Animatronics
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Inside Imagineering Disney’s game-changing Audio-Animatronics
Tanner Rinke, principal show mechanical engineer at Walt Disney Imagineering, tells Park World about the Na’vi Shaman animatronic figure in Na’vi River Journey, a family boat ride that forms a central part of Pandora: The World of Avatar, which opened last year at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Incredibly lifelike, the Na’vi Shaman is one of the most complex figures ever created by Walt Disney Imagineering.
“Animatronics figures have long been a Disney differentiator and a rich part of our legacy,” says Rinke. “They are the most compelling and dimensional way to bring the illusion of life to our guests, and bringing characters to life is a key part of breathing life into our attractions.” The Shaman figure is the most game-changing
project Rinke has been a part of in his 10 years at Disney. “This animatronic figure pushed the limits on what we could achieve for realism, expression, and believable performance. To accomplish this, our team had to overcome numerous challenges in skin technology, motor technology, cable technology, motion control, and performance capture tools. And we had to make it as reliable as possible… which was a daunting task for an animatronic of such technical complexity!” One of Disney’s earliest and best-known Audio-
Animatronic figures was the Abraham Lincoln that appeared at the 1964 NY World’s Fair. “As we continue to plan the future of Disney’s animatronic technology, we still talk about the Lincoln figure and the team behind it,” says Rinke. “Truthfully, the risks that were taken with that figure and the pure passion behind it remains an inspiration to our animatronics
MARCH 2018
teams today. The illusion of life that the Lincoln figure delivered not only inspired our guests with an appetite for more, but also convinced Imagineers that we could indeed make these Audio-Animatronics figures possible! If it weren’t for the Lincoln figure and the legacy it left behind, we may not have gotten the momentum we are still carrying on today.”
Leslie Evans, project lead, Advanced Development in Disney Imagineering’s research and development department, answered Park World’s questions about the recently-installed Vyloo characters in the lobby of The Collector’s Fortress (queue line) of drop tower dark ride Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT!, which replaced The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror at Disney California Adventure last summer.
Interactive and autonomous, the Vyloos are three tiny, furry bird-like creatures that can uniquely respond to and answer guests as they walk through the queue line for the ride. “These characters came out of a project from Advanced Development focused on building small creatures that seem truly alive,” says Evans. “We’ve used a collection of simple sensors to make these characters interactive. They are aware of and can interact with our guests. That’s the magic of this project, when guests realize that the Vyloos are reacting to them. It’s allowing guests to play with our characters in new ways. Having real, physical autonomous robots in that space, especially ones that can interact with guests, gives that collection room a sense of life. The space seems more alive.” As a result, the team is also now able to think about its advanced robotics in terms of their
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There’s something special about seeing real, physical characters coming to life. Disney continues to do a fantastic job of bringing characters to life from the screen and the parks play a special role as a place where you can see those beloved characters in real life.
individual personalities, Leslie explains. “We’ve come so far with how well our physical characters can emote and now we’re able to program autonomous characters to move and respond to guests according to their personality. We can define a character as outgoing and curious in our tools and then, just like an actor, they know what to do. They move and respond with all the characteristics of those personality traits.”
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