Bloggers use AI to make short films of Journey to the West to attract attention Parties: It takes more than a year to produce manually, and it only takes more than six days to use AI
Recently, a nearly 4-minute AI concept animation of "Journey to the West: The Monkey King Comes Out" has attracted attention on the Internet, with some netizens praising its realistic effect and beautiful picture, while others feel that it is "too blunt" and "like PPT".
On February 21, its producer Feng Bin told a reporter from Beijing Youth Daily that he used AI technology to create this short film to the greatest extent, using Chatgpt to translate the original text of Journey to the West, conceiving the expression of animation effects, using intelligent drawing software to create shots and pictures, selecting more than 70 from more than 2,000 pictures generated, and then using intelligent graphics video software to create animations, and using AI technology for dubbing sound effects. In the end, he made this 2D animated short film in more than 6 days, which would have taken more than a year to produce purely by hand.
Recently, the short video blogger "AI Madhouse" released an AI concept animation "Journey to the West: The Monkey King Comes Out", which lasts 3 minutes and 56 seconds, telling the story of the birth of a stone monkey that shocked the heavens, became the monkey king in Huaguo Mountain, and later apprenticed to Bodhi Patriarch. The short film currently has a total of 2.6 million views and 67,000 likes, some netizens think that its effect is realistic and the picture is beautiful, and some netizens think that it lacks narrative, "too blunt" and "like PPT".
On the 21st, a reporter from Beiqing Daily learned that the real name of the blogger of "AI Maniac Asylum" is Feng Bin, 39 years old this year, he studied criminal investigation law in college, and had an internship at the police station, but he has always had a movie dream, and then taught himself animation production, and has done several animation-related jobs, and has also done film and television special effects and post-synthesis, film special effects makeup, game special effects, game technology art, and is now a freelancer, mainly doing self-media.
Feng Bin told a reporter from Beiqing Daily that he has been very fond of Chinese classical literature and Chinese myths since he was a child, such as Journey to the West, Romance of the Gods, and Water Margin. "I wanted to present the spell effects in the original book, so I tried to make the most of AI technology and created the animated short film "Journey to the West". ”
Feng Bin said that before the creation of animation, it is necessary to conceive, when creating the animated video of "Journey to the West", he will first analyze the original work, and use ChatGPT to translate some more obscure Chinese into vernacular, and let ChatGPT conceive some animation effect expressions. Once you've sorted out all the shots and storyboards, you can draw them with Midjourney, the smart drawing software.
"I will generate different descriptions based on the shots and images I want, and generate different pictures with different descriptions. Feng Bin said that sometimes the picture effect is not ideal, and the descriptor can only be adjusted again and again for testing. "It's usually thirty or forty descriptors, and sometimes there are hundreds. Trying different descriptors to generate the desired footage, Feng Bin spent three days in the process. Subsequently, he spent two more days using Runway, an intelligent mapping video software, to complete the animation.
After the animation is made, the sound effects are also done using AI dubbing. "I will think of the lines in advance and design the narration, but AI dubbing often has no tone and emotion, and I will put the AI-produced dubbing into the clipping, polish it with sound effects, and sometimes dub it myself. ”
Feng Bin told a reporter from Beiqing Daily that the biggest difficulty in using AI to create is that the randomness of the AI-generated diagram is very large, and it is difficult to achieve the effect he wants. To make an animated short film for the Monkey King, he generated more than 2,000 images, but in the end only selected more than 70 images.
Feng Bin used AI to create such a nearly four-minute 2D animated short film in just over six days. He said that if it is purely manual, even if it is a skilled designer, it will take a week to create a picture in a 2D animation, and it will take more than a year to create more than 70 pictures. "If you are doing 3D animation, you can use modeling, it will be faster, and it will take at least half a year to make such a video. ”
Although AI creation has improved efficiency, it has also been unsatisfactory. Regarding the comments of netizens who are "too blunt" and "like PPT", Feng Bin admitted that his satisfaction with the animated short films produced by AI is only 70%. "The PPT that netizens said is actually a parallax animation effect, which makes the picture feel like moving forward, but the range of action is not large. What netizens want to see, such as the fight screen, the range of action is relatively large, and it is more difficult to do it with parallax animation, and the current technology is not easy to achieve. As for the problem of unfluency and stiffness, which is also the current technical limitation of the relevant software, I will add narration during production to try to make the picture smoother and more narrative. ”
Feng Bin told reporters that he will insist on continuing the production of the "Journey to the West" series of animated short films, and plans to complete the book 100 times.
For some netizens in the comment area suggested trying to use the artificial intelligence Wensheng video model Sora to make animation, Feng Bin said that Sora can indeed achieve a larger range of action effects and make more complex and exquisite animations. "But at present, Sora is not publicly available to ordinary users, and I will try to use Sora for creation in the future. ”
Text/Beijing Youth Daily reporter Dai Youqing Intern Jin Jing