#Free ai animation video tool

[ivalice-tifalucis]

Anyway, this is the update how am I doing so far. I really end up extracting the whole show. I got like 80% of progress already. I notice some part of the recording has that annoying clicking sound. I don't know because the quality of the video from bilibili, problem when the video was streamed and screen recorded by OP, or because technical problems during the streaming itself (likely this). I try to remove it as best as I can but some part I just let it be like that because it's too hard to remove and I'm not that good in sound editing. My tools are after all just my macbook, airpods, audacity, and bunch of free AI softwares :")

This part from City of Angels. I don't know anything about this musical except that Hadley was in it and damn this is so good.

Ramin channeling his inner Gleb Vaganov. To be honest, I don't really like the stage musical version of Anastasia. I don't enjoy Christy Altomare's voice as much as the original animation so I prefer listen to that album rather than the OBC. All of Gleb's part sounds good in live performances but actually meh on the OBC album, idk, it's just sounds too loud I guess. But I like this version of Still. Still, not really a huge fan, but still, still, STILL!!!!

They did this in the exact way they did it in 2016 except this time it's just with a piano and Hadley remembers everything *chef kiss

[violetsandshrikes]

Since sharing this post about a usful AI used to compile and graph research papers, I've realised I have a few other resources I can share with people!

Note: I haven't had a chance to use every single one of these. A group of post-grad students has been slowly compiling an online list, and these are some I've picked out that are free (or should be free and also have paid versions). However, other students using them have all verified them as safe.

Inciteful (Using Citations to Explore Academic Literature | Inciteful.xyz) – similar to connectedpapers + researchrabbit. Also allows you to connect two papers and see how they are linked. Currently free.

Spinbot (Spinbot - Article Spinning, Text Rewriting, Content Creation Tool.) – article spinner + paraphraser. Useful for difficult articles/papers. Currently free (ad version).

Elicit (Elicit: The AI Research Assistant)  – AI research assistant, creates workflow. Mainly for lit reviews. Finds relevant papers, summarises + analyses them, finds criticism of them. Free (?)

Natural Reader (AI Voices - NaturalReader Home (naturalreaders.com)) – text to speech. Native speakers. Usually pretty reliable, grain of salt. Free + paid versions.

Otter AI (Otter.ai - Voice Meeting Notes & Real-time Transcription) – takes notes and transcribes video calls. Pretty accurate. Warn people Otter is entering call or it is terrifying. Free + paid versions.

Paper Panda (🐼 PaperPanda — Access millions of research papers in one click) – get research papers free. Chrome extension. Free.

Docsity (About us - Docsity Corporate) – get documents from university students globally. Useful for notes.

Desmos (Desmos | Let's learn together.) – online free graphing calculator. Free (?)

Core (CORE – Aggregating the world’s open access research papers) – open access research paper aggregation.

Writefull (Writefull X: AI applied to academic writing) – Academic AI. Paraphrasing, title generator, abstract generator, apparently ChatGPT detector now. Free.

Photopea (Photopea | Online Photo Editor) – Photoshop copy but run free and online. Same tools. Free.

Draw IO (Flowchart Maker & Online Diagram Software) – Flowchart/diagram maker. Free + paid versions.

Weava (Weava Highlighter - Free Research Tool for PDFs & Webpages (weavatools.com)) – Highlight + annotate webpages and pdfs. Free + paid versions.

Unsplash (Beautiful Free Images & Pictures | Unsplash) – free to use images.

Storyset (Storyset | Customize, animate and download illustration for free) – open source illustrations. Free.

Undraw (unDraw - Open source illustrations for any idea) – open source illustrations. Free.

8mb Video (8mb.video: online compressor FREE) – video compression (to under 8mb). Free.

Just Beam It (JustBeamIt - file transfer made easy) – basically airdrop files quickly and easily between devices. Free.

Jimpl (Online photo metadata and EXIF data viewer | Jimpl) – upload photos to see metadata. Can also remove metadata from images to obscure sensitive information. Free.

TL Draw (tldraw) – web drawing application. Free.

Have I Been Pwned (Have I Been Pwned: Check if your email has been compromised in a data breach) – lets you know if information has been taken in a data breach. If so, change passwords. Free.

If you guys have any feedback about these sites (good or bad), feel free to add on in reblogs or flick me a message and I can add! Same thing with any broken links or additions.

[maypop-the-dragon]

PSA: Free Software

Reading this may really save your time, privacy, and money! Reblog or share to spread awareness!

Folks often use software that’s expensive and sometimes even inferior because they don’t know there are alternatives. So to those unfamiliar: basically, free and open-source (FOSS) or "libre" software is free to use and anyone can access the original code to make their own version or work on fixing problems.

That does not mean anyone can randomly add a virus and give it to everyone—any respectable libre project has checks in place to make sure changes to the official version are good! Libre software is typically developed by communities who really care about the quality of the software as a goal in itself.

There are libre alternatives to many well-known programs that do everything an average user needs (find out more under the cut!) for free with no DRM, license keys, or subscriptions.

Using libre software when possible is an easy way to fight against and free yourself from corporate greed while actually being more convenient in many cases! If you need an app to do something, perhaps try searching online for things like:

foss [whatever it is]

libre [whatever it is]

open source [whatever it is]

Feel free to recommend more libre software in the tags, replies, comments, or whatever you freaks like to do!

