I usually attempt to keep away from AI as I need to deal with human-made creativity in my digital initiatives. However animating takes time and I’m not excellent at it, so I discovered a free AI animation software to take the laborious work away and produce some nice outcomes for me in each video and GIF type.
Magic Hour Gives Many Inventive AI Options
Magic Hour is a browser-based AI software. It has many inventive options for each video and picture outcomes. It boasts a handful of free options amongst its many paid AI mills.
With over 8 generative AI video instruments, Magic Hour affords a enjoyable and fascinating expertise for video and animation creation. It additionally options at the very least 12 picture technology instruments so as to add to the enjoyable. The picture instruments encompass options corresponding to a garments changer, face swap, and AI selfie generator.
Its AI Animation Generator and AI GIF Generator are solely two of many free instruments so as to add to your inventive workflow. Though not all instruments are free, there are at the very least 5 free video instruments, together with a subtitles generator which you might need to pay premium costs for with Premiere Professional’s AI caption and subtitles instruments or as one in all CapCut’s AI video instruments.
For fast GIF creation, utilizing Magic Hour’s AI GIF Generator may very well be what you want.
Photograph by Ruby Helyer, writer. No attribtion required.
Ruby Helyer / MakeUseOf
Discovered below the AI picture instruments, the free GIF generator is a one-stop-shop software for GIF creation. All it takes is a textual content immediate and 50 credit to generate an animated consequence.
The immediate permits for as much as 500 characters, so that you may be fairly descriptive about what you’d like, together with describing the artwork fashion you’d just like the GIF in. It solely produces one consequence per 50-credit immediate, so attempt to engineer your immediate effectively earlier than producing.
The GIF generator is a cool software for fast technology. If you’d like one thing extra customized or customized, then Magic Hour affords a free animation generator.
Utilizing Magic Hour’s free AI Animation Generator enables you to create a fascinating quick video animation rapidly.
Magic Hour’s animation generator is a stop-motion animation software, so your animations won’t be as easy as a Pixar film launch, however they’ll have some quirk to them.
Add Music to Your Animation
The non-obligatory first step to producing your Magic Hour animation: Including music. When you’d favor a silent film animation, you possibly can skip to the following step.
You possibly can add audio in a lot of methods. If you have already got the audio file in your laptop system, you possibly can merely drag and drop it into the uploader.
You can even add audio through a YouTube URL. Perhaps there’s a trending track or a loop you’ve heard when doomscrolling movies on YouTube Shorts—now’s the time so as to add that sound to your animation.
Screenshot by Ruby Helyer, writer. No attribution required.
Magic Hour additionally affords three audio samples to make use of as an alternative.
Importing your personal audio offers you extra personalization to your remaining animated consequence. Magic Hour asks for attribution to its pattern audio snippets when you publish your consequence.
Begin With an Picture
Importing a beginning picture can also be non-obligatory. This would be the body your animation begins with earlier than it morphs into no matter your immediate is.
Screenshot by Ruby Helyer, writer. No attribution required.
I uploaded a photograph of my pal’s canine together with her tongue hanging out.
Word: If I generated one other animation, I’d most likely go forward and not using a beginning picture, and simply deal with the immediate alone, based mostly on my consequence.
Write Your Video Immediate
Write your immediate to mirror all that you really want in your animation. Be at liberty so as to add in some jazzy particulars to make sure a customized animation, however don’t overcomplicate it.
You don’t want to incorporate the visible fashion on this immediate, as that comes within the subsequent step. Focus solely on the subject material and visible surroundings. My immediate stated: “cute kitty looking a small brown mouse in a corn subject.”
Select Animation Model
You might need a precise animation fashion in thoughts when excited about producing your quick animation clip. Whether or not you need a hand-drawn impact, 3D, claymation, or replicating a particular artist sort, there are many choices.
