※ What is the Animatronics?
What exactly is an animatronic? Basically, an animatronic is a mechanized puppet. It may be preprogrammed or remotely controlled. The animatronic may only perform a limited range of movements or it may be incredibly versatile.
Animatronics is a compound word of two or three words.
The Two words are Animation and Electronics. Can you guess the meaning of it?
As the word represents, we can see it in movie, TV , Amusement park ,museum and so on. Animatronics gives a live to the machine. Sometimes It makes a new creature. I will show you some pictures for better understanding.
In movies
* Dinosaur in Jurassic park in movie.
* Gremlins
* Terminator
* ET
* King Kong
*
In CF
In Amusement park
Then, You may want to know how the animatronics is made.
I will show you some pictures with explanations as a example.
animatronic, requires several major steps:
1. Put it on paper.
2. Build a maquette (miniature model).
3. Build a full-size sculpture.
4. Create a mold (from the sculpture) and cast the body.
5. Build the animatronic components.
6. Put it all together.
7. Test it and work out any bugs.
The first thing that happens with any animatronic is that an artist creates preliminary sketches of the creature
Build a Maquette
From the final paper design, a miniature scale model called a maquette is created.
This maquette is then used to produce the full-size sculpture.
Big as Life
Once the sketches and models are done, the full-size building begins
Molding and Casting
A set of molds are made of the full-sized sculpture. The molds are made from an epoxy that is very durable and has strong bonding characteristics.
Creature Creation
Mechanical - SWS engineers design and build the mechanical systems, which includes everything from basic gears to sophisticated hydraulics
Electronic - Another group develops the electronic control systems needed to operate the animatronic. Typically starting from scratch and creating their own custom circuit boards, these engineers are essentially building giant remote-controlled toys
Structural - All of the electronic and mechanical components need something to attach to and control, and the skin must have a frame to maintain its shape. This is done by building a plastic and steel frame
Surface - The "skin" of the Spinosaurus is made from foam rubber, which is a very light, spongy rubber that is made by mixing air with liquid latex rubber and then curing (hardening) it
Putting it Together
As I show you, all animatronics are made and we can feel it as a real creatures.
I think animatronics is the powerful method which makes our Korean Si-Fi movies more competitive to survive in the world movie market. CG is helping the animatronic creatures looks more real. But, I think CG is limited to make viewers feel the sense of the real even though nowadays it is well developed.
Ok~ this is all I prepared for today~ Thanks for your carefulness.
Do you have any Questions? Plz don't ask me about technical things~ ^^;
I don't know well either.