Cartwheel

What is Cartwheel?

Cartwheel is a motion toolkit for animators and game teams that generates and captures character animation with AI. Performance Capture turns video into motion data, capturing up to four people in one pass along with face, hands, camera position and relative scale, and processes up to 100 clips in a batch. Performance Generation generates motion from text prompts, and an editor lets you regenerate sections. You can also generate rigged characters, keep a motion library and retarget motion to your own characters with Cartographer. Teams can automate work through an API and an MCP, and an Unreal Engine plugin is available. Usage is measured in credits, with plans for individuals, teams and enterprises; the pricing page does not show plan prices. A 7-day free trial is offered, and extra credits are sold at $.05 per credit.

Use cases

• Capture motion from video footage
• Generate character animation from text
• Retarget motion to custom characters
• Batch-generate locomotion and combat sets
• Populate crowds with varied motion
• Build motion into internal animation tools

Who it's for

• Game developers
• 3D animators
• Technical artists
• Studios with animation pipelines

Why use Cartwheel

• Video footage becomes usable motion data without a mocap suite.
• Batch generation fits pipelines that need hundreds of animations.
• Credit costs per second are published, so usage is easy to estimate.
• Plugins and an API bring motion generation into the tools animators already use.
• A 7-day free trial lets you test the output before choosing a plan.

Cartwheel features

• Video-to-motion capture of up to 4 people in one pass
• Facial capture alongside body capture
• Batch capture of up to 100 clips at once
• Text-to-motion generation
• Motion editor for regenerating sections of an animation
• Rigged character generation and character upload
• Cartographer retargeting to your characters
• Export to .fbx, .gltf, .usd, .bvh and .mb formats
• Realtime capture and retargeting model
• API for batch jobs and automated pipelines, plus an MCP
• Unreal Engine plugin

Cartwheel integrations

• Unreal Engine

How to get started with Cartwheel

1. Start a free trial and open the Cartwheel apps or connect through the API.
2. Upload video for capture or write a prompt for generated motion.
3. Choose a capture model and options such as facial capture and foot stabilization.
4. Edit or regenerate parts of the motion and retarget it to your character.
5. Export the animation in your pipeline's format or pull it into Unreal Engine with the plugin.

Cartwheel limitations

• Capture clips must be 250 MB or smaller each
• The Unreal Engine plugin targets Windows and UE 5.6; Maya, Unity and Blender plugins show a notify option
• API access depends on the plan; some tiers limit batch size and concurrency
• Plan prices are not shown on the pricing pages

Cartwheel pricing

Cartwheel has no free plan, but it offers a free trial.

Cartwheel plans

• Basic

  Price on vendor site

  • Monthly credit allotment
  • Email support, 48hr SLA

• Pro

  Price on vendor site

  • Monthly credit allotment
  • API access
  • Email support, 48hr SLA

• Enterprise

  Custom

  • Higher throughput and support

Plans as listed on the official pricing page on 24 Oct 2026. Prices can change and may vary by country or exclude tax. Check the official pricing page.

Cartwheel alternatives

The main Cartwheel alternatives listed on Debuly are DeepMotion, Animatica, Kling AI, Runway, Diffusion Studio and Hera. The table compares pricing and platforms; order is A–Z.

1. 

   Animatica

   Animatica adds AI motion generation and hand posing tools to Blender, Motion Builder and 3ds Max for character animation.

   Video
   FreemiumVisit Animatica (official site)
2. 

   DeepMotion

   AI motion capture that turns video into 3D character animation, with an API, real-time SDK and text prompts.

   VideoDesign
   FreemiumVisit DeepMotion (official site)
3. 

   Diffusion Studio

   Open-source video editor on an infinite canvas that coding agents or people can use to edit, caption and generate video.

   VideoAutomation and agentsDesign
   FreemiumVisit Diffusion Studio (official site)
4. 

   Hera

   Hera is an AI motion designer that turns a text prompt into editable, code-based motion graphics videos.

   VideoDesignDeveloper platforms
   Visit Hera (official site)
5. 

   Kling AI

   AI video and image generator from Kuaishou with credit-based plans, a free Basic tier, and a developer API billed per second.

   VideoImage generationDeveloper platforms
   FreemiumVisit Kling AI (official site)
6. 

   Runway

   AI video, image and audio workspace with Gen-4.5 and partner models, credit-based plans from $12/month and a developer API.

   VideoImage generationDeveloper platforms
   FreemiumVisit Runway (official site)

Cartwheel FAQ

Sources & verification

Facts on this page come from the official sources below, each with the date we read it. Written by Debuly; the vendor did not review this page.

Image credits

• Logo: from getcartwheel.com · fetched 24 Oct 2026 · Vendor trademark, used only to identify the product; removed on request
• Cover: none collected yet, so a generated tile is shown.

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