Building an Animatronic Wheatley (Portal 2) 

If you like videos like this, please consider joining my Patreon: patreon.com/mr_volt Glad to finally share this with everyone! Wheatley's been a long time coming. Is he perfect? No, but I hope he makes you happy. Here's some FAQs: You forgot about (X) Why doesn't he have (X) feature from the game? I've spent over 300hrs to get to this point and some features didn't make the cut for this video, but I'm aware of them. Things like eye VU meter/flashlight are to be added etc. What about (popular voiceline)? While I included some of the voicelines, some of the "angrier" ones looked odd with his body not moving, so those will be saved for when he's on the MR arm. Can you import the animations from the game? No. My model is mechanically very different from the game model internally. Will you make me one? Nothing for sale unless (until?) I get approval from Valve :)

IMAGINE THIS!! GAME AWARDS AND THE ONE GIVING THE AWARD IS WHEATLEY!! And animation of him, FINNALLY on earth and then some robots put him in front of the crowd!

We are getting THIS much closer to having a real life Wheatley and idk if that’s good or bad

Here's an idea: Program some keyframed animation and feed it to the animatronic wheatley! It might be possible to make the movements faster and much more robotic, like he is in-game, without using the puppet control mechanism.

I love that Aperture took their name and logo from the camera setting, so the thing that makes Wheatley’s iris expand and retract is called an Aperture and therefore it is a pun

the animation for the voice line at 3:55 is actually perfect. the amount of detail on this thing is so damn good. you even added the ripped up sticker that wheatley has on the left side of his face. usually nobody ever gets that or let alone notices it lmao

This is a mann of passion, commitment and pure [REDACTED] will. I've been here since you constructed GLaDOS and am happy that it's all come this far. I aspire to have the dedication of people like you and thank you genuinely for your work. I hope VALVE sees this video, and that it instills them with new motivation to see their fan base going to such lengths.

I swear, one day the fans are going to build a replica of Aperture Science Laboratories on their own, just because they can. This small fandom has some talented, very dedicated people that might even turn the entire game into reality which is a terrifying but amazing thought.

The first personality Core that has the moveable eye. That’s awesome because everyone that wants to build one for himself too, sees that it’s possible. That Wheatley absolutely rocks man!

That is outstanding. Honestly, I bet you could get Wheatley to star in some live action portal skits. I don't know if they're still being made nowadays, but I remember a few back in the day. He's a wonderful prop and I just wanna see him talk all day. This project has made my 13 year old dreams come true, and my 22 year old dreams, aswell.

I do hope Valve takes you up on that offer. It would be so cool to see that animatronic next to the Level 1 Sentry that’s already there, as well as the Portal Turret animatronic

Very very cool! I noticed that some voice lines don’t move as much, however it is still very impressive! Is it because of integrity issues, or something else? Also is it possible to hook him up to a management rail?

Man really hope you get hired into Valve or at least contacted by them for the amount of talent in this.

Love the orange & blue tie! As always staying stylish while making incredible builds.

This has got to be one of my favorite channels. I’m a big portal fan and I love mechanical design, so you basically combined two of my favorite things in one. I’ve been following the whole process of you making Wheatley and I’m super impressed. Keep up the great work!

You should make a tutorial for Wheatley. He's quite complex and some people might not know how to put him together. But I have to say, this is the best Wheatley replica I have seen!

AHHHH he looks amazing! Seeing him fully in motion is a treat. It's like a dream come true. Seriously, mad respect for you skills ^^

I remember seeing like 10 years ago someone making a Wheatley puppet and I’ve wanted it so much

You're one of the main reason I'm into mechatronics, I'll be following your work for life, thx you for this wonderful channel and everything else.

Absolutely amazing, it really feels like Wheatley popped into the real world! The only "flaw" would be that he is slightly slow in his movements, but he MOVES!!! Great stuff!

Would it ever be possible for you to add the ability for his eye to extend/retract forwards and backwards? It's a pretty significant aspect of Wheatley's dialogue in the game.

