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I don't think its comparable. Generative AI is a far far greater leap than CGI is. CGI is a mere evolutionary/sustaining innovation, movies/shows pre and post-C

I don't think its comparable. Generative AI is a far far greater leap than CGI is. CGI is a mere evolutionary/sustaining innovation, movies/shows pre and post-CGI are largely made by the same studios. CGI just lowered costs compared to physical sets, and slightly expanded what was possible to film. Generative AI, on the other hand, lowers costs so radically, that it will spur entire business models. Within a few years, we can expect feature length animations/TV shows to be created by teams of less than 5 people. Live action shows, requiring photorealism, will be a bit harder, so maybe 5-10 years. This will in turn change the business model radically, with indie creations competing against big budget productions, it'll turn Netflix in the direction of youtube, etc etc. It will be very similar to how livestreaming and youtube affected TV-talk shows, as large production staff are no longer needed. This is no exaggeration, I've seen animation created with diffusion models, that would have taken a traditional animator a year to animate by hand, now doable by a single person, within a week. It's been less than a 1 month since the model's release (novelai), imagine what would happen in a year.

tartoran 4y ago
In theory sure, but it seems to me that if the cost and effort to create become lower so will the content. There will always be better and worse, and just like CGI, the content would be good or bad depending on what humans are behind it and the amount of effort they put on. Im thinking generative AI will indeed make animations ubiquitos to the point we’d ingest so much content to the point of becoming ‘alergic’ to it or seek something other kind of entertainment.
- aiappreciator 4y ago
  There a huge demand for animation, that is currently being unsatisfied. Youtube used to have a large genre of short-animations. They all died out, because their production costs are way higher than what weekly-ad-revenues can sustain, compared to the incredibly cheap costs of talking heads, which can update daily. Not everyone will like animation, but there'll probably at least 50x animation on youtube in 2 years than today. There's also the quality issue. Animation scales very linearly with budget. With low budget, the best you can do is flash animation, which limits the formats of story you can tell very heavily (99+% comedy) With AI, individuals can match the quality of professional animation teams, which drastically expands the range of ideas they can explore. So that eliminates a lot of the boredom. Note this wouldn't displace existing animation studios, it'll just allow them to push their production values way way higher. For hand-drawn animation, even top-budget films, still have moments where they cheap out. In the future, the standard is going to get pushed insanely high, where every frame will be screenshot worthy, because they are literally AI illustrations. Aka, instead of one Mona-Lisa, expect 1000 Mona Lisa paintings, formed into an animation of Mona-Lisa going through her day in renaissance Italy. The actual threatened jobs, aren't in animation, but in live action. Because its far harder to make perfect photo-realistic images than stylized images. This gives animation an advantage that live action doesn't have. For example, the recent Rings of Power cost 1 billion, but an AI animation would both look better, and cost far far less. Sci-Fi and fantasy shows are especially vulnerable to competition from animation.
creata 4y ago
> I've seen animation created with diffusion models, that would have taken a traditional animator a year to animate by hand, now doable by a single person, within a week. Do you have a link? That's pretty hard to believe.
- kyleyeats 4y ago
  This was posted yesterday and I think it qualifies: https://www.reddit.com/r/StableDiffusion/comments/yjhkjv/tardigrade_dreams_a_stable_diffusion_animation/ https://www.reddit.com/r/StableDiffusion/comments/yjhkjv/tar...
- anonylizard 4y ago
  https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1B14y1575G/ https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1B14y1575G/ It uses diffusion to post-process a 3d video frame-by-frame. You can see the massive improvements in facial expressions, from bug-eye alien face to something quite pleasant. 3d animation is great at allow for complex movements and dynamic camera angles, but horrible at facial expressions. That's why Pixar had to go with the exaggerated proportions 'cartoons' look, to ensure the faces are large enough to convey emotions, even in 3d. 2d animation is superb at facial expressions, but can't do complex movements. Drawing a static face is easy, drawing a rotating character is very hard, drawing a rotating character, while the camera itself is rotating, is brain meltingly hard, so almost never done. Diffusion based workflows will have none of the downsides, and all of the upsides, compared to either approach.
  - creata 4y ago
    Very pretty! > Diffusion based workflows will have none of the downsides, and all of the upsides, compared to either approach. But isn't this true in the same way as tracing over 3D has the "upsides" of both approaches?
    - anonylizard 4y ago
      Not exactly, tracing over the 3d is called 'rotoscoping', and has been used in animation for a few years now, basically hand-drawing animation over a 3d video. There are two problems with rotoscoping. 1. The cost, its not much cheaper than just drawing it by hand. 2. The effects don't compare to diffusion. If you pay close attention, you'll find that diffusion not only added facial expressions, it even added SHADING and crevasses to the dresses. That stuff is extremely difficult even for a human to do repeatedly. Indeed, diffusion is superior to 2d animation, even in raw quality. Because diffusion will soon be able to produce illustration level pictures for each individual frame. Whereas 2d animation had to rely on detail-compressed simple artstyles AND keyframe-inserts to cut down on costs. Soon every frame will be a keyframe, and it can execute artstyles previously impossible to animate.