Some Libre Software I Personally Enjoy…

LibreOffice

LibreOffice is an office suite, much like Microsoft Office. It includes equivalents for apps like Word, Excel, and Powerpoint, which can view and edit files created for those apps.

I can't say I've used it much myself yet. I do not personally like using office software except when I have to for school.

OpenShot

OpenShot Video Editor is, as the name suggests, a video editing program. It has industry-standard features like splicing, layering, transitions, and greenscreen.

I've only made one video with it so far, but I'm already very happy with it. I had already paid for a video editor (Cyberlink PowerDirector Pro), but I needed to reinstall it and I didn't remember how. Out of desperation, I searched up "FOSS video editor" and I'm so glad I did. There's no launcher, there's no promotion of other apps and asset packs—it's just a video editor with a normal installer.

GIMP

GNU Image Manipulation Program is an image editor, much like Photoshop. Originally created for Linux but also available for Windows and MacOS, it provides plenty of functionality for editing images. It is a bit unintuitive to learn at first, though.

I've used it to create and modify images for years, including logos, really bad traceover art, and Minecraft textures. It doesn't have certain advanced tech like AI paint-in, but it has served my purposes well and it might just work for yours!

(Be sure to go to Windows > Dockable Dialogs > Colors. I have no idea why that's not enabled by default.)

Audacity

Audacity is an audio editing program. It can record, load, splice, and layer audio files and apply effects to them.

Audacity is another program I've used for a long time. It is not designed to compose music, but it is great for podcasts, simple edits, and loading legacy MS Paint to hear cool noises.

7-Zip

7-Zip is a file manager and archive tool. It supports many archive types including ZIP, RAR, TAR, and its own format, 7Z. It can view and modify the contents of archives, encrypt and decrypt archives, and all that good stuff.

Personally, I use 7-Zip to look inside JAR files for Minecraft reasons. I must admit that its UI is ugly.

Firefox

Firefox is an internet browser, much like Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, or Safari. While browsers are free, many of them include tracking or other anti-consumer practices. For example, Google plans to release an update to Chromium (the base that most browsers are built from these days) that makes ad blockers less effective by removing the APIs they currently rely on.

Aside from fighting monopolies, benefits include: support for animated themes (the one in the picture is Purple Night Theme), good ad blockers forever, an (albeit hidden) compact UI option (available on about:config), and a cute fox icon.

uBlock Origin

As far as I know, uBlock Origin is one of the best ad blockers there is.

I was on a sketchy website with my brother, and he was using Opera GX's ad blocker. Much of the time when he clicked on anything, it would take us to a random sponsored page. I suggested that he try uBlock Origin, and with uBlock Origin, that didn't happen anymore.

Linux

Linux is a kernel, but the term is often used to refer to operating systems (much like Windows or MacOS) built on it. There are many different Linux-based operating systems (or "distros") to choose from, but apps made for Linux usually work on most popular distros. You can also use many normally Windows-only apps on Linux through compatibility layers like WINE.

I don't have all four of these, so the images are from Wikipedia. I tried to show a variety of Linux distros made for different kinds of users.

If you want to replace your operating system, I recommend being very careful because you can end up breaking things. Many computer manufacturers don't care about supporting Linux, meaning that things may not work (Nvidia graphic cards notoriously have issues on Linux, for example).

Personally, I tried installing Pop!_OS on a laptop, and the sound output mysteriously doesn't work. I may try switching to Arch Linux, since it is extremely customizable and I might be able to experiment until I find a configuration where the audio works.

Many Linux distros offer "Live USB" functionality, which works as both a demo and an installer. You should thoroughly test your distro on a Live USB session before you actually install it to be absolutely sure that everything works. Even if it seems fine, you should probably look into dual-booting with your existing operating system, just in case you need it for some reason.

Happy computering!

[magicalmeily]

I've made a google doc collection of 150 useful design and art resources! Whether youre just starting commissions or want to make your workflow more streamlined, I recommend checking it out

The full list is below the read more, but I suggest looking at the google doc as well sincce it will be updated more often. 

This list was created by @MagicalMeily

I encourage you to share this list with other designers, artists, or even students via this tumblr post, the google doc, or my tweet. Links marked as ‘Free/Paid’ usually means the free version has a lot of features anyway and the paid just has some extra templates or storage space. *Disclaimer - I haven’t used all of these services myself, so please let me know if anything dodgy slipped through the cracks, or if you have any others I should add.

