Sesame Street’s First CG Muppets Made with Autodesk Softimage

For the first time in the show’s historic 40-year run, Sesame Street will feature a computer-generated and animated character in “Abby Cadabby”.

“Until now, Sesame Street used exclusively hand-driven Muppets. We went the CG route with ‘Abby’s Flying Fairy School’ so that we could bring to life all the wonderful physical action our writers envisaged — such as underwater scenes,” explained Carol-Lynn Parente, executive producer at Sesame Workshop. “As well, the CG format allowed us to produce many online game options for SesameStreet.org, extending the broadcast experience.”

SpeakeasyFX got the gig to create “Abby”,a nd her with Autodesk Softimage and the “Interactive Creative Environment” to generate the magic effects.

“We feel fortunate to have collaborated with SpeakeasyFX on ‘Abby’s Flying Fairy School’,” added Sesame Workshop’s Parente. “They developed the digital characters with fantastic furry detail. Doing the series in CG, using Softimage software, provided the freedom to showcase different types of storytelling, while preserving what viewers of all ages love about ‘Sesame Street’.”

Catch a glimpse of Abby after the break.

via “Sesame Street”: First Animated Muppets Made with Autodesk Softimage Software | Press Releases @ Your Story.

This story written by Randall Hand

Randall Hand is a visualization scientist working for a federal research lab, aiding researchers to discover the insights buried within their terabyte datasets generated on some of the most powerful supercomputers in the world. He also runs VizWorld.com .