"Disney's robot of its character "Olaf" is incredibly impressive. It's also kind of terrifying. This weekend, engineers at Disney Research Hub published a paper describing how they brought the beloved talking snowman from the "Frozen" films to life as a walking robot - and boy did they succeed. In a video explaining their work, you can see footage of the robot Olaf, true to its size in the movies, roaming around a Disney park and the lab."
"To describe it as uncanny would be harsh, since it does near-perfectly emulate pretty much everything about the character, down to its subtle waddle. But you are left with the distinct impression that what you're seeing shouldn't be physically possible; you wouldn't expect someone with the eyes and proportions of an anime character to step in the real world, and it's much the same for a 3D-animated snowman. And yet here it is, waltzing before your eyes."
Disney Research engineers built a life-size walking Olaf robot that emulates the character's appearance, gestures, and gait. The robot walks true to the movie proportions, with a large head on a tiny neck and concealed lower limbs hidden inside a snowball torso so only the feet show. Engineers fine-tuned a heel-to-toe gait to match Olaf's subtle waddle and made the robot interactive: it can smile, wave, gasp, cackle, and respond when its carrot nose is removed. The design balances faithful character fidelity with physical constraints, creating a lifelike yet uncanny embodiment of an animated snowman.
Read at Futurism
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