Is AI Technology Really Leading the Future of Animation Production?
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Attention to AI technology among practitioners and media is rapidly increasing.
According to a survey by Guduo, the animation industry is quickly embracing AI technology, with many companies successfully integrating it into their animation production workflows. After detailed investigation, over 98% of animation company executives revealed to Guduo that they have already implemented AI animation technology, which now covers multiple key stages from character design to animation generation. This trend clearly reflects the industry's urgent need for cost reduction, efficiency improvement, and increased production.
Additionally, some practitioners told Guduo that if the growing focus on AI technology in the animation industry continues, it may signal a major transformation towards digitalization and intelligence in the field. This transformation is expected to bring more flexible and efficient workflows to the entire industry, elevating animation creation to new heights. For animation companies, AI technology can currently only be used as an auxiliary tool. To maximize the value of expensive AI technology, it is essential to develop robust application processes.
"Our company has a dedicated department for researching AI technology applications," said Mr. Q, a director at a Beijing-based animation company. He told Guduo that the company, which originally had nearly 500 employees, has been reduced to about 300. Although the current cost of AI technology is high, once standardized processes are established, it is expected to save the company 40%-60% in costs within the next five years.
According to Mr. Q, most animation companies are aware that AI technology can reduce costs and increase productivity, but they are still uncertain about where these benefits can be realized. Currently, his company has implemented AI in four areas: initial character design drafts, pre-design for motion capture, initial scene and background design drafts, and rendering effect previews. "Our company originally had dedicated teams of 6-15 people for each of these four processes. Now we've restructured, keeping only the team leaders, reducing our staff from over 100 to fewer than 30." Currently, this workforce reduction hasn't affected project timelines, though it hasn't significantly boosted production capacity either.
Mr. Q believes substantial improvements in cycle time and productivity will become evident in 2024. "2023 is our sowing season; we'll begin harvesting fruits in 2024." With deeper AI technology integration in animation production, the company expects to increase annual output from four animated works to over ten. Moreover, Mr. Q believes that in the future, AI technology will not only reduce costs and increase production but also enhance efficiency while doing so. "Our company is actually late in adopting AI technology," he said. According to him, several domestic animation companies started experimenting with AI technology as early as 2019 to reduce labor costs, and these companies can now cover the entire animation production process.
"Our AI technology is currently mainly focused on the early stages of animation production, while the companies that adopted AI earliest have already started using it at the scriptwriting stage," he explained. He noted that these companies have fully automated four processes: scriptwriting, editing, lighting, and scene effects using AI. Taking early-stage script development as an example, these companies use software like ChatGPT to modify storylines, deconstruct narratives, and refine plot structures. "When creating project proposals, there's typically a one-sentence summary, character bios, story outlines, and plot segments. Some companies assign staff to compile this information, pose questions to ChatGPT, then synthesize responses to extract useful narrative elements."
Additionally, Mr. Q revealed to Guduo that beyond applying AI in animation production, studios are experimenting with an AI marketing app developed by a certain platform. This app can now be deployed throughout the entire marketing cycle. Beyond systematically providing multiple strategies, it adjusts based on real-time market conditions during different promotional phases, delivering effective and timely marketing solutions. "Some peers have shared their AI marketing experiences with me, and we're currently learning," he noted. AI marketing not only addresses animation studios' promotional weaknesses but also achieves cost savings. A female character generated by AI technology uploaded by a platform user (image unrelated).
"The first to be replaced will definitely be basic illustrators, and it's only a matter of time before practitioners whose core competitiveness is technical skills are replaced," said Ms. X, the head of a 2D animation company in Hangzhou, to Guduo. Although she comes from an animation background, in her view, the technical barriers between 2D and 3D animation are not significant. Instead, it's creativity, aesthetics, and style that determine the ceiling of animation visuals. At the visual level, Ms. X believes that technical skills no longer provide a core competitive edge for professionals. Taking character asset animation in the animation production process as an example, achieving satisfactory results requires animators to spend significant time making characters move initially. After the characters are animated, extensive effort is still needed to integrate them seamlessly with the scene, involving tasks such as camera work, lighting, and more.
