Creating animation is a time-consuming course of, requiring a number of steps together with storyboarding, rendering, composition, and lighting to craft a single scene. If a director desires to experiment with a special take for a scene, an animation crew has to return and tweak issues earlier than the scene might be finalized.
Cheehoo, a startup based by a mixture of Hollywood execs and technologists, desires to create an AI-powered device to make it simpler for creatives to supply animated content material.
The startup was born out of manufacturing firm Rideback, which produced the Lego Movie franchise. Rideback’s co-CEOs, Michael LoFaso and Jonathan Eirich, are part of Cheehoo’s founding crew together with Rideback co-founder Dan Lin. Other founding members embody former President of DreamWorks Animation Chris deFaria and ex-Apple AI researchers Hubert Tsai and Wei-Cheng Kuo.
In a dialog with TechCrunch, LoFaso stated that Cheehoo desires to cleared the path for studios and creators to convey their animation to life.
“What we discovered via Rideback is that in Hollywood, the method of making animation was getting costly and sophisticated,” LoFaso stated. “It was beginning to turn into harder for creators to get their thought out on the planet. We wished to create a device that was native to the workflows of creators and make their lives simpler.”
Cheehoo’s instruments present creators a solution to prototype and iterate on animation quickly. They assist with duties like information annotation, file conversions, and format consistency, permitting creators to maneuver between totally different steps of the animation course of.
Cheehoo’s workflow, which may combine with current platforms like Maya or Unreal, permits customers to make modifications in animation and see the outcomes straight away. Creators can flip AI options on or off to take extra management of the modifying course of. Cheehoo makes use of in-house AI fashions to help with character and asset creation, and in addition lets customers combine third-party fashions from OpenAI, Runway, and others for duties equivalent to put up era, movement stylization, and scene composition.
Cheehoo didn’t announce any launch companions, however the firm stated that it’s already working with a number of IP holders, studios, and creators. Cheehoo has raised $10 million in funding led by Greycroft, with participation from Point72 Ventures, Basis Set, Headline Asia, Powerhouse Capital, Playground Productions, and Rideback.
Brentt Baltimore, principal at Greycroft, stated that the enterprise agency has all the time been inclined to make investments in corporations that create “new age” media. He added that he thinks Cheehoo has the right combination of Hollywood, media, and expertise DNA to unravel issues in animation pipelines.
“Cheehoo has a chance to cut back the price of animation manufacturing total,” Baltimore stated in an interview. “That means it may well have refined creators can simply create animation movies with out having an costly studio setup. Using […] AI, the corporate is attempting to place enterprise or massive studio-level workflows right into a device enabling unbiased filmmakers to people to be inventive with animation options. It additionally doing all this whereas offering inventive management to customers, which creatives have all the time wished.”
Looking to the long run, LoFaso stated that whereas Cheehoo is working with enterprises and prosumers primarily, it intends to roll out extra consumer-focused merchandise. That might assist Cheehoo compete in opposition to startups like Accel-backed Cartwheel and Naver-backed Cinamon, that are additionally constructing instruments to assist simplify points of animation manufacturing.
