The next step for DALL-E and Midjourney is animation

A image created using DALL-E 2 by @dailymidjourney and @designmidjourney

New tools like OpenAI’s DALL-E 2 and Midjourney allow anyone to type a series of commands (for example, a Rembrandt-style bird sitting in a tree on a sunny day) and output an image that displays the text to the user. log in.

The devastating impact these tools have on graphic art is already fueling debate among traditional artists about how this will affect the future of fine art. Logically, one of these potential near-term futures of technology is systems that then animate these artificially generated images.

“Many academic institutions are working on animations,” David Holz, Midjourney founder and CEO, told Quartz. “It’s a bit pricey and the quality isn’t there yet, but we’re definitely going to see some crazy stuff in the next few years.”

AI animation could disrupt the entire animation industry

One of the earliest tech-assisted changes to hand-drawn animation was rotoscoping. It is the process of viewing live footage and helps animators make character movements more realistic. Despite its use in classic Disney movies like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and innovative films like Ralph Bakshi’s animated The Lord of the Rings and Richard Linklater’s Awakening Life, some animators are still looking at the rotoscope.

A image created using DALL-E 2 by @dailymidjourney and @designmidjourney

Motion capture has become one of the most preferred ways to animate 3D character models in recent years to reduce production time and make animations more realistic. Some of the best examples of the technique are showcased in Netflix’s Love, Death + Robots series.

Using art history to preview the future of AI art

Some, like Andy Warhol, who use artificial intelligence to produce art, liken the workers to a famous artist who produces screenprints and lithographs for himself, often based on popular culture references and photographs he hasn’t taken before.

A image created using DALL-E 2 by @dailymidjourney and @designmidjourney

“The reason I paint this way is because I don’t want to be a machine,” Warhol said of his factory-like process. Sol LeWitt, a conceptual artist who gives his assistants detailed instructions on how to create a work, “when all the planning and decisions are made in advance… execution is imperfect business.”

In this context, automation in the arts previewed the rise of artificial intelligence in the arts, with code now available to teams of assistants.

Motion capture optimized animation production work, artificial intelligence images could be the next

Despite industry skepticism, both rotoscope and motion capture were eventually accepted as acceptable tools in the animation trade. However, in both cases, a human hand is still directly involved in producing the images. With AI-generated images, the animation process can evolve to require only human input to the back-end algorithm, and the front-end asks it to dictate a scene.

Some see the use of AI art creation tools as a natural evolution of software like Photoshop and Procreate. Others see image-generating AI as a force that has the potential to displace thousands of people who support their families as professional illustrators. When it comes to animation, this shift could eventually cost some of the work of the more than 62,000 animators and special effects artists working in the US.

However, given the rapid development of these AI art systems, it probably won’t be long before they’re powerful enough to produce some sort of animated movie, essentially turning screenwriters into art directors, and kicking off a strange new phase of animation. .