I do not support NFTs or AI Art generators, so hopefully you won’t find any listed. Always double check commercial usage rights

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

COMMISSION SETUP

Collection of designers rates - Graphic Design Rates Master Sheet

TOS Example, Free to use (by kawa_kunn) - Twitter / kawa-kun.art

Tiktok walkthrough of a commission TOS form - artofthecatt

Longer Video of commission TOS form - How to Create a Commission Form

Commission Advice (by AerlyaGraphics) - Aerlya Graphics

Merchandise/printing services (by @sunshinehoney6) - Merchandise Resources

COMMISSION TRACKERS/MANAGEMENT

(Free/Paid) Clients can see your progress - Trello

(Free/Paid) Single user or collaborative project tracker - Notion

(Free) General Commission Management - Commiss.io

TEAM DESIGN/COLLABORATION

(Free/Paid) - Zeplin

(Free/Paid) - Notion

(Free/Paid) - Figma

(Free for Individuals) - Box

(Paid) - Sketch

FILE SHARING

(Free) - Google Drive

(Free/Paid) - WeTransfer

(Free/Paid) - Jumpshare

(Free for individuals) - Box

(Free) - Blindsend

MOODBOARDS

Design Inspiration

Image search for inspiration - Muzli Search

Makes and automatically sets out moodboards - Visualist

DESIGN PROGRAMS

2d Animation (Free/Paid) - Cavalry

Graphics, Photo editing, Publishing (One -off payment) - Affinity

Graphics, Audio, Video (Free, Browser) - Artboard Studio

Graphics (Free) - Inkscape

Graphics/Layout (Free/Paid, Browser) - Canva

Graphics, Photo Editing (Free, Browser. Can open Adobe files) - Photopea

Vector making (Free, Browser) - Vectr

Vector making (Free, Browser) - Vector Ink

Wireframing (Free, Browser) - Moqups App

GENERAL HELPFUL TOOLS/PROGRAMS

Bulk file renamer - Bulk Rename Utility

Bulk image resizer - ImageResizer

File Converters - FreeConvert

Image Upscaler - Waifu2x

Floating view of reference images - PureRef

Timezone converter - World Time Buddy

Twitter image crop guide by @dripchirp - Twitter Crop Guide

Learning how to use the pen tool - The Bézier Game

PORTFOLIO HOSTING/WEBSITE MAKERS

Portfolio hosting (Free) - Foriio

Portfolio hosting (Free with Adobe Subscription) - Adobe Portfolio

Portfolio hosting (Paid) - Portfoliobox

Website builder (Free) - Carrd

Website builder (Free) - Google Sites

Website builder (Free) - Weebly

Website builder (Free) - Wix

Website builder (Paid) - Squarespace

Make a blog you can use as a folio - Tumblr

(Posts Selective Folios) - Bestfolios

(Posts Selective Folios) - PFolios

(Posts Selective Folios) - Pafolios

(Posts Selective showreels) - Showreelz

LINK AGGREGATORS

(Free) Linktree

(Free) Lnk.Bio

(Paid/Free) Later

(Free) Solo.to

(Free) Campsite.bio

DESIGN MARKETPLACES

BOOTH

Gumroad

Ko-fi Shop

COLOUR

Various colour palette tools - Adobe Color

Colour palette search and generator - Coolors

Colour palette generator - Color Space

Colour converter, make colour palettes - RGB.to

Displays big brands colour schemes - BrandColors

ACCESSIBILITY

General design accessibility tips - Lemonly Infographics

Font accessibility tips - UXdesign.cc

Accessible colour combination generator 1 - Accessible color palette builder

Accessible colour combination generator 2 - Color Safe

FONTS FOR DOWNLOAD

Google Fonts

Adobe Fonts

Pixel Surplus

Fontesk

Befonts

Behance

Gumroad

Free Japanese Fonts

BOOTH

TYPE TOOLS

Displays inputted text in fonts installed on your computer - Wordmark

Identifies fonts on a web page  - Fonts Ninja

Typography Resources - Typewolf

Font Pairing Help - Fontjoy

Examples of fonts in context - Fonts In Use

Font Management - FontBase

MOCKUPS

Mockup World

Mr.Mockup

Unblast

ls.graphics

Anthonyboyd.graphics

Anagram Design

DesignHooks

Mockups-Design

STOCK PHOTOS/TEXTURES

Pexels

Unsplash

Barnimages

LostAndTaken

Freepik

Rawpixel

PATTERNS

Pattern Inspiration - Pattern Collection

Customisable Repeating SVG Patterns - Pattern Monster

Seamless background pattern maker - Patternico

Mesh Gradient Maker - Mesh Gradient

Make and print your own grids - Gridzzly.com

Downloadable Patterns - Subtle Patterns

ILLUSTRATION LIBRARIES

Toools Design

Irasutoya / いらすとや

Open Peeps

Humaaans

Open Doodles

ICON LIBRARIES

Paid/Free - Streamline Icons

Paid/Free - Flaticon

INSPIRATION GATHERING

abdz

Mindsparkle Mag

Behance

Dribbble

Muzli Search

100 Archive

Design Inspiration

BP&O

Pentagram

It's Nice That

DESIGN ADVICE/EXAMPLES/BLOGS/ ARTICLES

(Free) - World Brand Design Society

(Free) - AIGA Eye on Design

(Free) - Creative Boom

(Free) - The Design Team

(Paid) - UnderConsideration

LOGO/BRANDING DESIGN

Company logos categorised by letter/number/symbol etc - Logobook

Logo/Branding Examples - Logoed

PACKAGING DESIGN

Kawacolle

Packaging Design Archive

Packaging Of The World

WEB DESIGN

Siteinspire

Httpster

Lapa Ninja

Best Website Gallery

Dark Mode Design

Awwwards

Dribbble

(Wireframing) Moqups App

PUBLICATION/EDITORIAL DESIGN

Zine Creation Tips Masterpost - How to Organize a Zine 101

Editorial Design Examples 1 - Formagramma

Editorial Design Examples 2 - Pentagram

POSTER DESIGN

Typographic Poster Design Examples - Typographic posters

Poster Design Examples - Poster Poster

CHARACTER DESIGN

Character Design Library, Challenges, etc - Character Design References

Anime Settei/Reference Sheets - Settei Dreams

Historical Costume references - OSF Costume Rentals

V-DESIGNER/V-ARTIST

‘How to Design Your Own Vtuber Logo’ (by the-tragic-heroine) - The-tragic-heroine

