Production Process
At the entrance plaza of a winter park, the meeting point is a tree. Not a decorated conifer — a 13 m talking tree, 7 m across at its widest, with a face that turns toward whoever is standing under it and gift boxes lit at the base.
SKU YDZ-016: 13 m tall, 7 m maximum diameter, built to be a landmark rather than a decoration.
At thirteen metres it is a structure
The design order is not the one people expect. Face last. At 13 m the tree takes wind across a 7 m profile, and that load goes into a foundation designed for your ground rather than onto a plate bolted to paving.
Foundation and wind loading come before the face design, and they also set the install sequence: concrete first, curing time second, the tree third. On a park that opens in November, that sequence is a calendar decision taken in summer.
The trade-off is site work. This arrives in sections and goes up with a crane, so it is not a piece you move between seasons to see how it looks in a different corner.
Plaza, wind and what is under the ground
Plazas, entrances, the end of a main path where people already gather. The 7 m diameter decides the spot: clearance for the base, room for the crowd that forms under the face, and a route wide enough for a crane to stand on.
Sightlines run a long way at this height. A face at 13 m is read from 30 or 40 m out, so the features are built for that distance — eyes and mouth sized to carry across the plaza rather than to satisfy someone standing at the rail.
Look under the ground before anything else: services, drains, the cable route back to the controller, and the supply for the gift box lighting. Underground surprises are the ones that move an opening date.
What moves, and what it says
Face first: eyes, eyelids, brows and jaw. At this height the eyes carry the character and the jaw carries the timing, so the mouth is what gets tuned against the audio rather than against the visitor's position.
Branches move on a slow cycle, deliberately small — a 13 m tree swaying like a shrub reads as a fairground prop. Speech is lip-synced to a recorded track; voice, accent, language and ｓｃｒｉｐｔ are made to order, and the lines are triggered by approach sensor or floor mat.
Voice is where most projects spend their revision rounds. A ｓｃｒｉｐｔ written for one language and translated late tends to run long, and a long line against a short jaw cycle looks wrong however good the recording is.
Bark runs, boxes and lamp access
Q235 steel frame with rust treatment, trunk volume carved in high-density foam, skin in silicone at 5–7 mm, colour sprayed in translucent layers so the bark tone sits in the surface rather than on it. Outdoors, the build runs from −25 °C to 45 °C.
Bark is sculpted in vertical runs, because that is the direction rain takes. The gift boxes are separate props on the same frame, wired to the same cabinet, with lids that open for lamp changes instead of panels that come off with a screwdriver.
Concrete first, the tree third
Sections: trunk, branches, head, face unit, gift boxes, controller and audio, crated and lifted. A 13 m build wants a crane and a day, on a foundation that has cured. Two technicians travel with the sections for assembly and commissioning.
The cabinet sits at the base behind a lockable door, with audio and lighting on separate circuits. Power is 110 V or 220 V, configured at build for the destination, and core electronics carry a two-year warranty. Freight, duties, certificates and installation are quoted separately.
ｓｃｒｉｐｔ, soil and the crane route
Send the site plan with the winter wind direction you get, the ground conditions or a soil report, the crane access route, the power point, and the ｓｃｒｉｐｔ in its final language. If the tree is meant to be the landmark, send the sightline from the gate as well.
Where this size is the wrong buy: a covered mall with a ceiling below the branches, a site with no crane access, and a park that changes its centrepiece every season. A smaller tree does the talking-character job indoors with far less site work.
Enquiry
Send the plaza drawing, the wind and ground information, and the ｓｃｒｉｐｔ you plan to use. Tell us who triggers the tree and how often it should speak in an hour. You get a foundation outline, a face drawing and a price.
Where to go next
Worth reading before you commit: the rental cost breakdown for how the sizes compare, the pneumatic versus hydraulic comparison for what the ground has to carry, and the cost breakdown with the seven price factors for where the money actually goes.
For ideas on placing it, see layout strategies for themed trails. The rest of the range is on custom animatronic builds, and if this one is the wrong size for the slot, custom animatronic monsters for monster hunt is the closest alternative.
Product Accessories
Packaging and Container Loading
