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How to Create and Animate a Landscape with Parallax: A Tutorial

January 31, 2023
James Cunliffe

The advancement in technology has made it possible to create visually stunning landscapes with ease. With Stable Diffusion and Automatic1111, you can quickly generate a digitally illustrated background image, like a castle, using models from websites like Hugging Face. In this tutorial, I will use Anything V3 to create our landscape.

Step 01: Generate the Image in Automatic1111

It’s as simple as downloading the software from Github, grabbing a model from Hugging Face and then typing in a prompt. I’ve found that ‘quality’ keywords work better at the start with the more descriptive elements about the scene falling towards the end.

Step 2: Creating the Depth Map

Once you have generated the landscape in Automatic1111, import it into Photoshop and create a Depth Map. The Depth Map will be used in After Effects to animate the landscape.

Step 3: Animate the Landscape in After Effects

Import the Depth Map and the landscape into After Effects and use it to animate the image. You may need to do some roto work to polish up the final result.

Step 4: Upscale the Video with DaVinci Resolve

If you want to take the animation to the next level, consider using DaVinci Resolve’s generative tools to upscale the video. This will help increases the overall quality of the asset.

Bonus Step: Use Mobile Apps for Automation

Mobile apps like CapCut are now automating the process of creating a parallax effect. Although the results may not be as high-quality as those created in After Effects, it demonstrates that the technology is constantly improving and becoming more accessible.

To conclude, creating and animating a landscape with parallax is easier than ever before. With the use of Stable Diffusion, Automatic1111, Photoshop, After Effects, DaVinci Resolve and mobile apps like CapCut, you can bring your landscape to life in a matter of seconds.

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