James Cunliffe

After Effects Tutorials

Anime Character Design and Animation, Stable Diffusion, Photoshop and After Effects

In this 2 part tutorial I walk you through my process of generating characters using Stable Diffusion and Automatic1111. In Part 1 we use the A.I tools along with Photoshop and Inpainting to tweak the design and prep the character for animation. In Part 2 we take those elements into After Effects to rig, animate and finalise the composition. I’ve taken advantage of the ProtoThing 200 model which I sourced from Hugging Face. Hugging Face is a great website with hundereds of models created by the A.I Art community. Just a heads up, if you’re considering using a local installation of Automatic1111 you’ll need a graphics card with at least 4GB of VRAM, the more you have the better as it can be quite taxing on your machine. Unforunately Mac users will have to wait as well as it is currently not supported. I’ve had no issues running the software but have a fairly decent system due to the nature of my work. I’m running it on Windows 11, i9-12900K 3200 Mhz 16 Core Processor, 64GB RAM with a RTX 3090TI GPU. There are a couple of things I need to iron out with the workflow. I still don’t like a lot of the A.I masking tools I’ve tried, just doesn’t seem to grab the fine details all that well which is why I’m still more likely to use the pen tool unless the rotowork can be slightly scrappy. I’m really happy with how this one turned out, very nearly feels like a splash screen you could find in a videogame. If you’ve found it useful or have your own workflow ideas be sure to get in touch in the comments!

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How To Make Animations Using Stable Diffusion and After Effects | AI Art To Animation

As an aspiring animator, I recently watched Bee and Puppycat with my fiance and was blown away by its hilarious aesthetic and art style. Inspired, I decided to challenge myself and try to create something similar. I spent three long days building the scene, sourcing the brushes, doing the linework, and creating the poses for the characters. But then, throguh one of Corridor Digitals videos, I stumbled upon a game-changing technology that would revolutionize the animation industry: Stable Diffusion and Automatic1111. If you’re a creative professional, you know that generating concept art and storyboards can be time-consuming. But with Stable Diffusion and Automatic1111, you can generate stunning background images in seconds. After downloading and installing the necessary software, I was able to get started on generating images. While the software can also be used to generate characters, it does require a bit of tweaking. Once I had all the relevant images, I used Automatic1111’s inbuilt upscaling tool to enhance their quality. Then, I took those images into After Effects to mask, rig, and create basic tween-based animations. I was really impressed with what this tool could do, and I believe it has the potential to change the game in the creative field. It’s especially useful for agency workers who want to flesh out basic concepts in a more visual way, potentially replacing traditional storyboarding altogether. Despite the fear surrounding AI in the creative industry, I believe that those who refuse to embrace these tools will only be hurting themselves in the long run. As the industry at large moves to adopt these technologies, it’s essential to get familiar with them and recognize their potential. It might seem like the enemy, but Stable Diffusion and Automatic1111 are here to stay – and they’re only going to get better. So why not get ahead of the curve and learn how to use them today?

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