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Virtual Ventriloquist

 Ventriloquist uses this for shows. Kids play with it. No new hardware needed.
 
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This is a software project for a bunch of computer students, or for the open source community (if it survives the attack).

Version 1 is a muppet (or a Microsoft Agent) which responds to tones. When you want it to talk you turn on the microphone and talk in its name.
It moves around as if it is saying something.
When your tone goes up, it raises its eyebrows for instance.
When "listening" it could scratch its ear, open its eyes wider every once in a while, or sneeze.

No need for glove, or any other device to control this.

Version 2. Takes the voice that's coming through the mic, distorts it (with a chosen distortion like pitch up) and emits the sound from a panned speaker (e.g. the left speaker). You could put the compuer screen and speaker over there and talk (with a remote mic) over here.

Version 3. There could also be some kind of controler so it knows when its activated and when not. Then it could react to what people are saying, and insert a "yeeesss" every once in a while or an "uhum..."

—pashute, Jun 04 2003

PeoplePutty http://www.haptek.com/
[Amos Kito, Oct 04 2004]

Custom animatronic band http://www.halfbake...0animatronic_20band
Not really the same thing at all, but perhaps what [DrCurry] remembers. [phoenix, Oct 04 2004]

The dummy pulls the ventriliquist's strings http://us.imdb.com/Title?0077889
[thumbwax, Oct 04 2004]

[link]






       So it's not a "virtual ventriloquist", but a "virtual ventriloquist's dummy"?
—phoenix, Jun 04 2003
   

       I thought we did something kinda like this before (an animatronic speaker). But I can't find it.
—DrCurry, Jun 04 2003
   

       personal in product:audio?
—po, Jun 04 2003
   

       PeoplePutty [link] can lip-sync, but it uses your pre-recorded voice. It's not live. They have a software developers kit -- that may be a good place to start!
—Amos Kito, Jun 04 2003
   

       Ventriloquism, when done right, makes it look like the ventriloquist is not doing the talking. What do all these technical bells and whistles have to do with creating that illusion?   

       Am I missing something?
—snarfyguy, Jun 04 2003
   
      
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