WILLIAM C. CULBERTSON - News Blog

Board of Directors of The Puppeteers of America

9/28/2025

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Bill Culbertson has been elected to the Board of Directors of The Puppeteers of America.

Bill has also been voted by the Board to the Executive Officer position of Treasurer. The three year term will include work towards the National Puppetry Festival and working to promote the growth of the organization.

Autodesk University Speaker

9/16/2025

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Bill Culbertson has been selected to be a guest speaker at Autodesk University, 2025. His talk, Releasing the Power of the "CAT" in 3ds Max for Animating Video Game Character Loops, is adapted from his textbook, 3ds Max Basics for Modeling Video Game Assets, Volume 2.

The Character Animation Tool (CAT), built into Autodesk 3ds Max, is a versatile system for creating dynamic character animation loops designed for export into game engines like Unreal and Unity. With CAT, you can build custom rigs—including characters with multiple or non-standard limbs—without the hassle of manually placing footsteps. Using the intuitive CATMotion editor, you’ll learn how to quickly develop and tweak essential game animations like idle, walk, run, jump, and die. CAT also supports integration with custom motion data, making it ideal for both original content creation and iteration. Whether you're a game developer or an educator working with students, CAT empowers even beginners to produce polished, expressive animations full of personality and emotion. In this session, we’ll walk through the fundamentals—from rigging a mesh to exporting animation-ready FBX files—so you can confidently add CAT to your game asset pipeline.

Puppet Time at Boston Children's Hospital

8/12/2025

Bill Culbertson has started Puppet Time at the Seacrest Studios. The monthly hour-long show features characters from Pollywog Pond. The variety show, with the Seacrest Studio staff creates a positive diversion for patients and families.

Seacrest Studios at Boston Children’s Hospital opened in 2014 in collaboration with the Ryan Seacrest Foundation. Seacrest Studios is a radio and television studio that broadcasts on Channel 19 The Hub. Our studio is located on the main campus in the main building, first floor, near the gift shop and pharmacy.
Seacrest Studios is the physical place where we broadcast from, and Channel 19 The Hub is where we broadcast to. Channel 19 The Hub is a closed-circuit TV network (CCTV) that is only available on hospital TVs at Boston Children’s Hospital on the main Longwood campus and at our Waltham campus.

Textbook Goes into Second Edition

7/1/2025

"3ds Max Basics for Modeling Video Game Assets, Volume 1" has gone into its second edition. The book, written by Bill Culbertson was first published in 2019.

The current edition has updated information and for the current program edition. There is a companion site at www.3dsMaxBasics.com to support the reader with files, updates and corrections.

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"Mastering the Green Screen"

11/2/2024

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Bill Culbertson was an invited speaker at “Puppet Homecoming 2024” the biannual regional puppetry festival to held for the first time in the commons section of Ithaca, NY.. This festival featured 7 unique shows, 21 different workshops, street performances, a Puppet SLAM (short form curated adult themed puppetry performances), a Potpourri (an open mic for puppeteers), a public puppetry store, and a parade.

Culbertson's talk was "Mastering the Green Screen" for broadcast video. The talk featured Culbertson's studio setup for videoing puppets for his PBS children's show, Pollywog Pond."

Pollywog Pond Nominated for Two Emmy Awards

7/1/2024

Whooplah has been honored with two 2024 Regional Emmy Award Nominations from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences! The series has been nominated for an Emmy in the WRITER - LONG FORM CONTENT category for writing and a nomination for an additional Emmy in the MUSICAL COMPOSITION/ARRANGEMENT category.
Thank you and congratulations to the entire team for their efforts!

The series, written and produced by
Bill Culbertson for Rhode Island PBS
features puppet characters in the Pollywog Pond video game environment.

Telly Award for Excellence

7/14/2023

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Pollywog Pond has been awarded a Telly Award for excellence. The award recognizes Whooplah's children's puppet show produced for Rhode Island PBS.

The series can be found on PBS.org or on the Pollywogpond.com website.

2023 Serious Play Conference Speaker

6/3/2023

Bill Culbertson is an invited speaker at this years Serious Play Conference to be held in Toronto, Canada. The session topic will be "Pollywog Pond: From a Video Game to a Television Show."

Juror for Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts (AIVA)

2/1/2023

William Culbertson has been invited to serve as a juror for the Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts (AIVA).

The AIVA awards include the Communicator Awards, the Davy Awards and the W3 Awards.

Invited Guest Speaker: Pony Friends Forever Conference

11/4/2022

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Former Hasbro Director of Sculpture, Bill Culbertson was an Invited Guest Speaker at the Pony Friends Forever Conference, in San Antonio, Texas. As a sculptor of the My Little Pony for Hasbro, Culbertson was responsible for the initial pony sculpture patterns, hand-sculpting the popular ponies. Culbertson went on to lead the sculptural development of the Pony line for three years in the mid 1980's. At the keynote speech, Culbertson discussed the early development and challenges encountered while developing the line.

In the conference expo, Culbertson signed Pony relief sculpture castings, raising $2000. used to purchase two high-end video game computers with game peripherals for the Ronald McDonald house in Providence, RI.

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