Disney and Universal both filed patents this week for projecting faces onto moving animatronics
Projection mapping on a fixed surface, like a castle facade, is old news for theme parks. Doing it on something that moves is the harder problem, and this week both Disney and Universal filed patents that go after it from different angles.
Universal's filing, titled "System and Method for Projection Mapping Actuatable Objects," describes coordinating a projector onto a moving character and syncing the video and audio so they read correctly to a guest watching from a fixed seat. A second Universal filing, "Dynamic Projection Mapping Using Tag Array," adds RF tags to the character so the system knows exactly where it is and can trigger the right animation at the right moment. The likely real-world target is Dr. Victoria Frankenstein, the animatronic in the Monsters Unchained preshow at Epic Universe.
Disney's filing, "Neural Shape Deformation Transfer," takes a different approach: a machine learning model that reshapes video of a face so it projects convincingly onto the contours of an animatronic's face. The patent points to the example already running in the park, the transforming pirate in Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland, whose face now plays out the full curse story in one continuous loop: he finds the cursed coin, the spell freezes him into a skeleton, his arm drops the coin to free him, and greed pulls him back to grab it again.
Worth noting for anyone doing this kind of fabrication work: two competitors filing conceptually related patents in the same week usually means the underlying problem, keeping a projected image locked onto a moving, deforming surface in real time, has just become tractable enough that multiple teams solved it independently.
Hollywood Studios' Audio-Animatronics Olaf gets an opening date
Disney confirmed this week that The Magic of Disney Animation, the reimagined Animation Courtyard experience at Hollywood Studios, opens September 14. The building is designed to echo the Roy E. Disney Animation Building in Burbank, right down to Mickey's sorcerer hat on the facade, and sits inside a new area of the park called The Walt Disney Studios.
The centerpiece for animatronics purposes is Olaf Draws!, an animation class hosted by a new Audio-Animatronics Olaf seated at an animator's desk. Guests learn to draw one of nine characters, and each character is paired with a real Disney Animation artist delivering pre-recorded instruction: Mickey Mouse with director Dan Abraham, Minnie Mouse with animator Hyun Min Lee, Donald Duck with animator Austin Traylor, Genie with Eric Goldberg, Moana with Samantha Vilfort, Stitch with Fawn Veerasunthorn, Olaf himself with Trent Correy, Ursula with Michael Woodside, and Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde with Byron Howard. Josh Gad recorded new dialogue for the figure specifically for this attraction.
The rest of the space includes Drawn to Wonderland, an indoor playground built around Mary Blair's original Alice in Wonderland concept art, and Off the Page, where guests encounter characters like Mulan and Rapunzel mid-animation-process. Olaf was first announced back in February; this week's news is the confirmed date.
New aerial photos show how far Universal is going on the Jurassic Park River Adventure rebuild
Jurassic Park River Adventure at Islands of Adventure has been closed since January, and until this week Universal hadn't said much beyond calling it planned maintenance. New aerial photos posted by @bioreconstruct on X, taken during a partial test-filling of the ride's waterways, are the clearest look yet at what's actually happening behind the walls.
The Ultrasaur, the long-necked dinosaur that greets guests near the start of the ride, has been stripped down to its internal framework, with the exterior covering removed to expose the mechanical structure underneath. That's a far bigger job than a routine refresh, and it points toward smoother, more capable movement when the figure returns; longtime riders have joked for years about how stiff its neck action had gotten. Nearby, the baby Stegosaurus has had sections of its face removed to update its own movement mechanisms, and the adult Stegosaurus has disappeared from view entirely, presumably getting the same treatment off-site.
The photos also settle a months-old rumor: Universal appears to be preserving the ride's original 1993 Jurassic Park identity rather than converting it to a Jurassic World theme, the way the Hollywood version did years ago with its Mosasaurus scene. Reopening is still targeted for November.