The development of AI technology enables the rapid conversion of character assets into usable animation projects with the film's unique style. "Once character assets and scene assets are finalized, AI technology can generate animations from different angles and styles based on the storyline. The technical challenge in this part of the work lies in controlling the camera angles and style. With current AI technology, it is fully capable of handling these tasks." ![Poster of the AI-produced animated film 'The Foolish Old Man Moves the Mountains' announced on December 5, 2023 (image for illustrative purposes only)]
Additionally, Ms. X revealed that in the future, AI technology might also replace motion capture actors and voice actors. "Although current AI technology cannot match the emotional expression of real motion capture and voice actors, it can already fully replace them in some daily dialogues and walking scenes."
Taking the work of motion capture actors as an example, some basic dramatic scenes performed by real motion capture actors can now be completely replaced. However, when it comes to emotional expression, real actors can still better convey the depth of characters. "One of the limitations of AI technology is the current scarcity of templates and basic techniques. As AI technology develops, its potential to replace more roles will expand." Nevertheless, in terms of action scenes, current AI technology is not yet ready for application, but in the future, it might be possible for AI to design animated action sequences. In terms of writing, Ms. X admitted that the biggest challenge for their company in transitioning from animated series to animated feature films was the script. "The narrative structure and volume of different content forms vary, and we can't grow rapidly, but AI technology can help us enrich our stories." Ms. X also revealed that previously, when collaborating with platforms, three to five people would discuss the script with them, but now there is only one platform producer and one literary editor.
Overall, current AI technology in the animation industry can not only replace the work of animators but also has the potential to substitute roles such as literary editors, screenwriters, motion capture actors, and voice actors. In the future, AI technology is expected to bring profound changes to the animation industry.
"AI technology will permeate the entire animation production process, becoming an essential tool for every practitioner." Mr. L, a director of a Shanghai-based animation company, told Guduo that a year ago many animation professionals were still taking a wait-and-see attitude towards AI technology. However, after a year of development, the vast majority of animation companies have begun to adopt AI applications. "Our company established an AI technology R&D department in 2022, whose core business is to develop AI applications in animation and provide AI technology training," Mr. L admitted. Besides advantages in cost reduction, efficiency improvement, and production increase, AI technology may also narrow the skill gap between practitioners of different levels in the future.
On one hand, the application of AI technology in animation could reshape the industry landscape. "Animation companies that adopted AI technology early can generate new revenue streams through training services. Some film companies interested in entering the animation industry can also break traditional barriers by introducing AI technology to incubate animation projects."
On the other hand, while AI technology reduces the skill gap among practitioners, it may lead to a new wave of "homogenization." From this perspective, AI's impact on the animation industry isn't entirely positive. Ms. Z, director of a Guangzhou-based animation company, believes that different animation companies currently specialize in distinct styles, themes, and genres. However, as the threshold for animation production lowers in the future, the differentiation between works may become less noticeable. Ms. Z's concerns are not unfounded. Between 2020 and 2022, the 3D animation industry experienced a similar situation. During that period, many animation companies used the same animation engine, resulting in very similar characters and scenes. No one can guarantee that history won't repeat itself as AI technology becomes more widely applied.
To address this issue, Mr. L has mandated that every member of the company's AI technology R&D department must pass a designated AI application assessment. "Our assessment primarily requires employees to generate differentiated visuals," Mr. L explained. Employees need to repeatedly experiment with different approaches and methods to create visuals that stand out from existing animations. For example, to develop a "greasy man" character, they first generate fifty different images before selecting one as a reference. "If it's the protagonist of an animation, the number of iterations could reach into the thousands," he added.
Additionally, Ms. Z mentioned several problems that AI technology might bring. "Data privacy, technological dependency, and creative imbalance could also cause major upheavals in the industry." She expressed concern that when AI technology generates animated characters or plots, the use of large amounts of data for training might raise data privacy issues. "The primary consideration is ensuring that the generated animated characters or plots do not involve plagiarism."
Regarding technological dependency, she believes that over-reliance on AI technology might make the animation production process overly mechanical, causing creators to lose their emotional engagement and aesthetic judgment as humans in the creative process. "Aesthetics require stimulation. If practitioners stop thinking and merely generate images through AI technology for further processing, it would be a disaster." At present, the development of AI technology has not yet reached a stage of comprehensive coverage. For the animation industry, the training and application of AI technology is a long and enduring battle. Animation companies and practitioners need to have a long-term vision, continuously learn and invest to collectively address the new challenges brought by AI technology. However, while coexisting with technology, they must also cautiously deal with the other side of the double-edged sword that AI technology potentially hides.
