Guan Thwei
New Member
I'm wondering if the sound of the drill will come through the mask once worn.
"Topknot's" underskull "VIDEO" / final pics of inside 11/08/09
- Thread starter AlphaTech686
- Start date
AlphaTech686
Active Member
Yes you can hear it but I'm planning on a sound board with Pred roars to be hook to the opening mechanism. Very good question.
Guan Thwei
New Member
Sounds like a good idea to mask the mechanics of the underskull. When do you plan on having that ready?
AlphaTech686
Active Member
How does 2020 sound. Things always come up. If I keep sticking with it like I ahve been in the last month I may actually finish this by the end of next year. I'm old and patient these days.
AlphaTech686
Active Member
Just wanted to show you all it does go on my head.
Guan Thwei
New Member
Two questions
1) Was this difficult to take off from the welding helmet and attached to your project
2) Did you attach it to allow it to move like a welding helmet?
4505marcel
Active Member
Im assuming the head band is so it doesnt have to get stuffed with foam to get a fit, which would foul up the links and this way will always go on the head in the same place, awesome work mate. 
AlphaTech686
Active Member
Hey Guan, Any welding store sells just the insert. It would pivot except I put a little bolt right in front to keep in still. It is rock solid. If you look right between my eyes on the forehead you can see the hole I made to tighten the nut.
Guan Thwei
New Member
Ok I got ya I thought you had modified or took apart a welding helmet you had lying around very cool idea man.
Guan Thwei
New Member
I would like to know that is well excellent question.
AlphaTech686
Active Member
Thanks for all the comments. This site keeps me motivated. Sitting on my ass while everyone here is busy doing cool things is a bad deal. Thanks all.
Guan Thwei
New Member
I know how you feel I had met the guys from Night Armor Studios in there Gears of War outfits @ MegaCon '08 and I thought to myself "These guys have way too much fun. I want in on this" then I found The Hunter's Lair with all the Predator stuff to drool over lol.
pill baxton
New Member
Wow! that looks so labor intensive, but the results more than pay off,keep up the great work and keep us posted.
Guan Thwei
New Member
guan-thwei, you read my mind. that's exactly why I signed up here, and it was after seeing a gears of war costume too
Not to get off of thread topic, but where did you see them or meet them?
Marcwolf
New Member
Hi. Let me firstly say that is a brilliant idea and it really make the whole mask come alaive. I jointed this formum to chat about it as well as to post some bits and pieces in the Non-Preditor costumer parts.
My personal interest are more werewolves rather than Preditor but I was very impressed (and enjoyed ) the movies and also love the extra features in the DVD re the animatronics.
I have been working for a while on my own animatronic werewolf costume - endeveroring to make him as emotive and realistic as possible. A few idea that I am including might help you re adding new features.
The Drill concept is great but to do that you also had to add limiting switches - which being a mechanical item can fail. I have had good sucess with using PicAxe's which are a very powerful - easily programmed single chip process controller. You use basic with them and you can program them with a laptop. Nothing special required. One of the features of the PicAxe is that they can control R/C servo's directly.
A PicAxe can start from about $6.00
R/C servos come in all shapes an sized - a good heavy duty one I use often is a Towerpro MG-995. I have a pair of these in my animatronic tail :> and the are powerful!!. Of course you can controll other servo's as well.
For controlling my suit I am working on the following - it might be more high-end that what need but the concepts are there. Professional costumes usually have a team of controllers plus the actor to move around. For a hobbysit one does not have the luxury of a team to be with you so my goal was to make a self contained animatronics controller.
Any bracketed words {sssss} after please look up in Google
Using a throat mike I control a modified voice recognition system {hm2007} - this listed for preprogrammed words and displays the word numer on 2 7 segment LED displays and flashed a recognised LED. Using a 20M Picaxe {Picaxe} I look for the single LED pluse and then read the output of the display - converting it into a binary number - essentially a BCD to Binary system. However I always use the first word (no 1) as a command word to stop erronous activation. So lets say the 1st word and Action.
Actions Snarl, Action Bark, Action Growl will all send valid command to the controller.
The Controller is a 21 servo control card {SD21}, it is very poerful for it's price - approx $50 - and can eaily be controlled by an 18X picaxe which plugs into the board. Also on this board connected to the PicAxe is a 4DSystem uDrive card {4dsystem udrive} which is a tiny micro SDram reader.
The memory organisation of this card is as follows
The first 20 places are jump locations to where sequences begin on the card.
Each sequence consists of a string of numbers - each number being the next servo position. Additional informatin can be added for jump back to previous sequences re repetative motions.