Magic Hour’s AI can use the lyrics of your audio to decide on an animation fashion for you. That is solely related in case your audio has lyrics to start with. And secondly, it won’t be related in case your audio has no foundation in what the visuals are. For instance, the audio I selected was one of many Magic Hour samples. It featured lyrics about Chuck Taylor footwear and trend, however my immediate is a few kitty and a mouse. Letting AI takeover would possibly lead to one thing a bit of too bizarre.
Photograph by Ruby Helyer, writer. No attribtion required.
Ruby Helyer / MakeUseOf
There’s additionally a big library of over 40 curated artwork types to select from. Every has a small thumbnail so that you can visualize the fashion earlier than deciding on it. Some examples are darkish graphic illustration, pixel artwork, Van Gogh, and old skool comedian.
Selecting from the curated types checklist offers you higher management in comparison with the opposite two choices.
If the opposite choices don’t swimsuit, you too can write a textual content immediate to explain your meant fashion. Whereas that is extra personalized than the earlier choices, it has a better potential for misinterpretation or unintended penalties.
I selected the Pixar fashion from the curated checklist.
Decide a Digital camera Impact
Magic Hour’s animation generator isn’t any easy characteristic—you possibly can even set a posh or easy digicam impact for probably the most spectacular outcomes. The visible results may be synced rapidly to your audio, saving spending hours syncing visible parts to audio in After Results.
You should utilize an AI-directed strategy which identifies your different alternatives and chooses an impact based mostly on that or you possibly can select from a library of results.
There are over 50 digicam results you should use in your quick animation. There are small thumbnails of every impact corresponding to rubber band, bounce out and in, or roll in.
I selected Pulse – Audio Sync as my digicam impact.
Render Your Video Animation
The ultimate hurdle to seeing your animated masterpiece is to call the mission, select what dimension and backbone you need it to be (free customers are capped at 512px decision), and to select the animation’s transition velocity.
Transition velocity provides a numbered worth that exhibits how rapidly the video’s content material modifications between frames. A decrease transition velocity offers you a extra secure visible consequence, however the next transition velocity will provide extra fast transitions. I simply selected the default choice of 4.
Relying on what you uploaded, it could take a while for the outcomes to be generated.
Though it’s cool to generate such a posh animation, based mostly on imagery, audio, visible results, and extra, I’m disillusioned within the outcomes. I ought to have used a excessive transition velocity when rendering the video, which can have helped, however general, the animated consequence jumps round an excessive amount of to be thought-about a easy animation with any semblance of a storyline.
With higher immediate engineering and a extra streamlined purpose, I’d wager the consequence can be extra favorable, although. Perhaps subsequent time I am going to simply use among the Adobe animation instruments and reduce my losses.
How A lot Does Magic Hour Value?
Magic Hour’s collective toolbox affords a spread of each free and premium options. The excellent news is that its AI Animation Generator and GIF Technology options are two of its free instruments, so you possibly can simply generate enjoyable and attention-grabbing animations with out paying.
Magic Hour affords premium plans, or you should use it with a free plan. Its premium plans are:
- Creator – $12 per thirty days or $183 per yr
- Professional – $55 per thirty days or 660 per yr
- Enterprise – $281 per thirty days or $3,366 per yr
When you go for a paid plan and select to be billed yearly, you’ll obtain two months free. You possibly can go for a month-to-month subscription if the pliability advantages you higher, although.
Magic Hour’s free endlessly plan supplies you with 400 credit to make use of on quite a lot of generative AI instruments. Every software or characteristic makes use of a various variety of credit, so that you’ll must keep watch over your utilization when you don’t need to use your credit too rapidly.
The free plan can also be restricted by the quantity of video you possibly can create, with it being capped at solely 17 seconds of video consequence. That is additionally restricted to a small 512px decision and could have a Magic Hour watermark.
With so many AI instruments out there, it may be tough to know which of them produce good high quality, whether or not free or paid. If I’d have paid for Magic Hour and obtained the identical outcomes, I’d have been very disillusioned. As a free software, it’s enjoyable to experiment and gave me outcomes that made me snigger with the absurdity, however as an animation software or GIF creator, I wouldn’t use it as a severe software.
