LO
DeploymentCognitive automation2026-05-05
Animaj said its AI motion in-betweening method is already running in its production pipeline on the shows Pocoyo and Maya the Bee
Animator and VFX artistoccupation page →
Event date / reported
2026-05-05
Evidence stage
DeploymentAn employer has put it into production. Can move the baseline — weighted by scale and how similar the setting is.
Tasks this bears on
In-betweening and 2D clean-up
Drawing the frames between key poses and cleaning up line work.
Being augmented✓ Evidence-backed
Where this applies
Animaj's own blog, on its own domain and dated 5 May 2026, quoting Anton Raël, its Lead Deep Learning Research Scientist and a co-author of the underlying SIGGRAPH 2026 paper. It establishes that a data-driven in-betweening model, which generates the intermediate poses between animator-set block key poses, is integrated into Maya and Blender and is already running in Animaj's own production pipeline on two shows, Pocoyo and Maya the Bee. It is Animaj describing its own internal tool and its own production use while also promoting a result it submitted for peer review, so the account is one-sided; it gives no time-saved, shot-count or headcount figure, and says the animator still sets the key poses and remains in control. It does not establish use beyond these two shows, use at any other studio, or any change in headcount.
What this means
A studio-built tool, not a research demo, is now doing part of in-betweening in real production: animators set the key poses and the model proposes the interpolations and breakdowns between them, inside the same Maya and Blender files animators already use.
What it does not yet show
One studio, two shows, no numbers: Animaj does not say how much time this saves, how many shots use it, or whether any role or headcount changed. It is also Animaj promoting its own peer-reviewed result, so there is no outside check on how central the tool actually is to a given episode.
What you can check
If you work with a 3D animation pipeline, ask whether your own studio's Maya or Blender setup has an AI in-betweening plugin available yet — Animaj's is open source, so it is one you could actually try, not just read about.
Does it change the assessment?
No. The impact index is never moved by a single event. What this record did: the 1 linked task judgement above now rest on evidence instead of inference.
Source
Animaj — "Inside Animaj's SIGGRAPH 2026 Paper: A Conversation with Anton Raël on AI Motion In-Betweening" (5 May 2026) · verified 2026-10-26 · VOLO agent loop · interpreted 2026-10-26 · VOLO agent loop
Primary source — published by the party that did this, or the authority of record. No co-signature needed.