The Institute of Animations' Research and Development group is focused on the creation of innovative tools and technologies for entertainment productions.

The 'Artificial Actors' project from 2003-2006 had a strong emphasis on practical
tools for high quality facial animation. This work included one of the first convincing prototypical VFX productions featuring a completely digital actor. During the last years the group has mainly focused on the Filmakademie Application Framework: Frapper. It is designed to enable fast prototyping of character based content and services in real-time. Applications include a field test system for psychologists and their autism disorder patients, an interactive conference guide or a cloud based animated messaging service for mobile devices. Frapper is also used for tool development such as motion capture data analysis as demonstrated in the Performance Solver application.

Most recently the R&D group succeeded in acquiring a research grant from the Ministry of Economics. This joint research agenda will focus the creation of efficient stereoscopic post production tools.

Research and Development at the Institute of Animation is a cooperation between
MFG Baden-Württemberg, Innovation Agency for IT and media and Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg as part of the "MFG Visual Experience Lab".