The first Kitsu Summit gathered animation, VFX, and game production professionals in Paris for 15 talks on production pipelines, studio workflows, AI in animation, and the 2026 Kitsu roadmap.

From BLEND and FBX to MP4 and EXR, each animation file format serves a distinct role in production. This guide breaks down native, exchange, simulation, and rendering formats—helping you choose the right one for collaboration, rendering, and delivery.

Western and Eastern animation are shaped by cultural values, visual languages, and storytelling philosophies. This article explores how studio structures, aesthetics, and narratives differ between traditions—and how modern animation increasingly blends the two.

A strong animation production brief prevents scope creep, wasted effort, and misaligned visions. This guide shows you how to write briefs using the Golden Circle method—covering purpose, tactics, and deliverables—to streamline communication and keep teams aligned from concept to final delivery.

Background characters make animated worlds feel alive, adding realism and depth to every scene. Learn how animators use techniques like asset reuse, looping cycles, layering, and procedural generation to create believable crowds without overspending time or budget.

Outsourcing in animation helps studios save money, scale faster, and access global talent without compromising quality. Learn how to define your outsourcing needs, choose between freelancers and studios, manage assets, and streamline reviews to keep projects on track.

Discover how remote animators successfully work from home, from building ergonomic workspaces to mastering collaborative tools, securing assets, and managing feedback like a pro.

Learn how to streamline client communication in animation production. From onboarding to offboarding, this guide covers strategies to align expectations, manage feedback, and keep projects on time and on budget.

Learn how to create animation moodboards that define your project’s tone, style, and direction. From gathering references to curating layouts, this guide shows how to turn abstract ideas into a clear visual blueprint.

Curious how to go from animator to animation director? This in-depth guide covers the key steps—building your craft, leading teams, and defining your creative voice—so you can direct with purpose and confidence.

Learn how to master the secondary action principle in animation—subtle, supporting movements that add realism and emotional depth to your scenes without stealing focus from the main action.

Color correction is a crucial step in animation post-production, used to fix inconsistencies, unify tones, and enhance visual storytelling. Learn the essential techniques like white balance, saturation control, and color grading to bring polish and consistency to your animated work.

Over-animating can distract from your story, inflate production time, and overwhelm your audience. Learn how to simplify your animation workflow, focus on what matters, and bring clarity to your scenes with practical, studio-tested advice.

Discover how to apply the arc principle in animation to create more realistic, appealing, and emotionally resonant movement. Learn techniques for planning, visualizing, and exaggerating arcs, and when to break the rules for storytelling impact.

Efficient asset storage is critical in animation production. This guide explores best practices for organizing, securing, and versioning digital assets across large-scale projects and distributed teams.

Learn how to create an animation pitch bible that grabs attention—from story vision and character design to budgeting and presentation. This guide includes real examples and industry tips to help get your animated project off the ground.

Learn the difference between straight-ahead and pose-to-pose animation, and how to choose the best method for your scene. This guide covers pros, cons, and digital techniques to help animators plan with confidence.

Master the art of staging in animation with techniques to improve posing, camera work, composition, and lighting—so every frame tells a clear, compelling story.

From Japan’s seiyuu stars to iconic Disney performances, voice actors are the lifeblood of animated storytelling. Discover how they shape characters, elevate emotion, and bring entire worlds to life through sound.

In a world filled with AI-generated art, developing a personal animation style is more important than ever. Discover how to explore your influences, evolve your process, and build a style that’s uniquely yours.

Character sheets are the unsung heroes of animation production. From turnarounds to pose sheets, learn how these vital tools help keep characters consistent, expressive, and production-ready from start to finish.

From iconic silhouettes to strong poses and perfect timing—appeal is what makes animated characters stick. Learn how to master this vital animation principle and build more engaging, memorable work.

Timing controls the pace, rhythm, and emotional weight of your animations. Learn how to refine your timing using tools like time charts, onion skinning, and motion trails to bring your stories to life.

Onion skinning helps animators see past and future frames at a glance, making smoother motion, better timing, and fewer mistakes possible. Learn how this powerful tool works and why it’s still a must-have in modern animation workflows.

Hard surface modeling is essential to 3D animation—from coffee cups to spacecraft. Learn how artists build detailed environments with the right topology, clean geometry, and time-saving techniques like kitbashing and subdivision modeling.

Exaggeration is a key animation principle that pushes emotion, timing, and poses beyond realism to tell more impactful stories. Learn how animators use it across design, sound, and camera work to create iconic scenes.

