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Working with concept art and miniature maquettes,
Hickel's team took on the task of translating the designs into a digital
character that could be animated. Russell Paul modeled the digital droidekas
based on the Art Department designs. Animator Paul Kavanagh was the first
to begin "chaining" the digital model. Chaining is putting in
the animation controls so that animators could pose, record, and
reposition the model. "Paul did some early development, and then
James Tooley was responsible for majority of the final chaining,"
describes Hickel. "It was very complex because of all the little
mechanisms had to work in a particular way so that they don't violate
each other or break, so that it all works like it really mechanically
should."
![[ Droideka Transformation ]](chuck-duke_files\droideka_animation_start.gif)
Rollover image to view 65k animation
Once the droideka was properly chained, Hickel could then animate the
cycle needed to transform the destroyer from wheel to droid. "I
basically designed the unfolding animation. Paul Kavanagh had the idea of
the legs popping out as they're rolling along to sort of stop them. And
then I took that idea and had them kind of recoil back onto their rear
leg, and then they actually take a couple of little steps back with their
feet as they're unfolding."
Although the meticulous design of the droid provided a near-seamless
unraveling, there were some adjustments that the team of animators --
which included Neil Michka, Chuck Duke, and Paul Griffin -- had to cheat.
"The one thing that is actually a cheat is the walk cycle,"
reveals Hickel. "There's a good reason why there aren't any
three-legged animals, because it just doesn't make sense. And as soon as
you start animating a three-legged walk cycle, you find that out pretty
fast." The cheat was minor -- a slight shifting of balance that is
undetectable in the few scenes containing walking droidekas.
"There's a moment when the back leg has to move forward that it's
just not really balanced anymore," says Hickel.
![[ Rolling Out Droids - An Interview with Hal Hickel ]](chuck-duke_files\droid2.jpg) "What
we tried to do instead," recounts Hickel, "was to make them
look kind of like a gunslinger because their front legs are pretty wide
apart. Hopefully that's what you see when you see them walking."
Aside from the gunslinger inspiration, the droideka's movements also
borrow from nature. "There's a touch of scorpion there," says
Hickel. "Just because they have those big pinchers slung out to
either side. The head is insect-like too."
Although much has been said about the technological breakthroughs
required to bring characters like Jar
Jar and Boss
Nass to life -- things like refinements of digital flesh and the
creation of digital cloth -- these innovations also helped in the
creation of mechanical characters. "Some the technology that has
made those other things -- Jar Jar's clothes and ears for example -- has
made certain things available to us when we're animating robots,"
says Hickel. "The droidekas had these little connecting hoses on
parts of their arms and whatnot. These would vibrate and shake and waggle
around depending on how they were moving. It was the same kind of
simulation we do for our cloth and hair, just applied to those hoses.
![[ Rolling Out Droids - An Interview with Hal Hickel ]](chuck-duke_files\droid3.jpg) "Another
thing is we've got software for doing what we call rigid body
simulations, which are sort of hard bits of things bouncing around or
exploding or reacting to gravity. We used that, for instance, in the
scenes where Anakin
is blowing up the droids in the Theed hangar and you see the bits fly
apart. We could have them animated by the animator up to a certain point,
and then blow apart by the simulation."
With his close association with these droids, it's little surprise
that Hickel has a droideka action figure among his desk-guarding
collection. "I'm waiting for them to do a 12-inch figure that
actually folds up," smiles Hickel. "That's my dream toy."
A dream toy to accompany a dream job, perhaps, though Hickel did
receive an unexpected perk when George Lucas came
to visit ILM
during a special breakfast to mark the wrap of Episode I's effects work.
"Rob Coleman
said that I should get that letter I have in my office and have George
sign it. So, I brought it over, and he did get a kick out of it,"
says Hickel. "He underlined the 'talent and luck' part, and wrote
'you have it' on there, and signed it."
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