Hybrid AI + Cartoon Animator

Hello my AI production friends - how are ya? I haven't caught up in the class yet, lagging way behind, but wanted to share my latest. I have not yet been able to do a full AI-generated production that I'm comfortable posting on my channel, but I am finding ways to use AI more and more in my productions.

This video is a compilation - the first video (Shark Hunt song) is the most recent. I always put the newest video first, then include approximately 20 minutes of additional videos to help increase average view duration and the number of ad breaks that run.

The main characters (Zack and Maya) are my IP, established characters on my channel. I animate them using Cartoon Animator 5. The shark and the octopus are characters from Reallusion marketplace that I animated in CA5 as well.

Most of the backgrounds were generated using AI, and one thing I did differently this time was to use AI to ANIMATE the backgrounds instead of using still images. It worked well in this particular production, bringing the sea weed and corals to life. I started with still images (2D animation style), set those as the first frame, and prompted Seedance or Kling to animate the backgrounds. On several of them, I had Claude refine my prompts, which was very helpful.

I also created the giant snapping clams, the eels, and the camera movement through "Octopus Alley" (at around 2:20) using AI. These steps saved me a LOT of time during the animation process. I post a new video every two weeks, so any step that can save time is helpful. That's why I signed up for this class! I will definitely continue animating the backgrounds using AI. It's subtle, but adds to the overall effect, in my opinion.

The camera motion through the coral reef was done in Seedance 2. I used a range of tools and services to get all these different results, some from my galaxy subscription, some from my Freepik subscription, which uses a lot of the same tools, honestly. I probably don't need them both, but I like the flexibility to be able to switch back and forth, and I also like being able to start with a stock image in Freepik and edit it with AI tools. I did that with several of the backgrounds, and used many as style references.

The image I shared is the prompt I used to create the "octopus alley" animation from a still image as the first frame. It took me 3-4 tries to get what I wanted. Then I upscaled the video in galaxy and extended the clip in Final Cut Pro by first reversing it so it was like a tracking shot camera move, then taking a freeze frame, then duplicating the video clip and playing it forward. That was all timed to the musical verse.

So it was like this:

Animated clip (reversed) : still frame extended : animated clip forward

Then I output that video and pulled it into Cartoon Animator as a prop, and positioned it as the background. Then I added the octopus using Mark's most favorite CA5 feature, motion pilot 😉.

I also used another technique I had discussed with Thomas - using Final Cut Pro smart mask (or magnetic mask?) in the eel scene to create layers in the background. I created and edited the image of the eel, then I put a chromakey blue background behind it as the first frame, and animated the eel in Kling 3 with a blue background. So it was just a wiggly eel with sparks against a blue background.

In Final Cut Pro, I duplicated the eel reef video and used the magnetic mask on the bottom of the coral reef to create a ground layer. I put the eels in between the two layers and keyframed them so they'd pop up and down. I was pretty happy with the final effect - proof of concept!

This is a lot of info so I'll shut up, but even these small steps forward wouldn't have been possible without the information and techniques I've been learning in this class, so thanks to Mark and everyone for your suggestions and questions in the classes.

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