Levels of detail (LOD) help animators optimize performance by adjusting rendering complexity based on a scene’s needs. From bump mapping to texture baking, learn how LOD keeps 3D animation efficient without sacrificing quality.

The Slow In and Out principle makes animations feel more natural by replicating real-world acceleration and deceleration. Learn how to use easing curves, secondary actions, motion trails, and keyframe placement to create smoother transitions in animation.

Previsualization (previs) is the key to planning complex animation scenes before production. From storyboards to animatics, previs artists shape the blueprint for smooth, cost-effective workflows. Learn how previs enhances storytelling, camera work, and timing!

Follow-through & overlapping action bring realism and fluidity to animation. From hair swaying after a stop to clothing trailing behind movement, these principles add weight and believability. Learn how to apply them effectively in our latest article!

Squash & Stretch isn’t just for cartoons—it’s key to making animation feel natural and dynamic. Learn how this principle adds weight, flexibility, and believability to motion in our latest article.

Blender and Maya are two of the most popular 3D animation tools, but which one is right for you? This guide compares their features, pricing, strengths, and best use cases to help you decide.

Anticipation is key to making animation feel natural and impactful. Learn how this principle guides movement, builds tension, and enhances storytelling.

The 12 principles of animation are the foundation of every great animation. Developed by Disney animators in the 1980s, these timeless techniques bring characters to life with weight, movement, and emotion. Learn how squash and stretch, anticipation, and staging can elevate your work!

Solid drawing is a cornerstone of the 12 principles of animation, giving characters and objects depth, volume, and movement. Learn how to bring your sketches to life with techniques like form, perspective, balance, and lighting in our latest blog post.

Every great animation begins with a strong script. Learn the essentials of animation scriptwriting in our latest blog post, from formatting and narrative arcs to crafting compelling character dialogues. Discover how to transform your ideas into powerful visual stories.

Discover how to break free from creative blocks and find inspiration for your animations. From storytelling techniques to documenting everyday life, this guide is packed with actionable strategies to keep your ideas flowing and elevate your craft.

Rendering transforms 3D models into stunning 2D visuals, bringing animated worlds to life. Dive into the key techniques, tools, and processes that make this essential step in animation production possible.

Animation is for everyone, from storytellers and marketers to teachers and hobbyists. Our beginner’s guide covers animation types, essential tools, and the 12 principles of animation, providing a roadmap to help you bring your ideas to life.

Shape language uses geometric forms like circles, squares, and triangles to convey personality, emotion, and narrative roles in character design. Learn how animators use this powerful tool to craft iconic characters and elevate your own designs.

Smear frames are the secret to creating fast, dynamic motion in animation. This article explores how animators use them in 2D and 3D work, with tips to bring energy and speed to your scenes.

Stepped animation allows animators to highlight essential movements by focusing on keyframes first, saving the finer details for spline animation later. Discover how this approach, using step mode in digital content creation tools, streamlines workflow and perfects timing for impactful animation.

Choosing the right laptop for animation can be daunting with so many options and specs to consider. This guide breaks down the essentials—from CPU power to screen resolution—to help you find the best laptop for your animation needs, even on a budget.

Explore the art of 2D animation, where movement and storytelling come to life through techniques like computer animation, stop motion, and motion graphics. From concept to final output, this post breaks down the key stages that make each project unique and engaging.

What makes animated characters’ dialogue look real? Our latest article dives into the art of lip-syncing, exploring how animators match mouth movements with dialogue. From dialogue prep and phoneme analysis to keyframes, rendering, and QA, discover the process behind lifelike animation.

Lighting can make or break an animation. It’s not just about visibility—it’s about storytelling. Subtle shifts in light shape emotions, set the mood, and highlight key moments. In our latest article, we dive into the full lighting process, from concept to final render.

Animators use basic physics and mechanics principles they can bend for a more stylized look. In this article, we go through a few examples of physics and mechanics principles to better put words on animation techniques to create more engaging stories.

In this article, we explore 16 animation techniques to make your work more engaging. It usually doesn’t take much to get it right, but the devil is in the details and a single edit can make your animation memorable.

As our invisible eyes, the camera in animation has an active role. By meticulously controlling its movement, animators achieve a variety of effects to engage the viewers―far beyond simply showing us what's happening on screen, it's a powerful storytelling tool often unseen.

Landing your dream job pushes you to stand out from the crowd, and it starts with a strong animation portfolio―a chance to showcase your talent, skills, and creative vision to potential employers.

Animation is a captivating dance of creativity and technical challenges with many moving parts, and even the smallest misstep can lead to a major fumble: an oversight during pre-production or production can snowball into costly rework.

