At The Werk Howse, we often find ourselves explaining to new clients why there are no character second charges for body animation in our MoCap bids. The short answer is that we have a pipeline and workflows that make the processed data that our team can deliver, cleaned and retargeted data at the end of any given shoot day. People who are familiar with MoCap bids are often skeptical that we aren’t “hiding” a charge, or that the data will actually live up to the highest quality we promise. So here is the long answer to explain why we are different. It’s a story of both the evolution of technology, and the entrenchment of a long standing and profitable, but outdated, business model.
The Basics
A little background before we go much further. Most people who have used a MoCap vendor are familiar with the term “Character Second”, or “CS”, but for those who aren’t, it is a charge for delivering motion capture (aka MoCap) animation that is based on how much animation time is requested for each individual performer or character. For the purpose of this article, we are discussing body, finger, and prop animation character seconds.
The idea of a character second is a variation of an older film and visual effects cost structure wherein a client pays by the second or foot of film to be processed. To illustrate, if a client wanted 1 character in a 1-second scene, that equals 1 character second. Five characters for 10 seconds would be 50 character seconds. That’s basically it. Some vendors charge different rates for each step of the process which can include tracking, solving and retargeting, but generally, each step is always multiplied by the character seconds ordered and delivered.
When I was a kid, we tracked data frame by frame.
There was a time when this business model made sense. When our founders, Rosanna and Dennis, started working with Motion Capture back in 1999, the cleaning process was very manual and extremely labor-intensive. Technicians (trackers/editors) would literally look at 2D/3D data for each individual marker and fix every animation issue (noise or gaps), often frame-by-frame. Adding to the complexity, a second performer didn’t just double the work; it would make the first character harder to clean because there would be more occlusion (missing data), and therefore more data to fix in the whole scene for both characters.
The last step of getting animation onto a character (retargeting) was not even a visual process yet. In many cases, technicians would sometimes programmatically adjust numbers in text files to run batch retarget tools and then review each file to see if it just “looked right”. In the 1999 world of Mocap, charging by the character second for every labor intensive activity made sense because every frame of data required human work.
The (Real-)Times, They Are a-Changing
Fast forward 25+ years, and clients should expect to see high-quality real-time animation on screen during a MoCap shoot. Given that, it is obvious that data isn’t manually tracked frame-by-frame any longer and that, with the right workflow, the pieces that need cleanup should be minimal if the shoot is done correctly. This idea is the basis of a goal we’ve had since we founded TWH back in 2018. A business model that would allow us to move beyond the character second idea. Ultimately, MoCap isn’t and shouldn’t be the same workflow as it was a quarter-century ago. This isn’t to say that there is no work or effort that needs to be put into ensuring the data is of the highest quality, both aesthetically and technically, at the end of every shoot day. But it is not the same process and therefore not the same billing method.
It’s important to note that you can’t do what we do with just any “brand” Motion Capture system or off-the-shelf tools. We’ve built an extensive pipeline using both Vicon Shogun and Autodesk MotionBuilder that allows us to maintain quality and efficiency.
Some of our 2025 workflow, pipeline and best practices include:
We ensure cameras are well aimed, whether it is a 16 or 120 camera system.
We prep assets to ensure they meet our quality standards before ingesting.
We have extensive tools to automate tasks on set and in post.
We work with clients, directors, and cast to make smart decisions on set.
And yes, someone looks at every file; they just don’t have to fix a large amount of data manually, so one post artist can ensure the data is clean and retargeted within the shoot day.
To be clear, we also don’t use AI or any outsourcing. And all of this work is charged based on actual crew working during a given shoot day. Not how much data was captured, delivered or ordered.
Necessity, the mother of invention
When we started TWH in 2018 we were building from the ground up. We knew what the industry standard had been for the last 25+ years, but also knew the advances in technology gave us a unique advantage to do something different.
Starting with our first project, we had schedules that required rapid data delivery. We didn’t have time to build an elaborate character second ordering system or even outsource the data processing. We kept the work in-house and focused on building something new that harnessed the advances in technology and our decades of experience to deliver great animation.
We also didn’t want our clients to worry about precisely estimating character seconds, which lets them be creative on set without worrying about going over budget. Whether a scene runs a few seconds long, they added an extra prop or even wanted to select multiple takes for their final project.
As a business we could, of course, still charge for character seconds, but we feel that our transparency, value and dedication to quality create stronger long term client relationships. And more importantly fosters more creativity and freedom for creators.
Conclusion
The character second business model has been around a long time and won’t be gone overnight, but it is starting to show cracks. The change is not necessarily technological though. Even with the amazing advancements in real-time computer graphics, computer vision and AI, it is the simple act of choosing to “work smarter, not harder” that can break down the old business paradigms to move things forward. TWH doesn’t expect our philosophy to change the whole MoCap industry, but we hope that it can inspire customers and studios alike to ask tough questions and push boundaries.