ANIMATRONIC | definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary

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Mechatronic puppets

Animatronic figure of the character Chuck E. Cheese in operation at the Laguna Hills, California Chuck E. Cheese location, September 14,

An animatronic is a mechatronic puppet[1] controlled by a machine to move in a fluent way.[2] They are a modern variant of the automaton and are often used for the portrayal of characters in films, video games and in theme park attractions.

It is a multidisciplinary field integrating puppetry, anatomy and mechatronics.[3][4] Animatronic figures can be implemented with both computer and human control, including teleoperation. Motion actuators are often used to imitate muscle movements and create realistic motions. Figures are usually encased in body shells and flexible skins made of hard or soft plastic materials and finished with colors, hair, feathers and other components to make them more lifelike. Animatronics stem from a long tradition of mechanical automata powered by hydraulics, pneumatics and clockwork.[5]

Before the term "animatronics" became common, they were usually referred to as "robots". Since then, robots have become known as more practical programmable machines that do not necessarily resemble living creatures. Robots (or other artificial beings) designed to convincingly resemble humans are known as "androids". The term Animatronics is a portmanteau of animate and electronics.[6] The term Audio-Animatronics was coined by Walt Disney in when he started developing professional animatronics for entertainment and film.

Modern use

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Modern day animatronics play much less of a role in society than they used to, advances in CGI mean animatronics don't need to be used to do things humans can't, with screens and televisions being a more popular option for entertainment, they have been used less as a draw for consumers. However, animatronics still have their place.

Usage in theme parks

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Commercial usage

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The Meta Quest 2 Super Bowl add uses animatronics to promote the re-branding of the Oculus Quest line of VR headsets.[1]

The ad shows the animatronic band members from a fictional restaurant named Questy's in a quick montage of their lives. Going from a frequented restaurant to having the characters abandoned on the highway and picked up by the meta company where they reunite in VR.[7][8]

Other uses

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A Billy Bob animatronic with a child at a ShowBiz Pizza Place

History

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Animatronics in films

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The film industry has been a driving force revolutionizing the technology used to develop animatronics.[36] Animatronics are used in situations where a creature does not exist (like Five Nights at Freddy's), the action is too risky or costly to use real actors or animals, or the action could never be obtained with a living person or animal. Its main advantage over CGI and stop motion is that the simulated creature has a physical presence moving in front of the camera in real time. The technology behind animatronics has become more advanced and sophisticated over the years, making the puppets even more lifelike.[citation needed]

Animatronics were first introduced by Disney in the film Mary Poppins which featured an animatronic bird. Since then, animatronics have been used extensively in such movies as Jaws, and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, which relied heavily on animatronics.[37]

Directors such as Steven Spielberg and Jim Henson have been pioneers in using animatronics in the film industry; a film co-directed by the latter, The Dark Crystal, showcased groundbreaking puppets designed by Brian Froud and created by Henson's then recently established Creature Shop in London.

The film Jurassic Park, directed by Spielberg, used a combination of computer-generated imagery in conjunction with life-sized animatronic dinosaurs built by Stan Winston and his team. Winston's animatronic "T. rex" stood almost 20 feet (6.1 m),[38] 40 feet (12 m) in length[39] and even the largest animatronics weighing 9,000 pounds (4,100 kg) were able to perfectly recreate the appearance and natural movement on screen of a full-sized Tyrannosaurus rex.[40]

Jack Horner called it "the closest I've ever been to a live dinosaur".[39] Critics referred to Spielberg's dinosaurs as breathtakingly &#; and terrifyingly &#; realistic.[41][42]

The BBC miniseries Walking with Dinosaurs was produced using a combination of about 80% CGI and 20% animatronic models.[43] The quality of computer imagery of the day was good, but animatronics were still better at distance shots, as well as closeups of the dinosaurs.[43] Animatronics for the series were designed by British animatronics firm Crawley Creatures.[43] The show was followed up in with a live adaptation of the series, Walking with Dinosaurs: The Arena Spectacular.[citation needed]

Geoff Peterson is an animatronic human skeleton that serves as the sidekick on the late-night talk show The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. Often referred to as a "robot skeleton", Peterson is a radio-controlled animatronic robot puppet designed and built by Grant Imahara of MythBusters.[44]

Films focusing on animatronics

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Short films

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• The Hug, a horror short film directed by Jack Bishop and Justin Nijm, and starring Nick Armstrong and Roman George, follows a bratty birthday boy at Pandory's Pan Pizza Palace, a ShowBiz Pizza Place-like restaurant, who has an awkward situation with Pandory the Panda, the pizzeria's giant panda animatronic mascot. It premiered at Hulu as part of its "Huluween" film competition.

