Arx Anima: building a cost effective character animation pipeline

We love discovering creative teams who are not only talented, but extremely passionate about the work they are creating. The video above features Dunja Bernatzky, co-founder and Head of Creative at Arx Anima. Dunja and her team are using the Smartsuit Pro for their own animated series, Lottie, and we couldn’t be more impressed!

Arx Anima is a “one stop shop” animation production company based out of Vienna, Austria. With additional studios in Gran Canaria, Madrid and the US, they are dedicated to seeking out talent all over the world. Listening to their story, it’s apparent that Dunja and her team are passionate about creating high quality work and when you see what they’ve made, you’ll want to see more.

Their new animated series Lottie has given Arx Anima the perfect opportunity to experiment creatively with the Smartsuit Pro. Dunja states that it is “the perfect tool for that, as it brings, perfectly, the natural expressions of an actor to the animation process. So you are both the puppet and the puppeteer”. She goes on to mention that because of this, creativity has increased drastically within their work. They are also combining the Smartsuit Pro with facial tracking systems to “find a new paradigm of animation”. This allows Arx Anima to increase the efficiency of animating 3D characters at the fraction of what it would normally cost!

Animating 3D models traditionally can be a long and tedious process, but the Smartsuit Pro eases these pain points. Dunja tells us that “the suit also is a relevant part in some of our research and development projects where we use it for agile layout design and quick shots.” They’re using the suit as a way to quickly prototype design ideas and gather quick shots of animations so that they can save time on development. “Use of the suit will always be two fold for us - increasing quality and expressivity while making the animation production pipeline more natural and agile.” she continues. This in turn helps make the content created at Arx Anima cost effective and competitive.

We’re excited to see what Arx Anima continues to create using the Smartsuit Pro. It’s impressive to see all of the ways it has benefited their production pipeline. We’re happy and honored to be able to assist in the development of their new projects with the Smartsuit Pro! Arx Anima is actively seeking new talent to join their team at their many studios all around the world. Check out their website and follow them on Facebook and LinkedIn to stay up to date on what they’re working on!

Rokoko is working with Arx Anima in the EU project “first.stage” which is focused on making fast and easy previsualization for creative industries. For more info visit http://first-stage.eu/