Bringing Digital Characters to Life: Tencent Games Motus Makes Gamescom Debut with End-to-End AI Animation Pipeline

Bringing Digital Characters to Life: Tencent Games Motus Makes Gamescom Debut with End-to-End AI Animation Pipeline

PR Newswire

COLOGNE, Germany, Aug. 27, 2026

COLOGNE, Germany, Aug. 27, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Tencent Games Motus showcased its advances in intelligent character creation at Gamescom Dev and Gamescom, demonstrating how generative AI can support 3D character animation workflows.

The Tencent Games Motus AI Team focuses on intelligent character creation. Built on Tencent Games' proprietary family of generative animation foundation models, Motus connects production stages including rigging, skinning, text-, video- and keyframe-driven motion generation, motion refinement and real-time character interaction. The resulting end-to-end pipeline is designed to turn static assets into production-ready animation efficiently.

While generative AI can create impressive motion, generation is only one part of animation production. Characters must first be rigged and skinned, while generated motion may require correction for jitter, mesh penetration, joint anomalies or foot sliding. When these capabilities remain fragmented, time saved through AI can be lost through tool switching and manual cleanup. Motus therefore organizes AI capabilities into one continuous, production-oriented pipeline.

Motus analyzes character topology and generates production-ready skeletons within seconds, then produces skinning weights for natural deformation of muscles, clothing and parts. It supports motion creation from text, video and keyframes, as well as multi-character interactions for combat, collaboration and social scenarios. Its refinement capabilities automatically detect and correct animation defects, helping generated results move closer to direct production use. At the final stage, audio or text can drive facial expressions, body movement and interactive responses in real time for intelligent NPCs, digital humans and virtual presenters.

On August 24, Tencent Games Motus technical lead and expert researcher Zijiao Zeng delivered "Breathing Life into Geometry 2.0: Advancing the Unified AI Pipeline for 3D Character Animation." at Gamescom Dev. The session explained how Motus connects foundation models into a unified workflow and addresses production requirements for stability, controllability and efficiency.

At the Gamescom Dev and Gamescom booths, visitors could turn a text prompt into a fluid 3D animation through a hands-on demo, while Motus specialists demonstrated other capabilities. Motus technologies have been applied across multiple titles.

Drawing on Tencent Games' experience in industrial-scale game development, Motus is bringing generative AI into preparation, creation and delivery across the animation pipeline, helping artists and animators spend less time on repetitive work and more time on character design, motion creativity and emotional expression.

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SOURCE Tencent Games Central Tech