Это выглядит так хорошо, сделано с такой любовью 🥺🥺🥺🥺 Я просто в восторге, чувствуется что человек горит идеей и любит серию Portal Я как фанатка говорила о том что у меня достаточно много часов в стиме, так как часто перепрохожу игру, но это... Я не смогла бы с этим сравниться Мое уважение 👏👏👏👏

Holy, these mechanism and whole programming is just amazing! you earned a subscribe

Wheatley is one of the best parts of the Portal series and I think that this was a really cool recreation of him (and in real life none the less).

I love how people still make things related to Portal. I just love Portal and the vibe that it gives. Awesome job. Thank you!!

This channel DESERVES more subs. Talking about Portal is enough to book me.

Nice for Wheatley to be real

Can't help but watch this with a huge grin, seeing all of the animations going on simultaneously. I know I'm a bit late to this, but gg on making it work :p

Part 2: Launching my Wheatley into deep space with a core who is completely obsessed with space.

Through the whole video, I kept thinking, "I need to like this video" only to realize I already had. Three seconds later I was doing the same thing. Great work! I can't wait to see more.

This man just straight up recreated Wheatley from Portal 2 IRL. I know it's extremely difficult to replicate Wheatley's every moving mechanism, and even more difficult while he is talking, but 3:55 is the most Accurate motions I have ever seen! I don't care how many features you have added, or how much closer you can bring Wheatley to reality, I am just really glad that you tried your best to make Wheatley IRL. Keep up the amazing job!!

as an idea for the next video, you could buy a decommissioned salt mine to make the Aperture Science mega complex 😉

this is absolutely amazing dude! seeing portal based builds even after all this time is incredibly cool, huge props!

I am sure the guy who narrated Wheatley probably wants his own core as well. (Looks like you have a lot of cores to make) should probably start a business for it! \o_/

That looks so good. I feel like it needs more powerful motor so the animations can be more sudden and immediate.

This is just amazing! It's incredible how you made the whole thing!

Cant wait to see, I’ve been waiting for weeks! This projecting is amazing

Absolutely incredible work, as always! Just going through each detail you've put in has me giddy as a schoolboy, the attention and precision is so incredibly admirable. Thank you for sharing your hard work! I genuinely hope VALVE see this video.

Looks great

dude this is actually amazing. like I never even imagined this could be a real thing you could make in real life

I would love to see this Wheatley animated using Tim Hendricks blender to servo animation plugin, the movement will look super smooth and you could possibly import the animations to the animatronic puppet from the game itself!! (Of course with some minor tweaks) Over all I've been watching your whole process from beginning to end, and I love every second of it! GREAT JOB!!!

I'm very happy you have finished this project and I hope you can get that miniature one out and then you can finally relax after this difficult looking project

This is so cool, I've been following this for so long and I've been super excited about the outcome! This looks amazing and I wish I could build this but I don't have the time, skill, training, or resources to even start. So lovely!

thats so cool, been watching the process and it has turned out spectacular!

Dude this is actually underrated how COOL THIS IS

This is amazing!!! and the files for FREE?!?!?! You're insane dude. Congrats!

I just got the funniest thought, When you put Wheatly next to GlaDos they start to make a annoyed look on their faces and then start to argue and then GlaDos' eye turns into a potato referencing what happened to her in Portal 2

THIS IS THE COOLEST THING IVE SEEN TODAY. Portal is my favorite game, and this is incredible!! Thank you so much for making the files available for free, Im just starting to learn mechatronics and 3d printing, and while this is waaaay outside my skill level, someday I'll definitely try and make this!

I've been a fan of Portal since it's release so THANK YOU for uploading such an amazing work! I want you to keep it up!! Also, little request, I would LOVE to see how you would build the drones from Oblivion, I think that'd be a pretty fun project, otherwise keep it up!

Literally 100/10, brilliant, just brilliant work!

congrats - this is incredible, well fricking done. This seriously deserves more attention

Oh my god, the up lighting for his ghost story lines absolutely KILLED me XD! What a fantastic job, this made me so happy!

I want Valve to hire you for the Portal movie

This is so underrated! Here's to hoping it gets a million views!

I absolutely LOVE this. Seriously wish I had my own, but I'm no scientist or programmer or anything like that. This still is incredible and love how passionate you are towards such an amazing project.💕💖

This would be cool to use in a portal short film

Been waiting for this!

Incredible as always!!

