Inside the Machine: AI, Motion Capture and the Future of Screen Production

The workshop, part of CoSTAR's UK-wide AI for Creativity initiative, was led by Animotive — specialists in AI-driven motion capture — and drew a room of practitioners, the vast majority of whom were already using some form of AI in their day-to-day workflows. Producers, directors, performers, VFX artists, academics and researchers arrived with real questions and left with an understanding of the tools available to them.

Professor Frank Lyons, Co-Director of Screen Lab said:

Events like this are exactly what CoSTAR Screen Lab is here for. Northern Ireland has a genuinely exciting creative industries ecosystem, and CoSTAR Screen Lab sits right at the heart of it. What we're trying to do is make sure that practitioners here — whether they're working in film, animation, VFX or beyond — have access to the knowledge, the networks and the tools they need to stay at the cutting edge. A day like yesterday, with so many talented people in the room asking the right questions about AI, shows exactly why that work matters.

Motion Capture Without the Suit

One of the day's demonstrations came from the Animotive team, who showcased an AI model capable of accurately predicting the movement of virtual characters using only standard VR headsets and controllers.  No full-body motion capture suit required. For smaller studios and independent productions where traditional MoCap rigs are cost-prohibitive, this kind of accessible, AI-assisted pipeline could be genuinely transformative.

AI as a Production Partner

The mood in the room was one of engaged pragmatism. Most attendees were already using AI tools in some capacity, and while many expressed genuine optimism about what the technology offers, plenty shared a sense of caution too.

David Cosgrove, Head of Production at RETìníZE, captured this well. He pointed to how dramatically generative image and video quality has improved in just a few years, and made the case that the challenge for the industry now is less about whether to use AI, and more about how to fit it meaningfully into pipelines that practitioners own and control.

Practical Tools, Real Results

Attendees split into groups across four workshops, each exploring a different corner of the AI-assisted toolkit:

• Higgsfield — image and video generation for pre-visualisation
• Animotive x Kimodo — prompt-driven character animation inside Unreal Engine
• ComfyUI for compositing — including masking, rotoscoping, pose detection and AI-assisted relighting
• AI-assisted MoCap in Animotive

The day closed with a showcase of short films made by participants using these tools — a vivid illustration of how quickly creative outputs can be realised when the right pipelines are in place.

Ethics, Ownership and the 'Human in Command'

Some of the most valuable conversations of the day focused on risk, responsibility and the role of humans in AI-driven creative work. Representatives from the Artificial Intelligence Collaboration Centre (AICC) shared real-world examples of responsible AI adoption with SMEs across Northern Ireland’s Creative Industries sector, and facilitated an open discussion around copyright, authorship, ownership, and the policies organisations need in place, particularly around autonomous AI agent models.

Tadhg Hickey, Head of AI and Digital Ethics Policy at AICC, highlighted a point that landed with the room: when AI outputs cause problems, legal and professional liability rests with the human who deployed the tool — not the tool itself. The implication is clear: AI needs a human in command, and that person needs to know what they're responsible for.

What's Next

This event is one of a series taking place across the UK as part of CoSTAR's AI for Creativity initiative. Associated funding calls are set to open in the coming months, offering support to companies looking to embed AI into existing workflows in ethical and responsible ways. AICC is also working with the CoSTAR Screen Lab to develop and deliver a dedicated creative industries workshop later in the year.

To find out more about how the AICC is accelerating responsible AI adoption across Northern Ireland, visit aicc.co

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