The Institute of Animations' Research and Development group is a multidisciplinary team, which main focus is the creation of innovative tools and technologies for entertainment productions.

Along the years, we have explored different areas that have been crucial in media production related developments. Past projects had a strong emphasis on facial expressions and emotions. Practical results are the Facial Expression Repertoire and a set of software extensions for high-quality facial animation. During the last years, we have been actively developing our own Open-Source Application Framework: Frapper. It is designed to enable fast prototyping of character based content and services in real-time. Among its applications we count an approach for Alternative Performance Capture; matchmove modules that allow Virtual Production scenarios; and a multi-user game named StereoBottic, which was specifically developed for autostereoscopic display devices. Frapper is also used as basic tool development platform in the joint research project for the Creation of Efficient Stereoscopic Post Production Tools.

In a more interdisciplinary line, we initiated the “Agent Framework”, a development platform that combined different fields as psychology, affective computing and art. Examples of this are the efforts with psychologists in autism research, or the
Muses of Poetry project that brings together poetry and computational creativity.

Research and Development at the Institute of Animation is a cooperation between
MFG Baden-Württemberg, Innovation Agency for IT and media and Filmakademie