So - how does this fit together...
I speak "Action Growl"
The HM2007 picks up 'Action' and recognises it as valid - seeing is as Word position 1
The 20M PicAxe see that Word 1 has been send and so get ready to recieve the next word. If it is not valid then it goes back to listen for Word 1
I say "Growl" - the HM2007 recogises Word 5. The 20M PicAxe ree's that a valid command of 5 has been sent and so then send this command onto the SD21
The SD21 has the PicAXE 18X running in it. The 18M see's the command 5 from the speech processor and so goes to the uDrive and reads the 4 byte address at location 21
The 18X now goes to the new memory location and reads the first Byte (0-255) , and sends this to the SD21 to move Servo 1 to that position. Then it reads the next byte and send it to the next servo and so on.
When all servo's have been moves the 18X waits 250ms and reads the next servo positions - again sending it to the SD21
Programming this is fairly simple, You draw on a graph how you want the servo's to move, and then read the position you want the servo to be each 250ms (the movement timeslice) and program that figure into the memory card.
So - there you have it - a self contained voice activated animatronics systems. Hope it helps someone :>
Take Care
Marc
My personal interest are more werewolves rather than Preditor but I was very impressed (and enjoyed ) the movies and also love the extra features in the DVD re the animatronics.
I have been working for a while on my own animatronic werewolf costume - endeveroring to make him as emotive and realistic as possible. A few idea that I am including might help you re adding new features.
The Drill concept is great but to do that you also had to add limiting switches - which being a mechanical item can fail. I have had good sucess with using PicAxe's which are a very powerful - easily programmed single chip process controller. You use basic with them and you can program them with a laptop. Nothing special required. One of the features of the PicAxe is that they can control R/C servo's directly.
A PicAxe can start from about $6.00
R/C servos come in all shapes an sized - a good heavy duty one I use often is a Towerpro MG-995. I have a pair of these in my animatronic tail :> and the are powerful!!. Of course you can controll other servo's as well.
For controlling my suit I am working on the following - it might be more high-end that what need but the concepts are there. Professional costumes usually have a team of controllers plus the actor to move around. For a hobbysit one does not have the luxury of a team to be with you so my goal was to make a self contained animatronics controller.
Any bracketed words {sssss} after please look up in Google
Using a throat mike I control a modified voice recognition system {hm2007} - this listed for preprogrammed words and displays the word numer on 2 7 segment LED displays and flashed a recognised LED. Using a 20M Picaxe {Picaxe} I look for the single LED pluse and then read the output of the display - converting it into a binary number - essentially a BCD to Binary system. However I always use the first word (no 1) as a command word to stop erronous activation. So lets say the 1st word and Action.
Actions Snarl, Action Bark, Action Growl will all send valid command to the controller.
The Controller is a 21 servo control card {SD21}, it is very poerful for it's price - approx $50 - and can eaily be controlled by an 18X picaxe which plugs into the board. Also on this board connected to the PicAxe is a 4DSystem uDrive card {4dsystem udrive} which is a tiny micro SDram reader.
The memory organisation of this card is as follows
The first 20 places are jump locations to where sequences begin on the card.
Each sequence consists of a string of numbers - each number being the next servo position. Additional informatin can be added for jump back to previous sequences re repetative motions.
So - how does this fit together...
I speak "Action Growl"
The HM2007 picks up 'Action' and recognises it as valid - seeing is as Word position 1
The 20M PicAxe see that Word 1 has been send and so get ready to recieve the next word. If it is not valid then it goes back to listen for Word 1
I say "Growl" - the HM2007 recogises Word 5. The 20M PicAxe ree's that a valid command of 5 has been sent and so then send this command onto the SD21
The SD21 has the PicAXE 18X running in it. The 18M see's the command 5 from the speech processor and so goes to the uDrive and reads the 4 byte address at location 21
The 18X now goes to the new memory location and reads the first Byte (0-255) , and sends this to the SD21 to move Servo 1 to that position. Then it reads the next byte and send it to the next servo and so on.
When all servo's have been moves the 18X waits 250ms and reads the next servo positions - again sending it to the SD21
Programming this is fairly simple, You draw on a graph how you want the servo's to move, and then read the position you want the servo to be each 250ms (the movement timeslice) and program that figure into the memory card.
So - there you have it - a self contained voice activated animatronics systems. Hope it helps someone :>
Take Care
Marc
AlphaTech686
Active Member
Hey Dude we need to talk. I have done the servo thing with a radio controller. The extra person is the problem.
