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From issue #002 | October 2018 | This article is offered by ANIS – WeAnimate
Tech:
Robots – and how the robotics sector could learn from animators. "The best example of applied animation principles in robotics I have seen so far, is Anki’s Cozmo. This cute little robot was developed as a collaboration between mechanical designers, AI experts and animators, resulting in a tiny device, able to express many of the key values of good animation in a physical body."
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Working as a character animator, I believe that my primary mission is to convey emotions and intention through appealing movements, most often on a screen. This requires skills
that are difficult to acquire and that need to be continuously refined through a lifetime of training and hard work. The skills of a character animator include an understanding of visual storytelling through body language, a comprehension of what movements and expressions humans perceive as appealing, as well as knowledge of full-body mechanics and motion analysis. Most of the time, these complex skills are applied almost solely in advertisement, movies and games. As an animator who has now moved into robotics, I have realized that many of those skills and principles have direct uses in this field as well. However, neither the animators, nor the roboticists are aware of it. One example where animation principles are highly valuable, is in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) and especially the communication from robot to human. This generally goes through regular mediums such as text, lights or sounds, but more recently, robot body language is being investigated as an option. Try to imagine the following scenario: A robot butler is standing ready for action and being requested to open a door. The solution from an entirely engineering perspective is that the robot receives the instruction, calculates its plan of action and then executes it, plain and simple. A different solution, using HRI principles, could be the following: The robot receives its instruction, looks up at the instruction-giver to show it recognises that it is being spoken to and by whom. It then calculates its plan of action with a ‘thinking’ posture. After successful planning, the robot would first look in the direction of its destination, the door, yielding information about its intent and allowing nearby humans to act accordingly. The robot then executes the plan, moves to the door, opening and finishing with a nod back towards the instruction-giver, indicating that it believes the task has been completed. |
on two Hollywood movies and as animation supervisor on a larger advertisement campaigns.
Welner has subsequently taken a degree in Biomedical Engineering, focusing on Bio-Inspired Robotics. He recently completed his master’s thesis in Neurorobotics, on controlling robots with a bio-mimicking, simulated brain and simulated muscles. |