The animation industry sees a rise in collaborative productions where multiple studios join forces to tackle a single project. This approach is more and more common for big productions but also with independent animators.

This article explores the importance of diversifying revenue streams and provides actionable tips to help studios achieve financial success.

As the animation industry continues to evolve in a digital age, understanding the importance of data analytics becomes increasingly crucial. Behind the scenes lies a treasure trove of production data waiting to be mined for valuable insights.

This article aims at highlighting tools and best practices to avoid crunch time culture: crunch time as an expected part of work, rather than a happy accident to strive for what’s best.

In this blog post, we explore nine of the best animation blogs to help you broaden your horizons and become a better animator!

You pour hours of work into completing a task only for your team to give vague, contradictory, or harsh feedback upon sharing your progress. Your day is ruined. You go through it anyway and sleep on it. But the next day, your client praises you, and it's like the sun shines a little brighter.

Your budget is your animation studio’s lifeline: you need to take care of it because your team’s livelihood depends on it. In this article, we list 9 points to consider to make the most of your animation budget!

If you're an animator looking to make your mark on YouTube, you've come to the right place: this article will guide you through the essential steps to kickstart your animation channel!

In any field, learning is essential. Growing skills is an essential part of all careers. Of course, we learn a lot by practicing but taking time to nurture the theory is important to perform better in any field. And animation is no exception. ‌

Animation comes in different shapes and forms, each with its pros and cons. As a business owner, marketing manager, or producer, it's important to understand them to hire the right animation studios and increase your return on investment.

All animation projects start with an idea. The animation production process then takes these ideas and integrates them into a cohesive story. Bridging the gap between ideas and storytelling is no easy task, however: that’s where concept artists come into the picture to transform ideas and scripts into engaging visuals. But what goes on in the process, exactly? That’s what we set out to figure out in this article. What’s A Concept Artist A concept artist creates designs and illustrations to b

In this article, we explore the role of an environment artist: how it fits in the animation pipeline, why it’s important, and what’s behind its creative process.

Rigging gives 3D models the ability to move. With rigs, you can make realistic animation. At CGWire, we help animation studios from all around the world manage their 3D animation assets so we know how important the rigging process is. But do you know exactly what goes on behind the scenes and how it works? We wrote this article to explain that, and maybe give you an idea on how you can build your own animations. In the following sections, we cover everything related to rigging: how it fits in

Animation relies on visuals, words, and sound. Without music, sound effects, and dialogues, stories would remain incomplete. Characters would lack souls. From the subtle harmonies that evoke emotion to the thunderous applauses that give you goosebumps, sound design is an important part of production. In this article, we take a look behind the scenes to explore the fascinating world of sound design in animation―the techniques, tools, and processes used by sound designers to bring animations to l

To truly appreciate the significance of character design, one must understand its profound impact on our lives. Think of those cherished childhood memories spent glued to the television screen, eagerly following the adventures of our favorite characters. These animated drawings shaped our imagination, taught us valuable life lessons, and became lifelong companions. They ignited our dreams and sparked our creativity, leaving an indelible mark on who we are today. But what makes certain characters

An animation project takes months to produce and thus requires careful planning to deliver successfully: storyboarding is the first step to bring a script to life with visual representations that will influence the rest of the production. With Kitsu, we at CGWire have witnessed firsthand how important storyboarding is to help animation studios to come up with creative visions in collaborative, international environments. In this article, we offer a dive into the process of storyboarding―its pu

Over the past five years, virtually all major movies have relied heavily on 3D modeling, using it to attach characters to virtual sets and create captivating special effects. In modern animation, 3D modeling is an essential component. But have you ever wondered what modeling really is and how it works? In this article, we'll answer these questions and more, taking a closer look at the process, techniques, and tools behind 3D modeling. What’s Modeling Modeling is the process of creating 3D mod

Food without texture is like a blank canvas, lacking the richness and depth of flavors that make it enjoyable. The same holds true for 3D models: without texturing, they would appear flat and lifeless! In this article, we explore the crucial role of texturing and shading in animation. We break down the process, the people involved, and the techniques used to breathe life into 3D models. Let’s discover the secrets behind the mesmerizing visuals of your favorite animations! What’s Texturing Te

Have you ever wondered how animators manage to realistically model the 100,000 hairs on the average person's head in a reasonable amount of time? The answer lies in grooming! In this post, we take a closer look at the intricate art of grooming and how skilled artists handle the complexity of these 3D models to bring them to life in the animation pipeline. Get ready to be amazed! What’s Grooming Grooming is the process of creating and styling hair, leaves, feathers, scales and other types of s

