Today it is frequent that many videos go viral and are shared globally on social networks and messaging applications. Still, in the mid-90s, the concept if something was viral is that it was probably a disease.
In the fall of 1996, however, a 3D animation video appeared showing a baby in a diaper dancing to the song 'Hooked on a feeling' which was soon known as 'Dancing Baby.' Television series such as 'Ally McBeal' turned that animation into a mass phenomenon that a few years ago was forgotten. Still, recently a student resurrected the meme, which can now be enjoyed in glorious HD resolution.
The origin, demonstrating the power of 3D modeling software
The video of the dancing baby was curious but also disturbing. In essence, these movements were unnatural for the little one, but the truth is that it was a demonstration of what could be achieved with 3D animation at that time.
The creators of the baby model were the original team that developed the Kinetix / Autodesk Character Studio application, the company that was already known worldwide for its 3D Studio Max modeling and rendering software.
Those responsible for the baby's 3D model realized that it was much more striking to make an animation in which he was seen dancing than one in which he could have appeared crawling or walking. That dance to the sound of a cha-cha-chá would end up becoming a demonstration of what could be achieved with those two Autodesk programs.
No motion capture techniques were used for the video, and instead, the developers studied physical models to automate with interpolated keyframes that were then entirely generated in Character Studio.
The video was released in the fall of 1996, and both users and professional animators began creating their versions of the so-called 'Dancing Baby.' All thanks to a very famous original file, SK_BABY.MAX would end up being shared on the social networks of that time: Compuserve and its discussion forums, email, and download sites on the internet.
Probably the most famous appearance of the 'Dancing Baby' was the GIF animation created by John Woodell, who posted it on the website of the company where he worked and ended up being copied to a lot of useful websites that simply took that animation and the They made it their own to add a fun touch to their web pages.
Dancing Baby, now in HD
That GIF and that viral video would end up losing relevance and were a bit forgotten until in February 2020, a young Bolton University student named Jack Armstrong decided to revive that viral meme.
In a Twitter thread, Armstrong explained how he had managed to relive that meme. It all started with a friend's question, who asked him to model it in an old sandbox game called Garry's Mod (GMod) that Valve released in 2006. Armstrong said, "why not?" And started a project that turned out to be more complicated than I expected.
Especially since he could not find the original model from which to work, finally, he located a ZIP file on an abandonware website called Vetusware. After scanning it for viruses, he verified with satisfaction that the entire pack of Character Studio 1.0 data from 1996 needed to resume the project was in that file.
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