AI Supported Animation Continues

Hello Motion Masters.

The world of AI doesn’t rest and neither does imagination.

With Runway announcing gen-2, new video and animation workflows are within sight. I’ve been honing in on them, so I’ll be ready when the time comes. And I want to share them with you.

I’ll be breaking down how I made this looped animation.

There were 4 steps to make this animation.

First was recording myself.

As Gen-1 has an output limit of 3 seconds, I wanted to choose something simple, that I would be able to loop.

So I recorded myself walking past the camera. I chose a white wall, as I want to use the green screen function of gen-1, which will isolate the subject in the video.

Next step, was taking a still frame from the video and run it through Stable Diffusion.

Using the Depth Model with ControlNET, I can keep the composition in tact and change the style of image.

I went through a few variations and in the end chose a Lord of the Rings inspired characters.

The closer the new images are to the original, the smoother the Gen-1 results will be.

Once I had my original video and the reference images, I ran them through gen-1. I used the green screen function to isolate the character from the background.

Next step Is creating the background in Midjourney.

I created two landscapes, one for each character. I kept the prompts very simple.

Final step was putting everything together in After Effects.

I used Keylight plugin to remove the green screen background from the videos and put them on top of the background. I animated the position of the background image from left to right, so there is a feeling of movement forward.

I created a transition between these two images with a revolving ring, which is a simple ellipse with it’s size animated.

I added some music and atmospheric effects, like fire embers and copied it a bunch of times, to create a loop.

I’m very excited about this workflow, as I see it working for much bigger stories, which I’m working on as I write this.

It’s an exciting time to be a creator! Touch the new tools and discover new ways to tell your stories.

I would love to see some of the stories you create. Reply anytime and start a conversation!

If you haven’t seen yet, I have a bunch of resources on AI tools (most are FREE), which you can download and start exploring AI supported creative workflows.

You can also stop by my website or social media and as always,

Keep creating and don’t forget to have fun. ☀