Login

u/ThEjEsTeRoFeViL

Foxtronixxx Servo Mapper Beta is now released! its a completely free to use, fully featured animatronic servo control suite.
▲ 15 r/Animatronics+2 crossposts

Foxtronixxx Servo Mapper Beta is now released! its a completely free to use, fully featured animatronic servo control suite.

I've been building animatronic characters for a while and got tired of bouncing between Arduino IDE, serial monitors, and spreadsheets full of servo values. So I built the thing I wished existed.

Foxtronixxx Animatronic Servo Mapper. Free. No account. No subscription. Windows app, single exe.

What it does:

  • 16 servo channels with real-time sliders, per-channel naming, enable/disable
  • Calibrated min/neutral/max limits per servo so nothing grinds
  • EMA smoothing, slew rate limiting, and cubic Bezier easing — servos move like they're alive, not like they're on a hobby PWM timer
  • Expression presets — save a full 16-channel pose as a named preset, load it instantly
  • Animation sequencer — chain presets together with timing for looping sequences
  • Audio Animator — load any audio file, arm channels, and record servo performances in real time with a gamepad or sliders. Layer record one channel at a time. Jaw first, then eyes, then head
  • Auto Map Vocals — paste your dialogue, select jaw/muzzle/tongue channels, and it generates lip sync animation from the audio amplitude and phoneme sequences automatically using a 135,000 word phoneme dictionary
  • Text to Speech with live servo performance — type a script, the program speaks it and moves the servos in real time with lip sync, idle animations, expressions, eye saccades, blinks, and head wander
  • Multi-character support — multiple MCUs connected simultaneously, each with their own servo config
  • Standalone playback — upload animations to the board's flash, disconnect the computer, add a button or PIR sensor trigger, and it plays on its own. No PC needed
  • 95 supported boards. ESP32, Arduino Mega, Teensy, RP2040, STM32, and more
  • Firmware uploads from inside the app. Arduino CLI bundled. No IDE needed
  • Xbox, PlayStation, and generic gamepad support with full axis/button mapping
  • Simulation mode for designing without hardware

The standalone playback uses a DFPlayer Mini for audio. Two dollar module, micro SD card, one speaker. Wire it up, number your MP3s, upload, done. Auto loop, button trigger, or PIR sensor trigger.

Downloads required components on first launch (~300 MB, one time). After that it's fully offline.

I built this for myself but figured other people might get use out of it. Happy to answer questions.

Download: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/pi2f6p3mlsflb3fgazbe6/Foxtronixxx-Servo-Mapper.exe?rlkey=d0765ik09ivspt4wye7dkt3fd&st=qndhu62g&dl=0

Discord: https://discord.gg/HRWh8WHBX — get help, request features, show off your builds

youtu.be
u/ThEjEsTeRoFeViL — 17 hours ago
▲ 1 r/robotics

Robotics builders F.A.S.M. is coming May 1st! Now Donationware!

Foxtronixxx (previously Jester's) Animatronic Servo Mapper is a free animatronic/robotics control suite that replaces the mess of Arduino sketches, serial monitors and manual PWM tweaking that most builders deal with.

Building animatronics has always had this annoying gap between getting servos to move and getting them to move well. Smooth, expressive, in sync with audio, with actual personality. Usually that means writing custom code, learning animation software or dropping serious money on proprietary controllers. Most hobbyists end up with jerky movements, no lip sync and hours wasted on trial and error servo calibration.

This handles all of that in one window. Plug in your board, upload firmware with one click and you're controlling servos in seconds. Calibrate each servo's safe range by just dragging a slider until you hear grinding, back it off, save. Set how each servo moves once and it stays that way everywhere, sliders, controller, TTS, playback. Snappy for blinks, slow and graceful for head turns, whatever you want.

Nothing else out there combines real time servo control, gamepad input, text to speech with automatic lip sync and idle behavior, multi character multi MCU networking, audio animation recording and standalone board playback in one free program. Commercial animatronic controllers run hundreds or thousands of dollars and still cant do LLM driven speech. Arduino based solutions require programming. This needs neither.

The TTS performance system is the big one. Type a script, hit Perform and your head speaks with a natural voice while it blinks, looks around, shifts, twitches its ears and blends facial expressions on its own. All of it calibrated to your specific hardware. Add a second character with their own head on the network and they have a conversation. No keyframing, no timeline editing, no motion capture. Text in, performance out.

