It's a "new look" because the Dwarfs on the Mine Train won't be the purely practical animatronics we've seen until now on so many Disney theme park attractions, with sculpted features driven by mechanical processes. On the Mine Train, the Dwarf animatronics will blend mechanical features with 3D computer animation, apparently projected upon the mechanical animatronics themselves.
From what some insiders have said privately, it's getting these animatronics timed just right that's been keeping the park from getting the attraction ready to open to the public, rather than an issue with the ride system itself. But as the movie industry long ago moved to CGI (computer generated imagery) to get the widest range of detailed effects in film, perhaps it's appropriate that Disney's now turning to CGI-style elements to make its signature animatronics appear even more lifelike.
Insiders also report that once Disney nails down these effects on the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, it will might begin adding these "CGI animatronics" on other attractions, starting with the Fantasyland dark rides.
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I suspect that reliability of these will, in fact, be higher than the average animatronic.
These AAs can depend on projection instead of moving parts of the face/mouths of all these AAs. This should reduce mechanical issues and increase the reliability.
I also suspect they are able to use a bank of high power LEDs in the projectors powering these AAs. In the past a high wattage bulb with high temperature and resulting low lifetime was required. These possible LEDs should provide a high degree of reliability as a single LED outage does not cause an outage.
Just throwing out some ideas of where technology is today, and how it might impact this ride.
I hope that was sarcastic TH...Disco Yeti anyone?
I think the figures presented in the promo video look great. It certainly shows what can be done with the technology, and could provide an excellent advancement for existing attractions, especially in terms of better seeing and understanding what characters are doing in terms of the narrative.
However, it does nothing to bolster the impression that Disney is falling behind in terms of delivering attractions in a time sensitive manner. Many understand the need for doing something right, but there's something to be said for a pretty small roller coaster that takes over 3 years to build.
I'm more impressed with mixing projections with animation than Universal making everything based on film with screens. A movie projection will always be a projection on a screen, never anything more convincing than that. But animating on top of moving figures is pretty mind-blowing.
Yes, Universal relies heavily on 3D screens, but man, they sure know what they are doing. The final 2D screen of FJ where everyone is cheering your return, looks 3D without the use of glasses.
I'm sorry. Disney doesn't get any slack on this, and they need to get on the ball, because there are a lot of guests out there that are growing frustrated with the extremely slow pace of construction and development at WDW. Disney does do a lot of unconventional stuff, and keeps a number of items in house that others would typically subcontract. However, that is no excuse for taking years to develop announced projects and then another 3-5 years to build them. Rome wasn't built in a day, but it shouldn't take 3 years to build a kiddie coaster, no matter how detailed the theming or complexity of the animatronics.
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