Starting Monday, February 14th 2011 IBM’s Watson supercomputer will compete on the game show Jeopardy!. Automata Studios was proud to collaborate with Joshua Davis to create Watson’s on-screen avatar.
Automata took Josh’s designs and programmed both the avatar and a collection of tools. We defined easily editable configuration files and a special supercomputer simulator to let Josh work with IBM to bring Watson to life and give “him” a truly unique stage presence.
Watsons face looks awesome! What is the swarming animation coded in? Is it some 3d modelling app / flash or is it something custom coded?
[...] avatar is actually a work of generative art designed by Joshua Davis and implemented by Automata Studios. The avatar changes based on a number of factors such as confidence in an answer and question type [...]
It’s done with Flash + a framework I created with Josh called HYPE. The swarm is an actual swarm behavior over the surface of a sphere. To get it to act exactly like I wanted I had to code all of the 3D stuff myself.
[...] give it an interesting voice and an appealing face? That’s the problem that confronted the Automata Studio and technology artist Joshua Davis, hired by IMB to give Watson [...]
Branden,
Would love to see the Face of Watson Post for sale somewhere. I bet it would sale. Do you have the rights to have it up on a site like Zazzle.com or similar site? If not would you think IBM would be interested in putting the post up on a site like that and maybe using the proceeds of the post to support one of IBM’s charities? Maybe Joshua has to be involved as well?
Something that isn’t much work to implement, and very little work to support. What do you think?
-D
[...] Joshua Davis’s designs were implemented by Automata Studios. [...]
[...] called HYPE: The swarm is an actual swarm behavior over the surface of a sphere. Programmed by Automata Studios In true corporate form, IBM decided that Watson’s face should look like its own Smarter [...]