Olaf, the lovable, talkative snowman from Disney’s “Frozen” films is coming to life as a free-roaming robot that will debut at two Disney theme parks next year.
Walt Disney Imagineering reveled the new life-sized animatronic on Monday.
In a video shared on the company’s social media pages, Olaf is shown walking around a room and interacting with Imaginners.
The team worked with the original “Frozen” animators the bring Olaf to life and make him as expressive as he is in the films. The robot can fully articulate his mouth and eyes. His arms and carrot nose are also removable.
To achieve the movements, Imagineers used a branch of artificial intelligence called reinforcement learning, which allows robotic characters to imitation artist-provided motion in simulation.
“From the way he movies to the way he look, every gesture and details is crafted to reflect the Olaf audiences have seen in the film—alive, curious, and unmistakably himself,” said Kyle Laughlin, SVP R&D Technology & Engineering with Walt Disney Imagineering, in a news release.
Disney also dropped a new episode of its YouTube series “We Call It Imagineering,” which offered a behind-the-scenes look the technology Imagineers used for the Olaf robot.
Olaf is Disney’s latest free-roaming robot creation, but certainly not the company’s first. Disney developed BDX droids that first appeared in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland before making their way to Disney World for a limited time earlier this year.
A robot of H.E.R.B.I.E., a character from “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” made appearance at Disney California Adventure this past summer to coincide with the movie’s release.
The Olaf robot will debut in the World of Frozen lands at Disneyland Paris and Hong Kong Disneyland early next year.
Disney hasn’t announced any plans to bring Olaf to its U.S. parks.
