Combining Leap Motion with Unity for Virtual Glove Puppets

Abstract

The performance of glove puppetry relies on the players to control the puppet. Glove puppetry is an important traditional art in Taiwan. In the past, it even became very popular and took the whole Taiwan by storm after it broadcasted. On June 25th, 1974, it even be closed down for the reason of "retarding the work schedule of agricultural workers". Obviously, the degree of the popularity in Taiwan went without saying then. Recently, because of the expensive cost of this traditional performance (such as professional stage, high cost puppet, and long preparing time for performance), it becomes uncompetitive. For the following paper, we provide a method which can let users control the virtual puppets through the computer. The Leap Motion will catch the hand gesture of the user and show the motion of the puppets on the computer screen. User can choose different puppets, scene and music according to your own preferences though the system that we construct. Virtual glove puppetry system is aimed to make more users to enjoy the pleasure of this traditional art in a lower cost.