Television

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Advertising

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The British advertisement campaign for Cadbury Schweppes titled Gorilla featured an actor inside a gorilla suit with an animatronically animated face.[citation needed]

The Slowskys was an advertising campaign for Comcast Cable's Xfinity broadband Internet service. The ad features two animatronic turtles, and it won the gold Effie Award in .[47]

Toys

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Some examples of animatronic toys include TJ Bearytails, Big Mouth Billy Bass, FurReal, Kota the triceratops, Pleo, WowWee Alive Chimpanzee, Microsoft Actimates, and Furby. Well-known brands include Cuddle Barn, PBC International, Telco, Sound N Light, Nika International, Gemmy Industries, Tickle Me Elmo, Chantilly Lane and Dan Dee.[citation needed]

Design

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There are quite a few ways to build an animatronic, however most follow this basic structure:

An animatronics character is typically designed to be as realistic as possible and thus, is built similarly to how it would be in real life. The framework of the figure is like the "skeleton". Joints, motors, and actuators act as the "muscles". Connecting all the electrical components together are wires, such as the "nervous system" of a real animal or person.[48] Steel, aluminum, plastic, and wood are all commonly used in building animatronics but each has its best purpose. The relative strength, as well as the weight of the material itself, should be considered when determining the most appropriate material to use. The cost of the material may also be a concern.[48] Several materials are commonly used in the fabrication of an animatronics figure's exterior. Dependent on the particular circumstances, the best material will be used to produce the most lifelike form. For example, "eyes" and "teeth" are commonly made completely out of acrylic.[49]

Some examples of different methods of building animatronics are Chuck E. Cheese's studio c animatronic, made of latex rubber, metal, and plastic supported by an internal skeleton[50] and on the other end of the spectrum is the all metal bunyip animatronic in Australia, using water to actuate the characters mouth.[51]

Materials

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Movement

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Pneumatic actuators can be used for small animatronics but are not powerful enough for large designs and must be supplemented with hydraulics. To create more realistic movement in large figures, an analog system is generally used to give the figures a full range of fluid motion rather than simple two position movements.[59]

Mimicking the often-subtle displays of humans and other living creatures, and the associated movement is a challenging task when developing animatronics. One of the most common emotional models is the Facial Action Coding System (FACS) developed by Ekman and Friesen.[60] FACS defines that through facial expression, humans can recognize six basic emotions: anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, and surprise. Another theory is that of Ortony, Clore, and Collins, or the OCC model[61] which defines 22 different emotional categories.[62][dead link]

In Disney revealed its new animatronics robot that can breathe, move its eyes very much like humans, and identify people around it in order to select "an appropriate" response, as opposed to previous Disney animatronics that were used in purely scripted, non-interactive situations, like theme park rides.[63]

Training and education

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Animatronics has been developed as a career which combines the disciplines of mechanical engineering, casting/sculpting, control technologies, electrical/electronic systems, radio control and airbrushing.[citation needed]

Some colleges and universities do offer degree programs in animatronics. Individuals interested in animatronics typically earn a degree in robotics which closely relate to the specializations needed in animatronics engineering.[64]

Students achieving a bachelor's degree in robotics commonly complete courses in:

• Mechanical engineering
• Industrial robotics
• Mechatronics systems
• Modeling of robotics systems
• Robotics engineering
• Foundational theory of robotics
• Introduction to robotics.[

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In popular culture

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Animatronic characters appear in both films and games, most notably in horror genre and survival horror video games that generally features possessed animatronics as antagonists.[65]

Games

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See also

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References

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Footnotes

Sources

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