Baby Dance Performance In Stage

The "Dancing Baby" phenomenon refers to a rendered animation of a baby performing a cha-cha type dance. It originated as a collection of experimental testing data and files, ultimately released in autumn of 1996 as a product sample source file (sk_baby.max) with the 3D character animation software product "Character Studio", used with 3D Studio Max (both products from Kinetix/Autodesk). The original sample source file was produced and prepared by the original Character Studio development team (Michael Girard, Susan Amkraut, John Chadwick, Paul Bloemink, John Hutchinson, Adam Felt) at Unreal Pictures and Kinetix/Autodesk, amongst several other sample files. The cha-cha animation was created using the "Biped" animation system of Character Studio by Robert Lurye and Michael Girard. The 3D model of a human baby was added later by the development team as one of the character "skins" for the rendered animation. The original "Toddler with Diaper" model #VP5653 was built by, and courtesy of, Viewpoint Datalabs, with the bulk of the skinning and rigging performed by John Chadwick using the "Physique" skin/deformation system in Character Studio, and final edits by John and members of the Autodesk development team. After the first pre-release application of the 3D baby model to the cha-cha animation (and from pre-release showings), Kinetix/Autodesk employees realized it was amusing to see a baby dance a cha-cha rather than just walk; this helped ensure the selection of the 'dancing baby' as a sample file for debut release of Character Studio and for demonstration videos in product promotion.

The animation of the original dancing baby data consists of heavily researched and adapted physics models to automate animation along with interpolated manually animated keyframes that are generated and synthesized by the "Biped" system of the Character Studio product. Contrary to popular misconceptions, none of the original Dancing Baby animation data were created using motion capture.