Nova is made by DreamZ Studio, an independent animation studio from Indonesia, built with Claude Code and AI tools.
DreamZ Studio makes Minecraft-style animation for YouTube and knows the tools from the animator's chair: where playback slows down, where the lighting runs out, and where the interface starts to get in the way.
In June 2026 a first attempt tried to attach a modern renderer to the existing engine. It worked up to a point, then hit a ceiling. On 2 July 2026 Nova started again from zero as its own native engine, using everything that first attempt had taught.
Since then every dev build has shipped with dated patch notes, including the known issues and the things that did not work.
Why now: the studio runs into these limits in its own productions, and a Claude-based animation assistant can take the first blocking pass off the animator's hands.
Give character animators, from blocky Minecraft-style rigs to imported 3D models, a tool that stays easy to learn, holds up on big projects, and renders frames they are proud to publish.
The bar is not "as good as before". It is better, done well rather than rushed, with every claim backed by a measurement or a visual check.
Nova is a large native codebase, and Claude Code is the main engineering agent working in it.
DreamZ Studio sets the direction, writes the briefs and makes every visual decision by eye. Claude Code does the engineering inside the real repository and proves its own work before anything is merged. Other AI tools help with independent review.
Each render change starts as a written brief: the goal, the limits, and a test that has to fail before the fix exists.
Claude Code works in the C++ editor code, the Direct3D 12 render passes and HLSL shaders, the animation and timeline systems, and the build and test tools.
Claude Code runs the builds, the test suites and the per-pixel comparisons, and, for picture changes, shows that switching the change off restores the old output exactly.
An independent review checks the evidence before merge, and DreamZ Studio signs off on anything that changes the picture.
Nova's MCP server lets Claude read and edit Nova projects (timelines, keyframes, poses) so it can block out a first animation pass for the animator to refine. A file-based version exists today as an experimental, separate tool; a live connection to the running app is planned.
An independent animation studio from Indonesia that makes Minecraft-style animation for YouTube. DreamZ Studio sets Nova's direction and makes every visual decision by eye.
Two friends of the studio try dev builds and tell us what works and what does not. They review and give feedback; they do not write Nova's code.
Follow Nova as it is built: new renders, dev build notes and the roadmap land on the Nova Discord server first, and you can talk with other animators there.
There is no public download yet. For press, email works too.
Nova in active development