Discover V-artists/V-designers - Heartist

V-Artist/V-designers Catalogue (Hiatus) - VTuber Catalog

Vtuber Resource Collection (by VTResources) - VTuber Resources

View badges/emotes will look like on Twitch - Twitch Elements

Resize badges/emotes to actual sizes - Twitch Emote Resizer

Vtuber based commission hub (beta) - VGen

PAYPAL ALTERNATIVES

Square

Stripe

Wise (previously TransferWise)

Kofi

Direct Bank Transfer

OTHER RESOURCE COLLECTIONS

Vtuber Resource Collection (by VTResources) - VTuber Resources

Designer Resources Collection - Design Resources

Merchandise/printing services (by sunshinehoney6) - Merchandise Resources

Typography Resources - Typewolf

[canmom]

How aren't mediums fungible? Any art history class would teach you they very much are.

what, has 'the medium is the message' gone out of fashion now or something?

but to explain what I'm trying to get at, since there's a good chance I misused the word >< - each medium brings its own set of affordances and emphases. if I see a CG animation I pay attention to different things than if I see traditional animation or stop motion or what have you.

for example, we could have a look at the animation of Hiroyuki Okiura - say, the introduction to the Cowboy Bebop movie, or his work in Magnetic Rose. Okiura is one of the most renowned realist animators, someone whose drawing style, camerawork etc. hews very close to live action film. his exceptional sense of perspective and space is remarkable in traditional animation. by contrast, you 'get it for free' in CG and stop motion - you will always have perfect linear perspective unless you go out of your way to break it. however, CG rarely captures the exact qualities of Okiura's animation, which come from the sense of drawing principles - how to simplify shapes, 2D spacing etc. and by making it something constructed, the way characters move through space, the way a drawing can suddenly feel 3D, becomes foregrounded - it's no longer incidental but now a core part of what Okiura's animation is expressing.

so, 'live action into anime' is kinda what the AI style transfer tools are going for. in the technique from the recent paper, you start with a static drawing of a character and some animation data (likely mocap), and the program will generate an animation. that's similar what Corridor Digital attempted a few months ago, using a neural network finetuned on Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, and applying 'style transfer' to live action footage they shot. the results were, viewed as rotoscoping, kind of hideous, with shapes constantly flickering and turning into mush. the new paper I linked offers some techniques to improve the temporal consistency of this type of AI rotoscoping which should make it look a lot less bad, though it remains to be seen whether it works in situations other than 'well-lit fullbody shot'.

still, even if Corridor's video was a lot more technically solid (and give AI development a few years to iron out the kinks, I'm sure it will look downright quaint), it doesn't provoke the same response in me as Okiura's animation. the process of drawing something involves a lot of artistic decisions about what to capture, simplify, emphasise; for all that it is 'realist', Okiura's animation likewise has a particular feeling to the way characters move, the way they interact with light, the use of line, etc. which in some large part arises from how it is produced. so much of that is all but impossible to capture in words.

but also - knowing a bit about how it's made, and having my own experiences of animation, gives me an angle to appreciate what Okiura is doing. a drawing of something is a way of drawing attention to the specific details of the subject. two people drawing the same subject will never draw it the exact same way. one of the joys of going to life drawing is seeing how many different ways people can approach the same subject in the same ten minutes - inflected by different media like charcoal or watercolour pencils. one of the great things about anime is the space it gives key animators to bring their own sensibility to a particular shot.

I certainly accept that is inevitable that mediums will evolve with time. anime looks very different today than it did 30 years ago. part of of that is evolving sensibilities, partly the slow-motion collapse of an overstrained industry, but also a lot has do with the fact that every studio has switched to digital compositing and digital background painting. it's possible through painstaking effort to fairly closely imitate the look of cel animation on a computer, but you really have to go out of your way, and it's rare to do that.

and I do feel like something has been lost with the death of cels - qualities of line and colour, the difference between digital bloom and backlight animation. but something has been gained at the same time: maybe we've gradually lost the traditional skills for drawing layouts because the conditions of production made it so that skills weren't passed on to the current generation of animators, which sucks, but we have simultaneously gained the ability to merge 2D and 3D animation with tools like Grease Pencil, to use the camera-like digital compositing effects of directors like Naoko Yamada and Makoto Shinkai. it's not better, just different.

this isn't to make the boring argument that AI art is soulless, or lacks the magic human touch, or whathaveyou. it's just a different medium. nor would it be right to say that there are no connections between media - literally right now I'm modelling an arm, and my experience of drawing arms is directly influencing how I break down the forms and all of that. AI generated images derive in obvious ways from traditional animation and CG and photography and all that, AI engineers study these media in great detail as they develop their programs; our knowledge of those media can inform how we respond to AI.

