newatlas.com: A system combining robotics and animation software to create lifelike humanoid characters has been demonstrated in a new video by Engineered Arts. Dubbed Mesmer, the technology promises the entertainment industry cheaper results by pulling disparate technologies into a single package designed to work seamlessly together.
2 comments:
It's simply amazing how far technology has been able to come, but the one word I can describe what I read about in this article is as follows: creepy. I'm all for developing systems that make it easier for animators or designers or scientists or anybody to mimic human movements and create as they will, but as someone who gets easily spooked by mannequins who are clearly unrealistic, this is incredibly frightening. As I was watching the videos I was in awe at the ability to create what almost look like animated characters, but moving and in real life, not on a computer screen. I think back to movies like Tintin which used motion capture and lots of money to create high resolution animation for their characters and sequences and how amazed I was at the attention to detail put in. Now animation can still occur, but the animators would now have much more control over the subject. Although what worries me is the roles being reversed. The creators make the motors silent, so it doesn't even outwardly sound like a piece of technology; plus the casting and molding is so beautiful and realistic that if you were ever in a place where you needed to point a robot (because of life or death you know) I don't think that task would be as easy as it was before.
I'm not sure whether this animatronic is eerier with or without the skin. It's pretty amazing, in any case. I wish we could see the components better—it looks like the neck uses a set of 4 (or more) motors that push or pull individual rods running through a series of plates. I wonder how well it would work in a live performance setting, though, with dust and haze and who knows what else. And furthermore—how possible would it be to repair one on-site? I'd assume that for any production that requires (and can afford) one, they'd have a spare to run if the primary went down, allowing for the primary to get sent out for repairs. Even then, though, how long would it take to repair, and how long would the production be solely reliant on the backup animatronic?
Post a Comment