Animatronics - hiding the supports

I’d love to be able to hide the supports and bases for all the animtronics to make them look as though they were real. Another checkable box with this option would be great!
 
Totally agree.

The hydraulic support poles ruin the look of the animatronics in some cases. They are also applied inconsistently, the "Tomb Mummy Grab" for example does not have a support. The skeletons don't have supports, and all the bugs and spiders and some crocodiles are allowed to look "realistic" with no visible support mechanism.

Look up the new "stuntwoman zombie idle", the pole looks ridiculous because she is bent forward. I mean, come on... what is their purpose? It's 2018 and technology now should allow for animatronics to be advanced enough not to need a big ugly pole support for a single character standing there doing not much!

Also the new "stuntwoman police fall" animation and others do not have any supports, yet "Stuntwoman police idle" does have a support.
 
Agree. i never see a pole coming out of jack sparrow his ass on the POTC attraction. And now there are a lot of animatronics with the same sequance, just differt looks. Why not a neutral caracter and when you place it you can choose the looks of it. A pirate woman/man, police woman/man, etc etc. On this way you can add simple a animatronic and you dont have to search between all these caracters.
 
Agree here, the "bum pole" is what I've been affectionately calling it.

I think it has its place, but I fully support at least the option to remove it, its by far the largest reason why I avoid using animations at all. I understand the stylistic reason why they are there but if we are to use the argument that real animatronics behave like this nowadays we would be slightly disingenuous. I also agree that there is kind of a lack of consistency, some animatronics that you would think would need the bum-pole don't have it, while some you don't think would need it do have it - I think this more than anything is my largest gripe with it. I just like things being consistent :)


However I think we're missing the larger suggestion here in that menus are quickly becoming incredibly cumbersome as they get bigger and bigger. We just had 100+ animatronics added and they just clunk up the menus now. I think if anything is to change with animatronics I would massively encourage the effort to be put into organising them better, with of course the dream scenario being that these 200 ish animatronics are pulled down to a couple base models which can then be further skinned up into costume/animation etc without it taking multiple screens worth of menu clutter.
 
In addition to your reply Zakman;

It would be great to have submenus for the animatronics (if choosing style is impossible).
So a submenu with all the zombies, police, etc.

A toggle for animatronic supports would be lovely. I do also avoid them because of the 'Bum Pole'.
 
I must admit, the 'bum pole' gets right up my er..... (you can figure it out!)

Take the 'sitting down' people. A lovely posture ruined by a massive square plate that is nigh on impossible to hide. Why do they need this plate, they are just sitting.

I think it is time that the 'bum pole' is removed from ALL models and for those that need some sort of guide (as in the swimming crocs, hippos, sharks etc), you have a transparent 'guide' that is not physically attached to the model - like the new chase cars.
 
I think Frontier is moving in this direction. Not sure if anyone has noticed yet, but the huge mechanical support box that is under the original characters is now a flat metal plate for the new characters...so even if there is still a pole up the butts, it really isn't connected to anything 'real' under the ground. One step closer. I understand why people are saying its weird, but remember this was done to show some detail and realism that a robot would need some mechanical method to be moving. There are probably some art directors and devs that this is near a dear to their hearts and it may take some time for a migration away from this....but as I stated...looks like this is starting to happen.
 
Last edited:
I think Frontier is moving in this direction. Not sure if anyone has noticed yet, but the huge mechanical support box that is under the original characters is now a flat metal plate for the new characters . . .

It's great when they implement improvements on the new stuff, but that rarely extends to the old stuff. Yeah, I'd like all animatronics with a box and/or bum-pole to have a visibility-toggle for 'em.
 
I agree.

Also I could easily make some very rude comments about the poles but I'm not ready to get banned yet. [wink]
 
I completely agree. Most modern animatronics have their supports and wiring done up through the feet, no need for an additional pole. For those with animations (especially the hovering!), the pole placement could certainly be less obtrusive - middle of the back, for instance, rather than, well, "bum pole".
 
I think Frontier is moving in this direction. Not sure if anyone has noticed yet, but the huge mechanical support box that is under the original characters is now a flat metal plate for the new characters...so even if there is still a pole up the butts, it really isn't connected to anything 'real' under the ground.

The new sitting down architect has a box under his plate
 
I agree too. In every park you have real stuntman and others actors, which are not animatronics. It would really be great to choose with a click, if the supports are visible or not. So we could let our animatronics sit on everything ithout covering the supports etc.
 
I agree too. In every park you have real stuntman and others actors, which are not animatronics. It would really be great to choose with a click, if the supports are visible or not. So we could let our animatronics sit on everything ithout covering the supports etc.

hcTOuyK


That's two of the older pirates with one of the new Studio pirates -- happy as I am to have more women represented, the new "less obtrusive" style is sometimes worse. Letting us turn off visibility for all visible animatronic equipment would resolve this with the least workload for the devs.

Edited to add: for some reason the image isn't showing this time -- here's the link: https://imgur.com/hcTOuyK

Edited to add: Happy Easter, happy April Fool's day, this is not a prank or joke.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom