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Bringing Animated Characters to Life

Legendary gaming company Bandai Namco Entertainment is using Furhat to bring animated characters to the physical world.

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The challenge

Humankind has been using animated characters to tell stories for more than a century. But these film and game characters which many of us come to love dearly from a young age – have not been able to cross over to our physical world. Is there a way to make animated characters justice in a physical embodiment?

The solution

The Creative Design Department at Bandai Namco has together with Furhat embodied one of their most popular virtual characters “to life”, creating a physical, interactive robot version of the character “Mirai Komachi”. Using a specifically designed mask, voice, gestures and a wig, all provided from the creative team at Bandai Namco, the Mirai character interacts with users in Japanese and has different behaviours programmed for her to react to peoples movement in her immediate environment. The result indeed has turned out much better than we could have imagined.

The result

After the initial successful project with the Mirai robot, which have been featured in several events and shows, Bandai Namco is now looking at using the robot as a greeter and attraction in several of their amusement parks across Asia.

Bandai Namco Entertainment, headquartered in Tokyo, is a Japanese video game developer and publisher who produces several multi-million-dollar games such as Pac-man, Galaxian and Gundam.

Visit Bandai Namco website.

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"When I met Mirai-Komachi on a Furhat robot for the first time, I was surprised to see that the transformation from 2D into 3D was indeed a viable option. I believe that Furhat Robotics will continue to provide amazing experiences no one on this planet has encountered before.”
Shohei Nakanowatari Creative Design Manager, Bandai Namco Research Inc

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