Works with 95 boards from four dollar Arduino Nanos to twenty five dollar ESP32s. Any PCA9685 servo driver, any standard hobby servo. The whole hardware stack can cost under fifteen bucks and the software is a free download.

  • 16 channel servo control with per channel smoothing, bezier easing and flip/invert
  • Per character profiles for servo limits, expressions, TTS settings and controller mapping
  • Expression presets with instant loading
  • LLM text to speech with Inworld voices, phoneme lip sync and autonomous idle animations
  • Multi character scripts with per character voice, servo config and networked MCU
  • Xbox and PlayStation* controller support with paired eye/ear/eyelid targets and hold mode blink
  • Audio animator with per channel recording and automatic lip sync from audio and lyrics
  • 95 supported boards with built in firmware upload, no Arduino IDE needed
  • Standalone playback with DFPlayer Mini for installations without a PC
  • Free, no restrictions, no subscriptions, donationware at buymeacoffee.com/foxtronixxx

* = Still needs work.

This program is still in beta and can and might have bugs or issues I've yet to solve.

Join the discord if you have issues and have ideas for further features!

https://discord.gg/HRWh8WHBX

u/ThEjEsTeRoFeViL — 5 days ago
▲ 2 r/arduino

Animatronics and Robotics builders F.A.S.M. is coming May 1st! Now Donationware!

Foxtronixxx (previously Jester's) Animatronic Servo Mapper is a free animatronic control suite that replaces the mess of Arduino sketches, serial monitors and manual PWM tweaking that most builders deal with.

Building animatronics has always had this annoying gap between getting servos to move and getting them to move well. Smooth, expressive, in sync with audio, with actual personality. Usually that means writing custom code, learning animation software or dropping serious money on proprietary controllers. Most hobbyists end up with jerky movements, no lip sync and hours wasted on trial and error servo calibration.

This handles all of that in one window. Plug in your board, upload firmware with one click and you're controlling servos in seconds. Calibrate each servo's safe range by just dragging a slider until you hear grinding, back it off, save. Set how each servo moves once and it stays that way everywhere, sliders, controller, TTS, playback. Snappy for blinks, slow and graceful for head turns, whatever you want.

Nothing else out there combines real time servo control, gamepad input, text to speech with automatic lip sync and idle behavior, multi character multi MCU networking, audio animation recording and standalone board playback in one free program. Commercial animatronic controllers run hundreds or thousands of dollars and still cant do LLM driven speech. Arduino based solutions require programming. This needs neither.

The TTS performance system is the big one. Type a script, hit Perform and your head speaks with a natural voice while it blinks, looks around, shifts, twitches its ears and blends facial expressions on its own. All of it calibrated to your specific hardware. Add a second character with their own head on the network and they have a conversation. No keyframing, no timeline editing, no motion capture. Text in, performance out.

Works with 95 boards from four dollar Arduino Nanos to twenty five dollar ESP32s. Any PCA9685 servo driver, any standard hobby servo. The whole hardware stack can cost under fifteen bucks and the software is a free download.

  • 16 channel servo control with per channel smoothing, bezier easing and flip/invert
  • Per character profiles for servo limits, expressions, TTS settings and controller mapping
  • Expression presets with instant loading
  • LLM text to speech with Inworld voices, phoneme lip sync and autonomous idle animations
  • Multi character scripts with per character voice, servo config and networked MCU
  • Xbox and PlayStation* controller support with paired eye/ear/eyelid targets and hold mode blink
  • Audio animator with per channel recording and automatic lip sync from audio and lyrics
  • 95 supported boards with built in firmware upload, no Arduino IDE needed
  • Standalone playback with DFPlayer Mini for installations without a PC
  • Free, no restrictions, no subscriptions, donationware at buymeacoffee.com/foxtronixxx

* = Still needs work.

This program is still in beta and can and might have bugs or issues I've yet to solve.

Join the discord if you have issues and have ideas for further features!

https://discord.gg/HRWh8WHBX

u/ThEjEsTeRoFeViL — 5 days ago
▲ 9 r/Animatronics

Foxtronixxx Animatronic Servo Mapper coming May 1st! Now Donationware!

This program is still in beta and can and might have bugs or issues I've yet to solve.

Join the discord if you have issues and have ideas for further features!

https://discord.gg/HRWh8WHBX

Video demo coming soon!

u/ThEjEsTeRoFeViL — 5 days ago