honestly, CG that aims to replicate the look of traditional animation, such as in the games of ArcSystem Works, or the works of Orange like their Houseki no Kuni, is something I actually find very interesting. not because I think it could or should replace traditional animation; it just reveals fascinating things about both media. the same can be true of AI, I think. like what do you learn from what a neural network is able to capture, and what it isn't? and what does studying neural networks tell us about human brains?

if the development of AI and the accessibility of new tools leads to a flourishing of interesting new animation, I'll be happy. I just don't see it as a replacement for traditional animation and 3DCG. if anything the future of animation will probably look like a hybrid process taking advantage of the best features of all the different media we've invented - insert the usual spiel about Arcane and Spiderverse here. AI is currently very immature, we're still figuring out what it's good for and the hype drowns out everything, but I'm sure it will find a comfortable place, and I'll be interested to see how it all shakes out.

but what I meant with 'not fungible' is that, if you try to replace one medium with another, you will inevitably change the qualities of what you make. nowt wrong with that. like, just because you can adapt books into films (and vice versa) doesn't mean books are obsolete. some things are easier to express in prose, others in film. you can have prose that's informed by film, and film that's informed by prose. everything's talking to everything else, it's great! but the tools you choose are meaningful, and interesting. not just an irrelevant detail to be swapped out when "superior" technology comes along.

[auckie]

Isn’t it crazy how ai helps us see images of hell before we die. But it’s different than people creating cgi or painted images, only slightly bc it’s so good at capturing an air of casual nonchalantness, completely nonplussed expressions of half baked half naked people going about their business as their limbs melt and get ripped apart by dogs. Like it’s not as good as human art, no, but there’s this je ne sais quoi quality that begets the same indifference that I think a demon who’s going to possess or kill you might have? It’s like, that magic touch of terror I get in movies about the demonic or supernatural/paranormal— the creature is probably intelligent, but you just don’t know because it’s not communicating in any meaningful way with you. Either it’s beyond your understanding, fueled by blind instinct or rage or lust in a way you will never comprehend or maybe some other drive that’s behind your reasoning, or it simply chooses not to acknowledge you with anything. Maybe you can’t decipher it or if you or maybe it just doesn’t give a shit bc why would the hunter call out ‘haha fuck you’ to the bunny before shooting and even if he did! the bunny wouldn’t understand. The rabbit knowing of our intricate lives outside of the chase really ruins the animalistic fear. It now knows it will die for a purpose— to be eaten and skinned maybe, made into something soft. It knows that the machine used to kill it took years of refining and precision planning, from blunt instruments of war to flashy tools of entertainment. From rocks and flint to fire and wheels. Maybe it would be willing to die, either in awe of us or such disillusionment of its own short, meek existence.

I’ve lost the plot a bit but that lack of fear is in a lot of horror media, for me, and every now and again I find a sweet spot in literature or art or media where it’s there! but, it’s become more and more rare.

I still have that sense of like. Eugh. Eeaaughwaoh. Hooooo! In some of the ai art I’ve seen. A lot of the videos. It’s similar to the ones I find funny, bc we know horror and humor are so intricately linked. The beer commercial one is priceless for a similar reason; the belligerent lapping and obtuse crowd, the fire growing and the repetitive mirage of music. but I’m not impressed by any of this. I’m aggravated and a bit, not afraid in a singularity kind of way. More like afraid that we have found a way to remove the human ‘known’ from the creation of images— bc ofc it’s making its content *from* our produce, be it real documentation or art, but it’s removing the sense of familiarity from the regurgitation process. It’s like putting water into a filter and out comes the same clear liquid that’s incapable of quenching your thirst, somehow. And it’s a nebulous thing, like if you corrected the unfixed gaze and number of fingers or blurred and amorphous backgrounds, I feel like you’d still feel this sense of loss. Some of the near pitch perfect anime AI pics I’ve seen have it (or lack thereof), but I can’t be sure if it’s just me recognizing the dominant style, yknow how it’s a bit too softly shaded and the line quality? I could be biased but…I dunno man! I can usually tell! And that’s the unsettling part I think, that we figured out how to scrub a sense of self and individuality from something sooo inherently personal, which is like THE epicenter of uncanny valley. To the point that you just know the same way you might feel someone looking at you.

I’m not trying to get all woowoo about computers. I definitely am not one of the people who thinks ai is gonna develop free will and overthrow us. I think that’s a very reactionary and reductive conversation about the actual impact it will have on real people (workforces, artists, the moral questions of like…yknow, the fucked up shit ppl are already feeding into these things) but I think automizing processes always begs the question of ‘what are we losing in doing this?’ Grandma’s homemade jam vs smuckers sugar syrup? What is that ‘homemade quality’ and what things are supposed to be ‘homemade’? Mommy homamos sweater knitted from your cats shed hair vs a sweater made of tissue paper that costs $49.99 from Zara that will last one year, tops. How palatable is the opposite? How much humanity can you remove before it becomes repugnant? Could an ai have shit all these words out? Would it have been a good read? Was this even a good read? There’s an answer, and it’s somewhere between whatever is most cheap, and most marketable.

