Hi eco_bach1,
this is a very basic question. It depends on what you want to do (what is your input, can you control the lighting, the scene - and what is happening in it, what is your desired output, only simple movement right to left or complex things...). Probably you want the puppet react to the movement of people? Detecting people and their sceletons is what the kinect was made for, so without it, it will be more difficult.
There are some powerful tools out there to process images. OpenCV just to name one. You can use them to achieve very impressive things. But you'll have to develop an idea how to do it and build it yourself. Maybe the programming reacts to differnet colors you are wearing (gloves, elbows, shoulders) and face detection.
So the answer to your question, also very basic, is: Yes there are even many ways of doing it. But it is probably much easier with a kinect.
If you want to do without, I'd receommend you look into openCV and do a basic search on face recognition, color regognition, skeleton regognition and stuff like that to find examples and other tools also.
Hope this helps a little bit at least.
Have a good day!
oe (christian)
