As the next step in my project, I'm looking into the best way to organically coordinate multiple servo movements, record them, and then play them back. I would like to hear from anyone that has worked on some animatronic setup for a face using multiple servos (7-8), and what approach was taken to create movements that could be recorded for later playback.
One way I'm thinking of trying it, is using the Maya plugin someone created that allows you to control servos by rotating some 3D object in the application. I'm thinking to create a bunch of splines shaped like facial features (eyes, eyebrows, neck, blink, etc) and creating set-driven keys for them, so later I can move around the splines and have connecting servo move accordingly. This way I can key animate facial expressions into an animation and potentially store the servo data generated onto an SD Card, where I can later pull it out in separate functions (eg. Smile function, blink function, etc). If it works it would be a nice GUI for visually creating facial expressions that can be repeated.
Anyone know any other ways to animate expressions visually using some type of GUI system? I think some people use Matlabs or animate using joysticks.