I recently came across a neat bit of nerdiness – j. fernsler’s project where he is using Processing to issue commands to Maya using a wii nunchuck. j. fernsler says:
“After watching the behind the scenes features to the latest Star Trek, I was struck by a couple of things. First, how JJ Abrams created that heightened sense of energy by constantly drumming on the camera during takes. Second, how the guy at ILM (sorry didn’t catch the name) had an accelerometer on his desk to add in that drumming to cg shots.
Now, I don’t know how much that little device was used or the level of it’s role in the film, but I thought it seemed like a pretty good idea. I had been toying with using Processing to issue commands to Maya a while back and thought I should resurrect some of that now. I’ve got some history using an Arduino and a while back I picked up a little $4 connector to hook a Wii Nunchuk to it thinking it may be useful somehow in the future. I put two and two together and got this little app built in a couple days of free time.”
Check out the project on his site Mostly Finished, where he makes the files available for download. In addition to these files, you will need: Arduino with USB: $29, WiiChuck adaptor: $4, Wii Nunchuck, Arduino IDE: Free, Processing: Free, Maya: Not cheap!
