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A.I. Program Creates Practically Perfect In-Between Animation

The ongoing plight of underpaid labor in Japan's animation industry has stirred up different suggestions, including utilizing computers to take the place of low wage animators. Yuichi Yagi is developing once such program that creates in-between animation using its artificial intelligence. The program uses Dwango's deep learning neural network to fill in the gaps between key frames from MAGES.' Idol Incidents anime series. The program quadrupled the frames put into the system to create the animation seen below. The AI animation is displayed on the right of the screen and the original frames on the left.

There are still flaws in the process, but Yagi's program shows great strides in automating the animation process into a quicker, streamlined product.

Dwango's artificial intelligence team were the subjects of a verbal lashing by acclaimed director Hayao Miyazaki when Miyazaki and former Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki attended a presentation by the CGI team.

Keisuke Iwata, president of Japan's anime television network AT-X, spoke in February about a possible transition to using artificial intelligence in anime. Iwata said, "It is fully conceivable that anime production processes may be completely replaced by AI."

Manga software developer Taizan unveiled his PaintsChainer automatic coloring software on Twitter earlier this year.

[Via Casey Baseel at Sora News 24]