news

This time,AIGCThis trend has become more concrete.

The 2024 Tencent Video Animation Awards held on August 10th gave the industry a more realistic sense of the productivity and application scenarios formed by AIGC in the animation field. At the meeting, Sun Zhonghuai, Vice President of Tencent and CEO of Tencent Online Video, delivered a keynote speech for the animation industry with the theme of "Technology, Culture and Globalization, the Next Starry Sky of Animation" using AI transfer technology. This speech not only focused on the empowerment of AIGC for animation production, but also presented the content of the speech in a "very anime" form under the integration and collision of technology and humanities.

Different from traditional live speeches, this speech was stylized by animation through AI transfer technology, which enabled cross-screen communication with guests on site. AI transfer technology is one of the important technical tools that Tencent Video uses to embed AIGC capabilities into the animation production chain. Both the appearance and the content of the speech prove that AIGC is moving from concept to widespread application practice.

AIGC has already formed a certain productivity

In his speech, Sun Zhonghuai shared the future development points of Tencent Video Animation from three aspects, among which AIGC was introduced as one of the cores. Sun Zhonghuai said that Tencent Video is committed to building a leading AIGC content production engine. AIGC technology is gradually being implemented in the creation of animation, and is committed to improving production accuracy and generalizing styles. Based on Tencent Video's self-developed Zhiying Copilot and ZenRender transfer engines, AI coloring, AI transfer, AI painting and other technologies have been implemented in multiple projects, becoming a powerful assistant for creators in various production links.

In the traditional production process, from pre-planning to production to post-production, making an animation is a very cumbersome process. The intervention of AIGC can efficiently complete the work that originally took a lot of time to complete manually in a short time. For example, the traditional coloring process is that the painter manually colors each frame after completing the line draft. The first AI integrated coloring tool in China created by Tencent Video can achieve one-click automatic coloring, greatly improving the efficiency of 2D animation line draft coloring. In addition, Tencent Video has also launched the first full-process tool in China that covers original painting production. With the help of leading scene drawing self-developed capabilities, AI painting can be further based on line drafts, pictures, materials, etc. for painting production, and has been applied in works such as "Legend of Sword and Fairy 3" and "Zhu Xian".

In the production of 3D animation, Tencent Video's AI transfer technology can assist creators in quickly transferring videos in a stylized manner, while keeping the details of the images stable and controllable, helping creators to more easily achieve diversified expressions of artistic styles. The real-life transfer technology demonstrated at this event will also become a new way of animation production, improving production efficiency while reducing costs.

The role of artists and creators will not be replaced

As a technology-driven industry, every technological advancement will bring about tremendous changes to the animation industry. Sun Zhonghuai said that Tencent Video's technical capabilities are being applied to animation creation through the deployment of the Copilot creation suite. In Sun Zhonghuai's view, the role of AIGC in animation production will become more and more prominent. However, in the process of continuous technological advancement and innovation, the role of artists and creators will not be replaced. He said, "The essence of our self-developed technology is to empower. The Copilot creation suite is the co-pilot. Its purpose is to help creators free themselves from mechanical and repetitive labor and make creation no longer a chore."

When animation production technology begins to integrate the capabilities of AIGC, creators will also be liberated from barriers. Sun Zhonghuai said, "In the entire process of animation production, 50% of the links can now be empowered by AIGC." The productivity formed by AIGC in multiple links can not only greatly improve the efficiency and creativity of animation production, but also give wings to "imagination". Taking AI transfer painting as an example, AI does not completely replace the work of creators, but assists creators to complete the expression and implementation of creativity with higher efficiency. In the creative process, AI is an auxiliary tool and a co-creation partner. It can not only assist the creators in achieving the expectations of artistic creation according to their needs, but also open a new door of creativity for ordinary people.

At the same time, the involvement of AIGC can help creators focus more on creative ideas and details, and improve the upper limit of aesthetics and creation at a higher baseline. For example, Tencent Video's facial expression drive, AI lighting and other technologies can greatly improve production efficiency, allowing creators to spend more time and energy on more creative work, thereby improving the production capacity and artistic level of animation.

Growing Inwards, Extending Outwards

On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of Tencent Video Animation, Sun Zhonghuai pointed out that animation is becoming more and more important in the content map of Tencent Video. In the new development stage, he said that Tencent Video's ideal is no longer just to be the first platform for Chinese animation, but to consolidate and enhance the creative ecology and become a common home for all animation fans. To this end, in addition to reshaping the entire animation production process with the capabilities of AIGC, Tencent Video will also use Chinese traditional culture to forge the animation cultural gene, and promote international cultural exchanges with animation works, so as to achieve a leap from the first in Chinese animation to the first in animation, the only one in the industry, and the exclusive user.

Under the influence of traditional aesthetics and traditional culture, domestic animation has gradually formed a distinctive style in the global animation content ecology. Sun Zhonghuai believes that "Eastern aesthetics as an aesthetic type is becoming more and more mature. This is our outstanding advantage and the gene of our animation creation." In recent years, Chinese-style animation has been based on traditional aesthetics for innovative expression, achieving the creative transformation and innovative development of traditional culture. For example, "Sword Comes", which constructs the worldview with Chinese classical culture, integrates the characters and stories of various schools of thought and presents them in the traditional Chinese ink painting style. Sun Zhonghuai said that through a variety of story types and unique aesthetic styles, animation not only allows the majority of users to relive and cherish cultural traditions, but also opens a window for international audiences to understand and appreciate Chinese culture.

The unique visual language and storytelling methods of animation can break down cultural barriers. Sun Zhonghuai believes that international cultural exchanges are conducive to building a healthy animation creation ecosystem. In his opinion, in order to achieve a broader future, animation needs to transcend tradition and go international. On the one hand, it is necessary to absorb excellent cultural elements from all over the world and continuously enrich the content ecology. Tencent Video has actively introduced excellent overseas works such as "Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba", "Naruto", and "Battle of Two Cities", which have attracted widespread attention from users. On the other hand, we must look at the world and promote the export of domestic content. Previously, works such as "Dragon Clan" and "Douluo Continent" have been successfully released on overseas platforms and won the love of global audiences.

Today, the animation industry has become the forefront of the self-transformation of the long video industry. Sun Zhonghuai believes that animation is a training ground for new technologies and one of the key areas of Tencent Video's technological development. For the industry, we have not yet seen the full picture of AIGC's capabilities and value, but we can be sure that the application of AIGC is further expanding the fantasy territory of the intelligent era and futurism. In the future, as Tencent Video's AIGC capabilities are implemented in more links of the entire animation industry chain, the animation industry will also achieve a comprehensive liberation from productivity to creativity.