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The state of AI for hand-drawn animation inbetweening

Apr 19, 2024 - yosefk.com
The article discusses the potential of using artificial intelligence (AI) to improve the productivity of traditional hand-drawn animation workflows. The author explores two recently published papers on animation "inbetweening" – the automatic generation of intermediate frames between given keyframes. The author also tests a commercial frame interpolation tool on some test sequences and discusses the future of these techniques versus emerging approaches. The author is particularly interested in AI assuming responsibilities similar to those of a human assistant in animation, such as inbetweening, cleanup, and coloring.

The author also discusses the use of AI in raster and vector frame representation. For raster frame representation, the author mentions a paper titled "Improving the Perceptual Quality of 2D Animation Interpolation" (2022) which uses forward-warping based on bidirectional flow estimation. For vector frame representation, the author refers to a paper titled "Deep Geometrized Cartoon Line Inbetweening" (2023) which formulates inbetweening as a graph matching problem. The author concludes that while AI can improve animation workflows, it requires careful application and tailoring to specific needs.

Key takeaways:

  • The author is exploring the use of AI in 2D animation, specifically in the role of an assistant to improve productivity in traditional hand-drawn animation workflows.
  • The focus is on "inbetweening" - the automatic generation of intermediate frames between given keyframes. The author reviews two recent papers on this topic and tests a commercial frame interpolation tool.
  • The author also discusses the future of these techniques versus other emerging approaches, and invites feedback and collaboration from others interested in this field.
  • Two different approaches to AI in animation are discussed: raster frame representation, which treats the input as images, and vector frame representation, which works on a vector representation of the lines. The author tests both approaches on two animation sequences.
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