Blockbuster-grade motion capture, for all budgets.
Motion Arcade is an independent mocap studio in Wellington, founded by an animation supervisor and a stunt coordinator whose work appears in Avatar, The Last of Us, The Hobbit, and most of the MCU. We built the stage for our own projects. It's now open to anyone who needs it.
Most VFX studios don't have a motion capture stage. The few that do — Wētā FX among them — use it to make some of the best character performance work in the industry. So if you're an independent filmmaker, game developer, or animation studio, getting access to a real volume has historically meant flying somewhere, paying a lot, or going without.
Motion Arcade exists to change that. We run a 10m × 11m, 110 m² OptiTrack volume out of Wellington and rent it by the half-day or full day. Bring a scene, a script, or just an idea — we'll shoot it with you, performed by people who've done this work on the biggest films in the world.
Video-based and AI-driven mocap have come a long way, and for some shots they're a perfectly good fit. But the moment you need two performers interacting, weapon work, weight, contact, or anything that depends on real physical contact between bodies, you need a real volume with real markers and real performers.
The other thing a real stage gives you is time. Every take is solved live on the floor — you see the performance on a CG character within seconds, give a note, and go again. You direct the performance the way you'd direct an actor: in the room, in real time, until it's right.
Enough space for three performers with props, weapons, or full staging builds in action simultaneously.
Clean, solved FBX exported in any standard frame rate, ready to drop into Maya, Blender, Unreal, Unity, or your pipeline of choice. Need clean-up and re-target? We offer that too, as an add-on.
Our in-house team has performed some of the most iconic CG characters of the last decade — across the Marvel and DC films, the Avatar franchise, the Hobbit trilogy, and beyond. Fights, falls, weapon work, creature movement, crowd performance — whatever the shot needs, we can perform it.
Dial in remotely or join us on the floor. Our Assistant Director runs the shoot day with you, scene by scene, so every take is the result of a real conversation — not a guess.
Send a scene description, a rough storyboard, a video reference, or just an idea. We'll come back with a plan and a quote.
We schedule shoots in blocks. Lock in a date and we'll handle choreography, performer briefing, and pre-shoot planning with you in the lead-up.
Join the session in person or remotely over video. Our AD runs the floor, our performers take direction in real time, and we deliver your data within five working days of the shoot — clean, solved, and ready to drop into your pipeline.
Working with Motion Arcade has been a game-changer. Access to experienced performers and technicians, alongside a state-of-the-art motion capture stage, has enabled me to imagine sequences with much more dynamic, kinetic, and realistic action than I previously thought possible with a small-scale team, significantly lifting the production value of our animated films.
Ike and Simo's depth of experience and expertise in motion capture can't be understated. Their input during the planning stages for each shoot is always useful and clarifying, and their ability to collaborate and improvise creative solutions on the day has been immensely valuable to my projects.
Motion Arcade taught me the true, elevating impact of great motion capture.
We used Motion Arcade to capture a wide range of motions for a complex crowd sequence on a war movie. These guys really get it — great communication in the prep phase, and when the shoot came around we captured three times as much material as I was hoping for because their rig and their team were so switched on. The data was delivered super quick and was of high quality. Can't wait to work with them again.
I've worked with Motion Arcade on two completely different films — M3GAN 2 and a war film. Both projects required different mocap styles and set-ups. The team was always very professional, communicated clearly, and maintained a 'can-do' attitude and team approach to solving problems. It was smooth sailing and they delivered the data for both projects extremely quickly and at a really high level. My go-to studio for any mocap needs!
We'll tell you what it'd take to shoot. No obligation, no sales pitch.
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