Okay, till now, thus is the best animatronic Wheatley I have seen!! the range of motion is so close to the original And you gived him even the banana sticker!! Tremendous!

This is so cool!! I would love to see some behind the scenes of your process or even building and distressing of Wheatly. Keep up the good work

I’ve been here since the beginning of Wheatley being made, and you’re amazing like this is awesome you deserve way more subs, imagine what would happen if you made Mr. Beast amounts of money, you could probably remake all of aperture!

Wheatley is the character everyone wants to make but he is insanely difficult even without his design flaws when making him IRL.

This is so cool! Portal 2 is my favorite game, I just love Wheatly. I appreciate the vertical arc movement, as well.

Saw this in my recommendation feed, and DAMN, THIS IS SO COOL, HOW HAVE I NOT SEEN THIS CHANNEL!?!

I'm happy that this video is only 5 minutes. Just wish that we can also get a more in-detail design video that helps support your work by inherently being longer.

This is SO cool! Love watching your process, I know there is much more work that we don't see. This is an amazing passion project! You're an incredible engineer!

So much if this character comes from the syncing of Stephen Merchant’s voice with the tilts and zooms of the core, if the servos we’re just a bit tighter and faster or if the shell lighter I think the character would come through much clearer. I’m extremely impressed with how far you’ve come with this project, don’t give up. The end is within reach!

Looking at this design compared to the first is crazy, everything in Mk II was so much more well thought out and everything worked much much smoother and looked much better. You have done a really good job here and I'm so glad to see how well the final result turned out.

You should combine an AI language model with an AI voice generator to make an actual personality core like Wheatley

u should record the lines over a slowed down version of the quotes & then speed it all back up to capture the erratic movements of cores

This is so well done, I thought it was animated at first. Good job!

3:13 , NICE JOB ! beautiful

I wonder if you could hook GPT to generate text. Then pass it via 15.ai to get audio and automatically adjust the emotions using semantic meanings and then it just talks to you like that

You know you’ve played WAY too much Portal 2 when he said the whole brain damage monologue and I said to myself “that’s not how he normally is animated...”

This is a really cool Wheatley core. I advise you to keep it in good condition until better times. If in the future scientists can really create artificial intelligence, then this will be a good chance to load it inside your Wheatley core.

iv'e been so hyped for this vid and i have i a challenge that i don't think i have seen anyone do yet and i think it would add more life to the movement if your up for it, so in some lines from the game his eye actually moves in and out of its socket and i think that would look really cool. cant wait to see more!

1:59 Let's not? ._.

My favorite Wheatley line is "Act natural! Act Natural! We've done nothing wrong- Hello! 😅" it's just that nervous hello that makes it amazing

Man, this is amazing! You deserve much more attention and love!!!

Great work, great work! You have really put a lot of effort into this project!

Hope this gets more traction, you definitely deserve it.

Wtf, your content is so good man

God, Valve's office would look so cool with Wheatley in there. Especially if they installed rails for him to sweep around the room on, and programmed some default animations and interactions into him!

this is making me wanna make my own personality core

That is beyond awesome, i wish i had the tools to build my own because i need one of those in my life, well bloody done sir

I think I saw someone make a puppet of Wheatley as well, where they could control his eye movement and stuff. Really cool!

Damn, he’s incredible. I can’t begin to imagine the amount of work that’s gone into him, but it certainly shows: he’s incredibly close to in-game Wheatley. Brilliant work

Annnd Dont know how I haven't subscribed yet but, *clicks subscribe button.* This was a super cool journey to watch. You deserve much more subs.

Incredible

this is very VERY cool and you can not be stopped but feels like he is always looking down

I love and thank you for the files. You're a blessed human.

Hey Mr. Volt? You realise that you’re the single most talented hobbyist electrical engineer on this planet. I’m not exaggerating. You’re amazingly talented

This is so unbelievably cool, you did amazing!

This is incredible, don't know how it could get better

really impressive, just amazing!

the motion capture thing is still one of the coolest things ive seen

This was a triumph I'm making a note here, "Huge success"

“Oh look at me I am massive it is not just me right I am bloody massive “

Nice blue and orange tie for the portals!

Thank you so much for sharing how to build our own! I can't wait to have a Wheatley too.