Humanoid USB Posing Mannequin for Skeletal Animation

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By Sean Michael Ragan
Posted 2011/07/25 @ 9:00 am
Category Art & Design, Computers & Mobile

Clever idea from Japanese firm SoftEther, whose press release is available in English onlyvia machine translation as of this writing. The video pretty much conveys the idea, however. QUMA is rather like an artist’s figure-drawing mannequin with sensors in the joints that report all the articulations through a USB cable. Appropriate software can then position a character’s rigging to match, which seems like it would be both faster and more intuitive than dragging bones around a screen with a mouse.

In the Maker Shed

20 Responses to Humanoid USB Posing Mannequin for Skeletal Animation

bleppie on July 25th, 2011 at 4:38 pm said:

The Dinosaur Input Device gone public! Created for Jurassic Park, used in many films since by Tippett Studios.

Paper: http://bit.ly/nD0MOh or http://bit.ly/p55fpV or http://bit.ly/qFu34O

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bleppie on July 25th, 2011 at 4:38 pm said:

The Dinosaur Input Device gone public! Created for Jurassic Park, used in many films since by Tippett Studios.

Paper: http://bit.ly/nD0MOh or http://bit.ly/p55fpV or http://bit.ly/qFu34O

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Al Roderick on July 25th, 2011 at 4:46 pm said:

I could swear I saw something like this in the future tech section of Popular Mechanics (or possibly Science) in the 90′s. It had fewer joint axes and worked over a serial port, and I think that it didn’t work in real time, rather it “polled” the joint sensors over the course of a second or so when triggered. It was also bigger, and up on a desk armature.

I’d like to see this implemented with adjustable or replaceable longbones in the limbs, at the very least, so you can tune the proportions of the device to a variety of character sizes. Anime proportions vary even more than living humans, but this seems set up for a 90th percentile teenage action hero(ine) with an oversized bobble head. Or perhaps the company plans to offer multiple variants for different body types if this takes off.

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- kalleguld on July 25th, 2011 at 8:13 pm said:
  
  As I see this thing, it’s mostly about the joints. So even if your character has long arms and tiny legs, there’s no reason it shouldn’t work for most things.
  Maybe it will have a problem if you want it to touch its own limbs (touch its toes with its hands, etc), but you still have real-time response from your screen.
  Anyway it still beats doing this with your mouse by a far stretch
  
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Chad Vavra on July 25th, 2011 at 7:36 pm said:

Great for roughing it, but no way you’re going to squash or stretch that thing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_basic_principles_of_animation

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Chad Vavra on July 25th, 2011 at 7:36 pm said:

Great for roughing it, but no way you’re going to squash or stretch that thing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_basic_principles_of_animation

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Chad Vavra on July 25th, 2011 at 7:36 pm said:

Great for roughing it, but no way you’re going to squash or stretch that thing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_basic_principles_of_animation

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kalleguld on July 25th, 2011 at 8:17 pm said:

Read the headline: There’s no way you are going to squash or stretch a skeleton

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Anonymous on July 25th, 2011 at 9:46 pm said:

Genius! When I was learning to draw, I got a copy of Poser, and it drove me nuts, since it had no constraint. Pull the arm through the shoulder? Sure, why not! You can easily fix it up, right?!? This thing would just completely obviate that whole hassle.

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Anonymous on July 25th, 2011 at 9:46 pm said:

Genius! When I was learning to draw, I got a copy of Poser, and it drove me nuts, since it had no constraint. Pull the arm through the shoulder? Sure, why not! You can easily fix it up, right?!? This thing would just completely obviate that whole hassle.

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Anonymous on August 4th, 2011 at 9:05 am said:

I WANT ONE NOW!!!!!!!

Seriously people, you are worried about skeleton stretching???? You get handed the perfect drawing and modeling interface, and you still have to b*tch about it? Your program will handle the proportions, be they squashed, stretched, anime, human, even troll. the models proportions are entirely up to you, but this will let you pose any human pattern skeleton. You are confusing a software ability with a hardware interface tool.

Imagine comic artists being able to make a comicbook in hours, with total character consistency from frame to frame. Or artists able to make animation by simply making “key poses” and letting the computer do the frame by frame.

This just made pen and pencil art obsolete.

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Kari A. Hintikka on August 4th, 2011 at 9:07 pm said:

Cool tool for #3D human animation: Humanoid USB Posing Mannequin for Skeletal Animation from SoftEther via @make

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Anonymous on August 24th, 2011 at 6:52 am said:

This innovation with animation makes it more clever and easy to use. Animation software is the tool used by these animators to create stunning graphics and real-like pictures and movies. There are many animation software available in the market and some have been proven to create high quality animation. The level of creating animation has stepped up.
————
Lerry
expert on Illusion Mage Review

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Anonymous on August 24th, 2011 at 6:52 am said:

This innovation with animation makes it more clever and easy to use. Animation software is the tool used by these animators to create stunning graphics and real-like pictures and movies. There are many animation software available in the market and some have been proven to create high quality animation. The level of creating animation has stepped up.
————
Lerry
expert on Illusion Mage Review

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Promotional Items on September 6th, 2011 at 9:01 am said:

As we see it, especially in the joints. So even if your character has long arms and legs, tiny, there is no reason to not work for most things.

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Water Testing on September 20th, 2011 at 9:46 am said:

That is great … a 3D posing animation . Great idea and it must would be enhance by the makers in future.

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Water Testing on September 20th, 2011 at 9:46 am said:

That is great … a 3D posing animation . Great idea and it must would be enhance by the makers in future.

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Water Testing on September 20th, 2011 at 9:47 am said:

Its great idea and would be enhanced in future I hope.

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Water Testing on September 20th, 2011 at 9:47 am said:

Its great idea and would be enhanced in future I hope.

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Water Testing on September 20th, 2011 at 9:47 am said:

Its great idea and would be enhanced in future I hope.

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