Once we have an armature for a character that is capable of all the functions we need to make the character believable,
the next step is to add actuators to actually make it move.
Actuators are the motors and pistons that drive the
movement of the character, kind of like the characters muscles.
There are three main types of actuators: pneumatic, hydraulic, and electric motors.
They create motion by different means and have different characteristics.
Pneumatic is actually one of the simplest and easy to do, even at home to get a pneumatic function running.
They're typically lower force than a hydraulic
or an electric actuation, and can have some squishiness or some springiness in
the in the action, but for some, some things we do, it's actually perfect for that, for the application.
Hydraulics on the other hand much more force in the same size,
so if we need some really dynamic or heavy loading or a very
responsive motion, hydraulics are the quick way to achieve that.
So electric motors on the other hand, they're, they're quite close to the amount of power you
can get to hydraulics. They're actually not quite as powerful per size, but
there's a fair amount of controls advantages, performance advantages.
Then you start thinking of the physics and and in the physics you start thinking,
"Okay, what is the inertia of these armatures?" And you know inertia tells you
how hard is it to move something and to keep it moving. And, and the the other
thing is how much force do I really need to make this move? And the other thing is
if this thing really heavy, because if it is I'm gonna need some really big motors
or hydraulics so all these things start coming playing together. And, and, actually
how do I combine all these things to make this move.
But no matter what type of actuator we use, there are only two kinds of motions they provide.
Linear motion, that is motion along a line, like an up-and-down, or an in-and-out.
Or rotary motion, that is a spinning motion. The magic is how we combine these
basic motions in our armatures in order to breathe life into our characters.
When we did Davy Jones, it's a mixture of electronic and hydraulic.
We use hydraulics for the really big movements, the really big things that had to move
or had to move fast the arms, the body, all of those those big functions are hydraulic.
But then, like, facial functions, and facial moves, and hands, those are electric.
The future of animatronics is electric. The electric actuators are
getting so much better that we can do some amazing new things and much smaller
packages and with much greater detail of movement.
Jake's neck has a simple armature in it. It is a stack of motors and brackets that work together to give
him all the expressiveness that you see. One motor is just responsible for
turning the head, like this, and turning the other two motors along with it. And
then one motor is responsible for just tilting his head, like this, and another
motor is responsible for just tilting his head, like this, and those three
motors and the order in which they're positioned, determine how Jake can move
and what kinds of expressions we can get out of him.
So the tiny life figures are eight-function animatronics it's an all-electric figure. So every
motor inside these little guys are electric so it's got a nose up and down,
that's the first one, we've got full motion in the head so we have a head rotate.
We also have tilts and up and down and those motors actually sit
inside the characters tummy. And there's two rods that help us get all of that
motion. We have a squash and stretch, which makes the whole body kind of
squish up and go up and down, which ends up being super critical, we think, for
kind of being able to express emotion. We have a body
tilt side to side, that they can get close to their friends. We have a lean
forward and a lean back, so that people, you know, they can really lean in and say
'Hi' to people that they see. And then we have a tail wag in the back.
One of the challenges of creating great animatronic characters is balancing creative demands with technical feasibility. s\
Rocket's wrists are really, really tiny. They're
like the size of a penny. And unfortunately, they don't make motors that small.
Generally speaking, an arm will have, a fully functional arm, will
have about eight functions we only really had space to put two motors to
accomplish all his arm functionality. So, we had to figure out a way to make
Rocket have arms, that even though he only had two functions, make it look like he had eight.
Basically was like this, so Rocket's arms are posed like this in kind
of a, like, you know, off angle things. So this arm was capable of moving this way,
and then this part was split over here, and he could move this way.
And if you pay attention when you're animating and in kind of just make sure to follow arcs
and various things that look more natural. You can kind of get these
swinging functionality things that look like you're getting a fully functional
arm. So there's a part of the show where Rocket turns and he's like, you know, and
you guys need to help me with the thing. And we basically just have him, he swings
around like this, and most people see you and they're like, "oh yeah, he totally
pointed at me," and yet none of his fingers moved. His wrist didn't move. His
His shoulder didn't move. He just has this one capability here, and this other one.
But linked together, you get something that's more fluid and looks like it's totally working the way that you would expect.
Remember, each function is there for a reason.
It helps to deliver the performance that tells a story -
a story that connects with guests. In the next exercise, we will provide you with an animatronic simulator.
that will allow you to build a digital armature for your character.
When choosing your functions, think about why each function is
important to be able to tell the story driven performance for your character.
Whatever you make, just have fun!