Cartwheel

Cartwheel is a powerful and innovative generative animation platform designed to revolutionize how creators bring characters to life. Built by a team of artists and scientists, Cartwheel empowers users to generate high-quality 3D character animations for videos, games, films, advertisements, and social media content with unprecedented speed and creativity. Whether you are a professional animator looking to accelerate your workflow or a creator with no prior 3D experience, Cartwheel provides an intuitive and accessible solution for storytelling through motion.

The platform's core philosophy is to make animation faster, more creative, and accessible to everyone. It achieves this by leveraging cutting-edge AI to translate simple inputs, like text descriptions, into complex and nuanced character movements. This allows for rapid prototyping and iteration, freeing creators to focus on the narrative and artistic aspects of their projects.

How to use Cartwheel

The workflow in Cartwheel is designed to be straightforward and efficient, allowing you to go from idea to finished animation in just a few steps:

1. Create or Upload Your Character: You can start by generating a unique, fully rigged, and weighted 3D character simply by providing a written description. Alternatively, you can upload your own artwork to be converted into a movable character. For users with existing assets, Cartwheel allows you to upload your own 3D character files and seamlessly apply animations.
2. Generate Motion: The magic happens here. Create dynamic animations by typing a text prompt, such as "a character slipping on ice" or "a ninja performing a backflip." The AI interprets your request and generates the corresponding motion. An upcoming feature will also allow you to convert motion from a video file directly into a 3D animation.
3. Discover, Refine, and Combine: Explore a vast library containing thousands of pre-made motions. You can easily combine multiple motion clips to create long, complex performances. Cartwheel's technology automatically and smoothly blends the transitions between different motions, all with just a few clicks.
4. Export and Integrate: Once your animation is complete, export it in a variety of industry-standard formats. You can download your work as a video file or as 3D data formats like .bvh, .fbx, and .glTF. This makes it easy to integrate your animations into popular software such as Maya, Blender, Unity, and Unreal Engine.

Core Features of Cartwheel

• Text-to-Motion: Generate complex character animations from simple text descriptions.
• AI Character Generation: Create fully rigged and ready-to-animate 3D characters from text prompts or your own 2D art.
• Custom Character Support: Upload and animate your own 3D models using Cartwheel's motion engine.
• Extensive Motion Library: Access thousands of diverse, high-quality motions to use and combine in your projects.
• Seamless Motion Blending: Intelligently combine and transition between different animations to create fluid, long-form performances.
• Multi-Format Export: Export animations as video files (.mp4) or 3D data (.bvh, .fbx, .glTF) for professional workflows.
• Mobile-Friendly Web Platform: Create and edit animations on the go from your favorite mobile browser.
• Maya Integration: Includes an animator-ready rig and an anim-transfer plug-in for a seamless workflow with Autodesk Maya.
• Video-to-Motion (Coming Soon): A future feature that will enable motion capture from video footage.

Use Cases for Cartwheel

Cartwheel is a versatile tool suitable for a wide range of applications:

• Game Development: Rapidly create animations for player characters, NPCs, and in-game cinematics.
• Filmmaking and VFX: Animate characters for short films, commercials, and visual effects sequences without the need for complex mocap setups.
• Social Media Content: Produce engaging animated characters for viral videos on platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram.
• Advertising and Marketing: Develop unique and eye-catching animated content for promotional campaigns.
• Prototyping: Quickly visualize and iterate on animation ideas for larger creative or commercial projects.

Advantages of Cartwheel

Cartwheel offers significant advantages over traditional animation methods. Its primary benefit is the massive increase in speed and efficiency, reducing animation time from days or weeks to minutes. It democratizes animation, making it accessible to individuals and small teams who may lack the budget for expensive software or the technical skills for manual rigging and keyframing. The platform promotes creative exploration by allowing users to experiment with countless motion ideas instantly. Furthermore, user ownership is guaranteed—anything you upload or create is secure and remains your property.

Pricing and Plans

Cartwheel offers a flexible pricing structure to suit different needs:

• Free Plan: Ideal for trying out the platform. Includes 150 Spins/month, limited access to the motion library, and 5 free 3D file exports per month.
• Pro Plan: Designed for individual creators and professionals. Offers 1,500 Spins/month, full motion library access, unlimited 3D exports, advanced features like variable FPS, and priority support.
• Studio Plan: A comprehensive solution for teams and businesses. Provides unlimited Spins, full library access, advanced support with a 12-hour response time, and early access to new features.

Note: The "Video to motion" feature is listed as "Coming soon" across all plans.