppets. They can be anything that you can attach markers to. Digital characters that you apply mocap data to can be anything too. Anything from computer generated counterparts of real puppets to set pieces, props, shape-shifting geometries, changing colors and lights, etc.

In puppetry capture, a puppeteer manipulates a puppet with his/her hand. This motion may become a digital character’s foot or eye or something else. You have to think about your end character and what ...