PLASK, an emerging animation tech startup in South Korea, is employing deep-learning technology to radically cut cost and time in animation production.

“It takes long hours and lots of money to produce animation, and we want to help artists to create metaverse content more easily,” its founder and CEO Lee Jun-ho said in a recent interview with Maeil Business Newspaper.

PLASK, an emerging AI animation tech startup founded in February 2020, offers AI-powered three-dimensional (3D) character building solution. It boasts more accurate and faster pose estimation technology based on deep learning.

“Either motion capture or key frame edit is a must in animation production,” Lee said. “But motion capture costs $1,500 for a minute shoot and key frame edit takes a day for five second content.”

PLASK solution can help significantly save time and cost in animation production thanks to the company’s human detection, 3D pose estimation, and skeleton retargeting technologies, the founder said.

For example, when an artist downloads a video of a dancing singer and uploads it on web-based program Shoot, AI automatically creates it into motion. Bringing a pre-made 3D character file creates an image of the character dancing exactly the same way as the singer. The file can be immediately used in game or YouTube animations.

Lee said that it costs about 45 million won ($40,268) to create a 3-minute animation on 10 characters by hand. The same can be done with Shoot but with a modest budget of 30,000 won to 1 million won.

Lee decided to start his own business after witnessing the bourgeoning AI-backed computer vision technology sector in 2019 when he was still studying computer engineering at Pohang University of Science and Technology.

American peers RADiCAL and DeepMotion have already attracted investments from global investors who bet big on the AI-powered computer vision technology. PLASK is tapping global investment after it attracted investment from Springcamp, a private equity and venture capital firm, Naver, and Bigbang Angels, an early-stage institutional investor since its launch. It is also seeking to receive over 700 million won in government funds.

The company claims its program is more comprehensive than RADiCAL’s or DeepMotion’s 3D-animation production solutions.

“I would like to improve overall content production process through AI,” Lee said.

Business prospect is bright and working environment is at its best.

Ever since establishment last year, PLASK has become a fast-growing company with 19 full-time employees. It is managed by four teams – product team, ML team, growth team, and design time.

PLASK is working closely with big-name partners, including Gamevil, Line Friends, LG, and Kakao, and considers game producers and YouTubers as potential customers.

By Lee Sang-duk and Lee Eun-joo

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