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New Disney animatronics breathe convincing life into its 2D characters
Some of these robots move more organically than I do.
This week, the entertainment giant gave us another early look at the new audio-animatronics being prepared for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure — a retheming of the iconic ( and controversial) Splash Mountain ride — and the demonstrations so far have been breathtakingly impressive. They’re not as realistically lifelike as the Shaman that features in the Na’vi River Journey ride, but that animatronic was a groundbreaking feat of engineering in 2017 — it’s exciting to see technology that complex now being applied at scale around the parks. The free-roaming, chicken-like BD-X droids showcased by Disney Imagineering last year will be set loose at the Black Spire Outpost in Disneyland’s Galaxy’s Edge park between April 5th and June 2nd.
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