[aivideos333]

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[flukeoffate]

A Millennial's Thoughts on Millennial "Cringe" and Gen Z culture with a cosplay slant...not negative, just obsevations from a person with no authority so you can ignore.

(This latest ADHD tangent brought to you by the latest Style Theory about Mustaches on Youtube... "Millennial Cringe" was mentioned and my brain spiraled...)

My world would be so different if I didn't embrace my cringe as hard as MeiMei in Turning Red. Most of my life has centered around cosplay and the people I've met within the hobby. With the rise of social media, cosplay and other 'nerd' hobbies gained mainstream acceptance, and Gen Z has mastered it! You embrace yourselves and you sing your own songs in life. That's great! I'm proud to see where you've come. This world expects you to be your authentic selves, no matter what that means. It's a wonderful thing to see. Sure, not everyone will embrace your authentic self, but it's best to know who loves the real you instead of the mask you show other people.

I'm genuinely not sure how many of the new cosplayers on the scene realize how much scrutiny the hobby received 20 years ago. Mainstream media, if it was ever referenced, had to introduce it like some strange culture from a distant land to boomer audiences, and the disbelief and confusion on the faces of the interviewers was....not unapparent, to put it mildly. When I was in middle and high school, my interest in anime and subsequently cosplay caused people to frequently question my metal health: She day dreams too much. She thinks she's a cartoon character. She MUST be drunk or on drugs. She must be depressed and seeking attention. No. I never thought I was a cartoon character. I was drug free because anime cost $40 for 2 episodes, but they way people treated me drugs might have been a relief. I wasn't seeking any attention except from friends with similar interests, and we built each other up as much as possible. Society was, at best, intrigued at my hobbies, and at worst, thought them the path to the devil. I was just unafraid to wear my interests on my sleeve. Unafraid wasn't right. More, I did it in defiance of their taunts. Like the mockumentary "Otaku no Video" (a boomer Japanese take on Cosplayers/Otaku), if people were going to ridicule me anyway, I was going "to become the OtaKing!!!" Or Queen in my case. I had more than a few moments where I leaned into their ridiculous accustaions, much like Wednesday Addams in the Netflix adaptation--embracing the rumor that she killed her classmate, instead of denying it.

Honestly I think the biggest difference between Millennials and Gen Z is the editing tools we grew up with. Gen Z was born with filters in the palm of their hand. Millennials were careless in their honesty. I don't like the filters. I'm tired of these constructed realities and AI stomping on artists. I'll leave my real, honest stupidity out there, because sometimes, that silliness is a tool to shape our world. Living your authentic self inspires the people around you, and they in turn inspire others. That's how the world evolves. You can't always be right. All people make mistakes and bad decisions. But what you choose to embrace and how loudly you live your truth matters.

Never discount what your authentic self can do to inspire, and never discount your ability to do harm, even in the simplest of tasks and conversations. Even if you misstep, as I frequently have and probably will do again, you will find that those actions had bigger consequences than you imagined. The difference between a good and bad person (for me) is how they chose to use either their powers of inspiration and discouragement. Most people have no clue how powerful those abilities are, and some who knowingly use it for evil. Good people seek to inspire and help, in my opinion.

There are a few key, important changes to this timeline I know I have made by living my truth--at least one has touched a large number of the current generation in an unbelievable way, and because it's so silly, I dare not share it. I have no proof. But in my heart I keep it as a shining light because I know it inspired a person, who inspired a person, who in turn inspired great things. FlukeOfFate isn't just my screen name. It's my life philosophy.

My advice to Gen Z? Laugh loud over stupid shit. Love hard. Dance wildly. Cry if you need to. Lift up your friends, they may need your support more than you think. Make REAL Art. Wear what you want. Learn everything you can from verified sources. Go to the library. Speak your truth. It might become Gen Z cringe in a few years, but it will inspire the next generation, one way or another.

There are big problems in this world compounded by a hundred generations of drama, and for your children it will be more of the same, in new ways. I personally think that cringe is only cringe when you've forgotten how to live. I think Millennial cultre has inspired Gen Z. and Gen Z has even inspired Millennials in a big way too. Thank you for that. Humanity can only evolve as far as the next generation can dream.

[garrettwrites]

I don't care about how beautiful or ugly AI pictures are.

Before you read this, keep in mind that I have taken History and Culture of the Arts classes (from ancient history to the days of today), History of Drawing classes, as well as studying on my free time because this quite literally my area of expertise. I am also finalizing my license degree in the artes field.

Art in it's many forms is a form of communication. It doesn't matter if it's paintings, illustrations, video games, books, architecture, sculpting, pottery, you name it. It's how each artist/writer/musician views and shares the world, how each person has an unique approach reflecting their own life experiences and tastes.

It's how one writer drafts poetry upon the ocean, while another fears it, and a third one merely views it as a body of salty water. How one artist tenderly paints the hands of a portrait while another slaps a couple of brush strokes on it and calls it a day. How some do a lot of messy and sketchy charcoal lines, while others prefer a pretty and rendered piece. How some prefer the melody of the violin, while others the beat of the drums. It's how you draw backgrounds, what backgrounds, people, which people.

