I see a lot of concern, especially from animators, that tools like this will eventually make them obsolete.
This isn't a replacement for someone that knows how to animate, nor someone who can draw. Tools constantly evolve, but making something visually captivating always requires those same core skills. It still takes an artist to make art. That hasn't changed.
What we figured out here is a very advanced form of old-fashioned rotoscoping. Animation takes a lot of forms; Traditional, 3d, stop-motion... They all have different strengths, and enable different stories. Our method here isn't a replacement, but an attempt at something new.
What excites me is that this tech makes it easier to bring my visual ideas to life. Ideas that were otherwise impossible. When I said this democratizes animation, I'm referring to the near-insurmountable mountain of work needed to make a full-length narrative animation. Currently that requires large studios and large budgets. Doing it on your own is nearly impossible.
But I see potential in these tools to change that! That's what I'm so excited about. Imagine one person, or a few friends, bringing their crazy ideas to life. Imagine if a traditional animator could automatically have their drawings inked and colored. Imagine eliminating the uncanny valley on cgi faces. These tools have the potential to do that. We're trying to figure out how, and sharing our journey. If we want community-controlled AI tools, we need to develop them as a community, otherwise they become proprietary tools locked behind a company.
And yes, this can be done with your own style. We trained our model, not from hundreds of artists, but from ONE film- Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust. We've been very open about this, and I think it's important to be. But this is also an experiment and a loving parody of this era of anime. I consider it no less ethical than the countless other videos on our channel that borrow from pop culture to tell their story.
Sudden change can be scary, especially if it feels like your passion or livelihood is on the line. But that's why we're out here exploring it. Hopefully we can help shine a light into the fog for everyone.
-Niko