1. Theft

Pretty cool overview of the process even if I would rather claw my eyes out than view the result.

> [we did this so anime production companies would] pay the employees(artists) better

I mean, has pay gone up in other fields where AI has taken over a lot of jobs?

In any case, I think the reason pay is awful in anime is the same reason as in gamedev: if people get into it for passion, the companies can pay less and still have employees.

I have seen a few samples of AI anime, and it is impressive how far the technology has come; the only thing that really stands out are the cuts every few seconds, because video generation currently can't produce anything longer. However it's definitely enough to tell a story, particularly one that's nearly 100% fast-paced fighting scenes.

The end result[1] looks quite impressive! The animation feels like it's quite high quality--very smooth. However, some things seem off: bad lip sync, minor animation errors, discontinuous scene-to-scene feel. Given that these are supposed to be their best examples, meant as advertisements, I would guess these errors are hard to fix using only the models.

So my verdict is that AI-only anime is still not there yet (although it would be cool to have a world where one dedicated and talented artist could make a high quality anime). But at the same time, anime studios will probably start incorporating AI into their workflow, getting high-quality-looking scenes for very cheap.

[1] https://www.aventos.dev/our-work

This is pretty cool. I could see a future where these kinds of techniques become the norm, and the role of "animator" becomes less about hand drawing animations and more stylistic and taste choices, with I guess the occasional involvement by hand to get the exact result the animator wants. Still, the boundary between art and slop is super fine here.