The details you choose to put in - a flower pressed into the background, with no importance to the picture or environment but still consciously put there, for a reason or another; the way a character shows their emotions, in ways we rarely think about but the author knows intimately; how a game developer hides little easter eggs in their game and delights in those who find them and get the reference...

How we still talk to Homero after he's been dead for millennia. How we see ruins from civilizations past, where people once had their first love, first tragedy, last breath. How now we use digital art to depict animals, the same way ancient humans used stone to carve them upon walls.

A machine has no thought. It copies without meaning. You cannot talk to it or marvel at the details it puts in, because they are mindless. The machine puts in a rose because the artists it references also put in roses. It draws a blue ocean when you write prompts for mermaids because mermaid = water = blue. It takes from the humans before it and doesn't adapt it or build upon it, for it cannot combine two completely different - and at first sight irrelevant - things on its own without it having been done before. This is not Detroit: Become Human. The AI is not alive or intelligent. It's a tool, the same way your phone or microwave are.

I love pretty art. In fact, as someone finishing my license in the arts field, I would consider myself quite elitist. I have a strong love for Pre-Raphaelite and Noveau art, and classical architecture. I would suck Alphonse Mucha and John William Waterhouse's dicks if they so commanded, if I could get a small napkin drawing from them afterwards. I don't like XX century art movements like cubism or dadaism. I find them ugly, and they go completely against my aesthetics.

But as much as I hate those, the artists who made them had a story to tell. They had hands and a brain. They put it forward in their own way, with their own language, based on their own likes and dislikes, happy and tragic memories.

A machine has none of the touch.

Art is not the same as working in the mines or in the sewers. It's a human connection. It has been here before we even called ourselves human, it has been here when there was more than one human species walking the planet (for the homo sapiens wasn't always alone). There ir no need to replace it.

Does AI artwork has it's uses? Well, I believe so. I believe there could be ways to make it work. A tool is a tool, after all. But I have yet to see it being used in a ""good"", innovative, useful way.

There is no TLDR. I cannot contain what I just wrote in few words. It would defeat the purpose.

[mrjakeparker]

First off, for anyone who needs a primer on AI Generated Art here's a concise video on the subject to get you up to speed: LINK I used Midjourney I started out with these prompts to see what I would get: Astronaut with a skull head +skull + skeleton + red spacesuit + character design + full body + red + sci-fi + star wars + Ralph McQuarrie + Jake Parker, cartoon, cartoon network, adventure time style. Then I thought I'd mix it up and see what prompts like octane render + 3d would give me. I didn't like what I was getting so I went back to my original prompts but added rubberhose animation + pixar + disney + 3d. The results were better, so I asked for more variations. When I got them I decided I was getting diminishing returns and called it a day. Lots of interesting ideas to put into my design, but no one design really felt like it nailed the vibe I got from my original design. After this experiment here's what I think:

1) AI Art Generators will only become more powerful/capable. So wishing it away is a waste of time. The only path forward is figuring it out how to implement it and how to regulate it. 2) With revolutionary technology comes a reorganization of status and power. The status quo HATES this and will do almost anything to stop it from happening.

AI Generated Art shifts the power (and wealth) of creating images from people who have training, to people who don't.

This reorganization happened in the 2000s when programs like Maya, 3D Studio Max, and Photoshop made art creation a lot more accessible to people who couldn't paint traditionally, or sculpt clay.

It allowed places like animation studios to be havens for creative people to make art who might not have been able to draw really well. Which really upset people who had trained to animate in 2D on paper, and who studied classical painting techniques. Which leads me to 3: 3) Not everyone who is creative can make art, and not everyone who can make art is creative. The creative people who could also adapt and learn new tools absolutely thrived in the new digital art world.

A lot of the art I've seen generated from AI is a lot like hearing someone impersonate English but who doesn't know the language. It sounds right, but they aren't actually saying anything.

4) I see these AI Art generators as tools. Another resource for creative people to add to their toolbox to make them even more creative. Or at the very least, make their job easier.

5) AI isn't an end to end problem solver for productions. There's still a needs to be an artist to translate it into something usable. Someone needs to interpret AI art into something a modeler can model, or set designer can build.

Example: After a producer plugs a bunch of prompts from a script into Midjourney they take it to the art dept. The crew gets a brief from an art director and instead of a lot of back and forth, the art director points at a page of AI art and says "Make it look like this"

6) Questions I’m still thinking about:

- Do these AI Art Generators actually undermine illustrators, photographers, concept artists? Or does it actually elevate these industries?

- Is it bad to democratize something like art creation?

- Who truly benefits from this shift in power? Where is the money flowing to?

- Should artists have the option of their artwork being removed from the AI generator's databases? Or is any art you post online free game? Does the AI generator do anything different than what an artist does who has strong stylistic influences from other artists?

7) I'm still learning about this, and still reading up on all the pros and cons.

I would love to know your thoughts. 

We've been discussing it over on the Discord for a couple weeks now: LINK

I also posted this on IG and it blew up. I could not keep up with the comments. Over 750 of them! If you want to get a vibe check on what the broader art community thinks of this check it out here: LINK

-Jake

[there-goes-trouble]

FREE DIGITAL THINGS

• YOUTUBE related, CREATOR related, WORK related:

[daxdraggon]

Of Ye Olde Internet, I really miss sites like Anivide and Polyvore.

