Alfons

Alfonso is used to increase the efficiency of animation production by combining stop motion animation with 3D CGI technology. It is developed by a consortium of domestic animation companies – Animation people, PFX, Incognito, Magic Animation and FAMU.

The initial idea for the development of ALFONS FACE POSE EDITOR (APE) was to make the process of puppet animation working with facial movement easier and faster. The APE system combines two animation techniques – stop motion and CGI and is developed by a consortium of domestic animation companies: Animation people, PFX, Incognito, Magic Animation and FAMU.

APE works in conjunction with Dragonframe (SM animation capture and playback software) and is thus user-friendly to industry practices. One of the strengths of the facility is that it allows SM animators to develop their talents without the demands of additional technical skills and training in CGI software. It speeds up animators’ work and allows them to effectively improve the expressiveness of puppet animation.

The SM animator animates the physical body of the puppet while capturing the virtual form of its facial part. The data generated from the facial animation is further processed in the CGI process and merged with the captured SM animation image in post-production.

This new and innovative technology has already been successfully verified on several short videos in 2023. Part of the development included finding the defining scope of the technology and the optimal configuration of the system. The development was carried out with the support of the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic.

This project is co-financed with state support from the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic under the ÉTA Programme

TAČR – ÉTA 5 Projekt
Technology Agency of the Czech Republic www.tacr.cz/en