Sight is undoubtedly the most powerful sense for the average person, and you can use its amazing properties to create incredible animation experiences! That’s what stereoscopy is all about. But have you ever wondered about the science behind it? Look no further than this blog post, where we uncover the techniques behind stereoscopy! What’s Stereoscopy Stereoscopy is a technique to create the illusion of three-dimensional depth by presenting slightly different images to each eye. This is done

All good things must end, and animation productions aren’t different: in the final post-production phase, the original concept finally comes to life! But post-production isn’t to be taken lightly, as it plays a crucial role in shaping the final look and feel of your animated project. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at post-production: what it means, why it’s important to get it right, the process, and the challenges to account for. Let’s dive in! Definition Post-production is the p

From blockbuster films to anime and video games, visual effects (VFX) play a crucial role in animating captivating experiences. And at the heart of these incredible effects lies the expertise of VFX artists. In this article, we'll take a closer look at the work of VFX artists, exploring their role in shaping our favorite animated films and how they create these effects. What’s An VFX artist: Definition An VFX artist specializes in creating 2D and 3D visual effects, and rendering simulations

Compositing is the phase where layers and plates are combined into an almost-final image. A layer is a group of assets organized together to be easily edited, while a plate is a raw footage used as a base for adding after-effects. The result is a sequence of images for a shot, as well as stereoscopic (one variant for each eye) and textless (for international production) variants. Compositing In 5 Steps The graphic artist responsible for compositing is called a comper. The role can be divided

Anything is possible in the magical world of animation, if you get the pre-production phase right! Pre-production is the secret ingredient that makes every animation project come to life: it's where the magic begins, and where the imagination is let loose to come up with stunning visuals and captivating stories. But what is pre-production, exactly? In this post, we'll go through the artists, steps, and challenges behind this key phase. So, grab some popcorn, and let's discover the fascinating w

It becomes frequent during production that the work is separated into several studios. Either because the main studio is only a delegated producer and has no production studio or artist, because of lack of space, or to take advantage of a better rate on certain stages.‌

It is commonplace for TV shows to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per episode, if not millions. But CGI TV shows budgets aren’t cheap either...

Creating your own company is thrilling. It’s an opportunity to shape the way you work while discovering an entirely different world, which can be frightening at times. But fear not: we come with solid hints to help you create your studio.

In production, it's common to set quota goals to facilitate planning and budgeting. These quotas are then used as indicators to know whether the team is going at the right pace or not. Quotas can be calculated in terms of frames per day, seconds per day, or finished tasks per day.

After years of work, you meet success and your studio is growing. You have more important and demanding projects. It’s time to hire more…

That’s it; production is over! You’re proud of the result, and your production quality seems to have reached a new level. You were able to…

Kitsu is our main software at CGWire. It helps studios to deliver high-end content on a tight budget. With our solutions, you can keep…

During my career, I realized that making a mistake in shot casting is one of the best ways to set a fire in a production.

As you know, Animation Productions are like all projects. To manage them properly, you need to track KPIs and particular events. Tracking…

When running an animation production, what matters the most is to identify what can slow down the production. For that you must know all…

It is not uncommon during a production to come across a file whose extension is unknown. For instance, during a meeting, everyone is…

It is not uncommon during a production to come across a file whose extension is unknown. For instance, during a meeting, everyone is…

If you read our previous post, you will know that we were having doubts about our choice of an animation studio. In the end, a visit to…

A few years ago, I took on a job managing production at a studio. It was undergoing a full restructure but the financing plan had been…

My name is Gwénaëlle Dupré, I worked in cartoon TV show production for more than 13 years, I get through all the positions: from Second…

Some productions require to work with an animation studio overseas. It’s great to dispatch the work and limit budget but it brings…

As a young production manager, you may not know how to position yourself toward the other teams. You may be too friendly, but if you do so…

Every production relies on a schedule. It’s something you can’t avoid and that will follow you during all the production lifetime. So, it’s…

Preparing a production is always a difficult task. It’s like reading the future into a crystal ball! However, you can prepare yourself for…

We’ve been busy over the past few months building Kitsu 0.8! In this article you will find all the recent additions we made to Kitsu our…

In a Cartoon TV show, it’s usual to have the animation work done outside of the studio. It can happen in the same country or overseas. For…

As Production Manager, you are prepared for everything. You have done your schedule for the whole production. You have included all the…

In a CGI production, the camera defines the shot. The background set, the props, the FXs and the animation of the characters are all…

You were hired to manage this new TV Show. You feel the excitement of working on a new production. It may be one of your first jobs as a…