tartoran 4y ago

In theory sure, but it seems to me that if the cost and effort to create become lower so will the content. There will always be better and worse, and just like CGI, the content would be good or bad depending on what humans are behind it and the amount of effort they put on. Im thinking generative AI will indeed make animations ubiquitos to the point we’d ingest so much content to the point of becoming ‘alergic’ to it or seek something other kind of entertainment.

aiappreciator 4y ago
There a huge demand for animation, that is currently being unsatisfied. Youtube used to have a large genre of short-animations. They all died out, because their production costs are way higher than what weekly-ad-revenues can sustain, compared to the incredibly cheap costs of talking heads, which can update daily. Not everyone will like animation, but there'll probably at least 50x animation on youtube in 2 years than today. There's also the quality issue. Animation scales very linearly with budget. With low budget, the best you can do is flash animation, which limits the formats of story you can tell very heavily (99+% comedy) With AI, individuals can match the quality of professional animation teams, which drastically expands the range of ideas they can explore. So that eliminates a lot of the boredom. Note this wouldn't displace existing animation studios, it'll just allow them to push their production values way way higher. For hand-drawn animation, even top-budget films, still have moments where they cheap out. In the future, the standard is going to get pushed insanely high, where every frame will be screenshot worthy, because they are literally AI illustrations. Aka, instead of one Mona-Lisa, expect 1000 Mona Lisa paintings, formed into an animation of Mona-Lisa going through her day in renaissance Italy. The actual threatened jobs, aren't in animation, but in live action. Because its far harder to make perfect photo-realistic images than stylized images. This gives animation an advantage that live action doesn't have. For example, the recent Rings of Power cost 1 billion, but an AI animation would both look better, and cost far far less. Sci-Fi and fantasy shows are especially vulnerable to competition from animation.

creata 4y ago

> I've seen animation created with diffusion models, that would have taken a traditional animator a year to animate by hand, now doable by a single person, within a week. Do you have a link? That's pretty hard to believe.

kyleyeats 4y ago
This was posted yesterday and I think it qualifies: https://www.reddit.com/r/StableDiffusion/comments/yjhkjv/tardigrade_dreams_a_stable_diffusion_animation/ https://www.reddit.com/r/StableDiffusion/comments/yjhkjv/tar...
anonylizard 4y ago
https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1B14y1575G/ https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1B14y1575G/ It uses diffusion to post-process a 3d video frame-by-frame. You can see the massive improvements in facial expressions, from bug-eye alien face to something quite pleasant. 3d animation is great at allow for complex movements and dynamic camera angles, but horrible at facial expressions. That's why Pixar had to go with the exaggerated proportions 'cartoons' look, to ensure the faces are large enough to convey emotions, even in 3d. 2d animation is superb at facial expressions, but can't do complex movements. Drawing a static face is easy, drawing a rotating character is very hard, drawing a rotating character, while the camera itself is rotating, is brain meltingly hard, so almost never done. Diffusion based workflows will have none of the downsides, and all of the upsides, compared to either approach.
- creata 4y ago
  Very pretty! > Diffusion based workflows will have none of the downsides, and all of the upsides, compared to either approach. But isn't this true in the same way as tracing over 3D has the "upsides" of both approaches?
  - anonylizard 4y ago
    Not exactly, tracing over the 3d is called 'rotoscoping', and has been used in animation for a few years now, basically hand-drawing animation over a 3d video. There are two problems with rotoscoping. 1. The cost, its not much cheaper than just drawing it by hand. 2. The effects don't compare to diffusion. If you pay close attention, you'll find that diffusion not only added facial expressions, it even added SHADING and crevasses to the dresses. That stuff is extremely difficult even for a human to do repeatedly. Indeed, diffusion is superior to 2d animation, even in raw quality. Because diffusion will soon be able to produce illustration level pictures for each individual frame. Whereas 2d animation had to rely on detail-compressed simple artstyles AND keyframe-inserts to cut down on costs. Soon every frame will be a keyframe, and it can execute artstyles previously impossible to animate.