Blogger uses AI to create animations at "extreme speed" to attract attention  

The nearly 4-minute short film was completed in 6 days and would have taken more than a year to be produced manually.

　　Recently, a nearly 4-minute AI concept animation of "Journey to the West: The Coming of the Monkey King" has attracted attention on the Internet.

Animation producer Feng Bin told a Beijing Youth Daily reporter yesterday that he made the greatest use of AI technology to create this short film. He used Chatgpt to translate the original classical Chinese text of Journey to the West, conceived the animation effect form, and used intelligent drawing software to create shots and pictures, from generation to generation. More than 70 pictures were selected from more than 2,000 pictures, and then the intelligent Tusheng video software was used to create animations, and the sound effects were also dubbed using AI technology.

In the end, it took him more than 6 days to make this 2D animated short film. It would have taken more than a year to produce it purely manually.

The sound effects of animated short films are also completed using AI dubbing

　　Recently, the short video blogger "AI Madhouse" released an AI concept animation "Journey to the West: The Monkey King is Coming", which lasts 3 minutes and 56 seconds. It tells the story of the birth of a stone monkey who shocked the heavens, became the monkey king in the Huaguo Mountain, and later became a disciple of Bodhi. The story of the ancestor.

The short film currently has a total of 2.6 million views and 67,000 likes. Some netizens think its effects are realistic and the pictures are beautiful, while others think it lacks narrative and is "too stiff" and "like a PPT."

　　The blogger of "AI Madhouse" is named Feng Bin. He is 39 years old. He studied criminal investigation law in college, but he has always had a movie dream. Later, he taught himself animation production and worked in several animation production-related jobs, as well as in film and television. Special effects and post-production synthesis, film special effects makeup, game special effects, game technical art, now a freelancer, mainly engaged in self-media.

　　Feng Bin told the Beiqing Daily reporter that he has been fond of Chinese classical literature and Chinese mythological stories since he was a child, such as Journey to the West, The Romance of the Gods, and Water Margin.

"I just wanted to show the magic effects in the original work, so I tried to make full use of AI technology to create the "Journey to the West" animated short film."

　　Feng Bin said that before creating animations, one must first conceive. When creating the animated video of "Journey to the West", he would first analyze the original work. He would use chatgpt to translate some obscure classical Chinese texts into vernacular and let chatgpt conceive some animations. Effect expression.

After sorting out all the shots and storyboards, use the intelligent drawing software Midjourney to draw the pictures.

　　"I will generate different descriptions based on the shots and pictures I want, and use different descriptions to generate different pictures." Feng Bin said that sometimes the picture effect is not ideal, and the descriptors can only be adjusted again and again for testing.

"Usually there are thirty or forty descriptors, and sometimes there are hundreds." Feng Bin spent three days trying different descriptors to generate the desired shot.

Then, he spent another two days using Runway, a smart graphics video software, to complete the animation production.

　　After the animation is produced, the sound effects are also completed using AI dubbing.

"I will think about the lines in advance and design the narration, but AI dubbing often lacks tone and emotion. I will then put the AI-produced dubbing into the cut, polish it with the sound effects, and sometimes dub it myself."

Due to current technical limitations, the fighting scenes are a bit stiff.

　　Feng Bin told a reporter from Beiqing Daily that the biggest difficulty in using AI to create is that the images generated by AI are very random, making it difficult to achieve the effect he wants.

To make the animated short film "The Monkey King", he generated a total of more than 2,000 pictures, but only selected more than 70 in the end.

　　Feng Bin used AI to create such a nearly 4-minute 2D animated short film in just over 6 days.

He said that if it were purely manual production, even a skilled designer would need a week to create one picture in a 2D animation, and more than a year to create more than 70 pictures.

"If you are doing 3D animation, it will be faster with the help of modeling. It will take at least half a year to make such a video."

　　Although AI creation has improved efficiency, it also has shortcomings.

Regarding the comments from netizens that they are "too stiff" and "like PPT", Feng Bin said frankly that his satisfaction rate for the current animated short films produced by AI is only 70%.

"The PPT that netizens talk about is actually a parallax animation effect, which makes the picture feel like it is moving forward, but the range of movement is not large. What netizens want to see is like fighting scenes, where the range of movement is relatively large. It is more difficult to do it with parallax animation. At present, The technology is not easy to implement. As for the problems of unsmoothness and stiffness, they are also the current technical limitations of the relevant software. I will add narration during production to try to make the picture smoother and more narrative."

　　"Journey to the West" animated short film planned to be completed 100 times

　　Feng Bin said that he will continue to produce the "Journey to the West" series of animated short films and plans to complete the book 100 times.

　　Regarding some netizens in the comment area who suggested trying to use artificial intelligence Wensheng Video’s large model Sora to create animations, Feng Bin said that Sora can indeed achieve greater movement effects and produce more complex and exquisite animations. “But Sora is not currently open to the public. For ordinary users to use, I will also try to use Sora for creation if I have the opportunity in the future."

　　Text/reporter Dai Youqing and intern Jin Jing

　　Photo courtesy/interviewee

　　(Beijing Youth Daily)