Anivide was a huge anime forum site, that had areas where you could upload your own fanart, or read translations of manga, and watch anime. It was all free too. It had so much stuff and I discovered a lot of forever faves through it. It was so easy to find something new and talk about it!

Polyvore was a fun fashion collage site, where you could use clipped out clothes and accessories to make a little collage of outfits, and a lot of groups on there did theme challenges and so on. I loved making outfits for characters or stories, and adding in new clothing once they put out their custom addition tool. It also linked to each of the clothing items so you could buy them, so it was a really good promotional tool for small brands.

Or places like Ben10toys.net, which was a fan forum site for the Ben 10 series toys to be reviewed, but kids loved it so much they joined just to talk about their favorite show and share art and OCs and do roleplay or just chat with other kids in the global chat room. I used to mod the chat, and I have a long time friend that I met there. I'm sure it's still around but- I really wish there were more places like that for kids *and* adults.

I miss old youtube, where I could get lost down the rabbit hole of increasingly odd suggested videos on autoplay, that weren't some horribly popular influencers or horrible rhetoric brainwashing shit.

I miss old DeviantART and the shitty fights we would get into about ships, and to share my bad art and we all loved it and talked and created and you could find so much new stuff, or new groups, or resources! Now they're AI supporting shitheads that completely destroyed the UI for some social media-esk crap, and I'm weighing options on moving everything off of there and killing my account.

I really do miss the old internet. I don't like what it's become, even if it's still beautiful and the old internet still exists somewhere out there... I just... miss it being easy to enjoy it.

[mariacallous]

YouTube has updated its rulebook for the era of deepfakes. Starting today, anyone uploading video to the platform must disclose certain uses of synthetic media, including generative AI, so viewers know what they’re seeing isn’t real. YouTube says it applies to “realistic” altered media such as “making it appear as if a real building caught fire” or swapping “the face of one individual with another’s.”

The new policy shows YouTube taking steps that could help curb the spread of AI-generated misinformation as the US presidential election approaches. It is also striking for what it permits: AI-generated animations aimed at kids are not subject to the new synthetic content disclosure rules.

YouTube’s new policies exclude animated content altogether from the disclosure requirement. This means that the emerging scene of get-rich-quick, AI-generated content hustlers can keep churning out videos aimed at children without having to disclose their methods. Parents concerned about the quality of hastily made nursery-rhyme videos will be left to identify AI-generated cartoons by themselves.

YouTube's new policy also says creators don’t need to flag use of AI for “minor” edits that are “primarily aesthetic” such as beauty filters or cleaning up video and audio. Use of AI to “generate or improve” a script or captions is also permitted without disclosure.

There's no shortage of low-quality content on YouTube made without AI, but generative AI tools lower the bar to producing video in a way that accelerates its production. YouTube’s parent company Google recently said it was tweaking its search algorithms to demote the recent flood of AI-generated clickbait, made possible by tools such as ChatGPT. Video generation technology is less mature but is improving fast.

Established Problem

YouTube is a children’s entertainment juggernaut, dwarfing competitors like Netflix and Disney. The platform has struggled in the past to moderate the vast quantity of content aimed at kids. It has come under fire for hosting content that looks superficially suitable or alluring to children but on closer viewing contains unsavory themes.

WIRED recently reported on the rise of YouTube channels targeting children that appear to use AI video-generation tools to produce shoddy videos featuring generic 3D animations and off-kilter iterations of popular nursery rhymes.

The exemption for animation in YouTube’s new policy could mean that parents cannot easily filter such videos out of search results or keep YouTube’s recommendation algorithm from autoplaying AI-generated cartoons after setting up their child to watch popular and thoroughly vetted channels like PBS Kids or Ms. Rachel.

Some problematic AI-generated content aimed at kids does require flagging under the new rules. In 2023, the BBC investigated a wave of videos targeting older children that used AI tools to push pseudoscience and conspiracy theories, including climate change denialism. These videos imitated conventional live-action educational videos—showing, for example, the real pyramids of Giza—so unsuspecting viewers might mistake them for factually accurate educational content. (The pyramid videos then went on the suggest that the structures can generate electricity.) This new policy would crack down on that type of video.

“We require kids content creators to disclose content that is meaningfully altered or synthetically generated when it seems realistic,” says YouTube spokesperson Elena Hernandez. “We don’t require disclosure of content that is clearly unrealistic and isn’t misleading the viewer into thinking it’s real.”

The dedicated kids app YouTube Kids is curated using a combination of automated filters, human review, and user feedback to find well-made children’s content. But many parents simply use the main YouTube app to cue up content for their kids, relying on eyeballing video titles, listings, and thumbnail images to judge what is suitable.

So far, most of the apparently AI-generated children’s content WIRED found on YouTube has been poorly made in similar ways to more conventional low-effort kids animations. They have ugly visuals, incoherent plots, and zero educational value—but are not uniquely ugly, incoherent, or pedagogically worthless. AI tools make it easier to produce such content, and in greater volume. Some of the channels WIRED found upload lengthy videos, some well over an hour long. Requiring labels on AI-generated kids content could help parents filter out cartoons that may have been published with minimal—or entirely without—human vetting.