Volks Robotic Dollfie Dream

See this page: http://www.dreamnews.jp/press/0000124132/

 

Check out the video links at the bottom of the page, or if you are lazy here's a direct link to the channel.

 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnASlMqaC5dVBxXqx6NkMxQ

 

If anyone who speaks Japanese would be willing to translate this a bit more fluidly than Google Translate it would be awesome!

Wow that's cool! You can see how it works in this video from that channel, which is because of that giant base that lets it have enough torque to pull all those strings (literally),

 

 

I would have my Miku dance 24/7 on that thing. Can't wait to see more as it develops!

Oh this is fascinating. If this develops enough I may have a reason to pick up MMD again.

While I like that Volks is doing this (since Danny isn't) I can't help but wonder why MMD. I don't have interest in a randomly flailing doll. I was looking forward to the "smart" doll that has audible and/or physical prompts for things like new email or tweets or whatever other social media type things. Am I weird for this standpoint, or do most people like the idea of a doll with MMD movements?

My Japanese is by no means perfect, but I skimmed through the page and it mostly talks about how previously it's been difficult to apply this type of technology in dolls because of size and weight issues... and they also talked about how the movement wasn't quiet or smooth enough.

 

They've been developing this "Motion Figure System" since this year's February and they say that it's enabled a more fluid and quiet movement - and obviously the size is small enough so that they're able to insert it in the doll and the doll shouldn't feel any different to handle from normal... they apparently use some kind of special type of wire that goes through the joints and makes the movements possible, if I've understood right.

 

An IT company called RaspberryPi has worked with them in creating the LINUX operated system and they also mention the popular 3DCG technology that's been used in MikuMikuDance - they were able to reference the movement from that?

 

Towards the end they say that they're planning to produce this at an affordable price for doll collectors, pretty much... ... and then all the technical specs go past my expertise because I don't understand that much about computers and technology to begin with, let alone in Japanese. xD

 

What's seen in the youtube videos is what they've developed so far to this day, they're going to continue working on perfecting it.

 

Aaand they say they chose to work with dolls produced by Volks because they're a central figure in the hobby business... and they have a lot of customers all over the world. Speecys Corp. themselves are a company that has been developing robots... they talk about what kind of stuff they've been working on but there's a lot of technical vocabulary again that's a bit hard for me, so... ^^;

 

Perhaps someone with more knowledge will be able to translate the whole thing in detail. This definitely seems interesting!

*Trying SO hard not to fangirl at the moment...* AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! Not working!!

 

The "A" video TOTALLY moves like I always thought Yuriko would (although a little more jerky.) I'm literally sitting here trying not to scream my head off. It's totally official. Volks owns me. I want one in every skin tone and an MDD version. Robotic MDD + MMD + Vocaloid = everyone else seeing Tama like I do. It wouldn't be too far fetched for me to do DD video shorts of little story bits that are far too movement intensive to get across in a photo story. Even if they only have a DD version (No Volks, NO!! ) all I'm sayin' is Miku, Rin, & Len.

I'm totally screaming in my head like Yuriko when she found out Miku was coming.

 

~Sister Kyoya

[Modeling and hobby goods retailer / wholesaler / manufacturer] Volks, Inc. (Kyoto City, President SHIGETA Hideyuki) and [Robotics Engineering] Speecys, Inc. (Tokyo Mitaka ward, President KASUGA Tomoaki) have jointly developed a new standard in motion entertainment: Mobile Doll "Dollfie® Honey". Equipped with a slim figure and soft skin, she is able to use the clothing and heads from Volks' 60cm doll series Dollfie Dream®.

 

Outline

 

State-of-the-Art Mobile Doll: Dollfie Honey Developed

• A doll with an attractive bodyline and quiet motion (programmable)
  
• Height: Approx. 60cm; Motion: 28 degrees of freedom; Flexible skin that's soft to the touch
  
• Volks' industry-standard 60cm Dollfie Dream heads and clothes can be used without any modification
  
• Fully programmable, with Linux running on her internal RaspberryPi CPU board
  
• Motion routines authorable via the MikuMikuDance animation software

 

--

The rest of the article restates the above points and adds additional detail about her servo motors and proprietary wire-based articulation system. The take-away was that the companies are proud of refining that Motion Figure System into something lightweight enough and finely-controllable enough to be usable within a doll's outer shell. The robots one usually sees are more blocky in shape and more heavy than a DD, so it was a challenge to engineer something that'd work in a doll body to Volks' desired quality specs.

 

Since she is based on the RaspberryPi miniature computer, that means she'll have USB ports and network connectivity. That's how you'd connect to do individual programming or upload the MikuMikuDance VMD files to give her a pre-set scripted dance routine.

Oh wow. She runs on Linux and uses a Raspberry board. Fascinating! Are they planning on mass producing this? Now that would be something great if they do. Fingers crossed.

It's kind of weird if it doesn't have facial expressions though, it'd be doing

. Which is kind of neat but maybe a little creepy (･･') Also I doubt it can be removed from the base? I guess they'd have to have a fat connector of some sort that easily reattaches all the wires.

 

Edit: Thanks for the translation SakuraSylph ^^

Edited December 18, 2015 by Guest

Wow, I've been super curious about messing with the RaspberryPi board for a long time, but this is not something that had crossed my mind at all. Amazing!

 

So if I'm not totally off base, it looks like all the motors are contained in the base and ten wires are strung through the body, kind of BJD style to attach to various points on the skeleton? That certainly makes a lot more sense at this scale than trying to contain everything within the girl herself. Obviously this keeps her stationary, but this does pretty much resemble the original vision for the SmartDoll, and with the ability to customize and add to the RaspberrPi, it wouldn't e too hard to add a lot of the additional "smart" features he was talking about. Since she has to stay on the base anyways building in a speaker near enough to her head would be pretty much trivial. Hmmm since the eyes can easily e hollow, maybe some light sensors there, too... Wow, a LOT of possibility there. This is certainly something to watch.

Woah dude, I kinda forgot how much of a robotics geek you are. I'd be willing to drop the cost for her no matter what it is in an instant just to see you work on it. I always see so much ticking away in that mind of yours that I've been trying to find how to let it loose for years, but once it does I really can't wait to see what you can accomplish.

 

~Sister Kyoya

why mmd people ask...

 

because it's free.

 

a lot of people are still developing plugins for it, a lot of free 3rd party plugins exist for motion capture and extended animation.

 

it's free.

 

there's less work and thus, less money involved for anyone wanting to do this type of motion data transfer. You don't have to code a new ap from scratch. There's a huge library of animation that's freely available online due to vocaloid.

 

it's free.

 

As with all robot movement to date, a lot of it is still herky jerky and kinda creepy looking. It's not smooth movement. The smaller the mechanics get, the less precise it will be able to move. Even the large animatronic stuff used in films and theme parks have issues with uncanny valley. And if huge budgets and resources can't get them right for large scale, getting it right small scale for a tiny fraction of the cost is not going to be that likely.

 

I won't be terribly interested till I'm controlling one with my mind in arena fights. :3

I know I'm late to the party, but I'm really excited seeing this.

 

Definitely looking forward to what happens, though I'm wondering if the name is referring to Cutey Honey.

I really hope Danny picks back up his Automatic Smart Doll project soon (perhaps next year?)! He seems to be planning for the Doll's robotic version to be more useful than Honey in many ways..