newslounge.co · Feb 08, 2024

Good Morning. 

Welcome to newslounge, your weekly VFX-AI mixtape. Straight hits only.

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on Today’s menu:

• Gen AI on Apple iPhones

• Apple Vision Pro, A Revolutionary Design

• The Art Of Ice Cream Animation

• Training Camera Motions in AI

• The Magic Of Light in Midjourney

-Ardy

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HEADLINE

Will New Apple iPhone come with GenAI?

Rumours are swirling around Apple's ambitious plans to ramp up its generative AI capabilities, particularly for its iconic iPhones.

Let's break it down: 
Apple aims to make AI features exclusive to its new iPhones. This move could potentially revolutionize how chatbots and apps operate, shifting from reliance on cloud services to leveraging the phone's software itself.

Playing Catch-Up
While Apple has been a trailblazer in designing custom chips for iPhones since 2010, recent developments indicate a need to pick up the pace in AI and Gen AI advancements.
Competitors like Microsoft have been making significant strides, recently claiming the title of the world's most valuable company.

Staying Ahead of the Curve
Amidst fierce competition, Apple is gearing up for its first foray into the headset market with the Apple Vision Pro, a virtual reality (VR) headset set to debut in February 2024. This move underscores Apple's vision of blending VR and augmented reality (AR) as the future of computing.

Apple has created the best user interface for AR/VR I've seen, and it should serve as a template for all future consumer headset displays. 

📺Watch the full experience here

While much remains shrouded in secrecy, a paper published by Apple at the end of 2023 sheds light on its ongoing efforts to optimize AI capabilities on handheld devices.

Moreover, researchers have developed innovative methods to enable powerful AI inference on devices with limited memory, potentially revolutionizing the landscape of AI applications.

-AA

Artistic Integrity in the Era of Gen AI

In the era of Gen AI, where everybody is grappling with the question of whether art can be protected by copyright, I believe the least we can do is invest effort into our creative process. We can achieve this by embracing new tools and enhancing our workflow, blending traditional methods with modern tools rather than fully transitioning to convenient but less compelling systems. In this dynamic environment, where everything is evolving, it's not only unwise but also unhealthy to outright reject AI and the incredible advantages it offers. The choice of how to incorporate AI into our work is entirely ours to make.

-Ardy

CASE STUDY

The Art Of Ice Cream Animation

Though Process:
To create visually compelling art, especially in animation, I prefer to rely on a solid CG foundation, which I find particularly appealing. This approach feels more like an extension of my creative process rather than depending solely on AI and accepting its unpredictable results.

🔔Here are the key points:

• I created a melting effect and extracted only the points from the simulation

• After adjusting the particle scale, I rendered it from various camera angles using Redshift.

• For all the shots, I rendered only the beauty pass, except for one.

• For one specific shot, I created a very low-poly plate in Houdini to define the plate's position and rendered it alongside the particles. I also rendered the depth map for this shot as a precaution.

• To guide the animation, I used a combination of ipadapter and a few control nets.

• I experimented with ComfyUI’s “COCO segmenter” to create a real-time mask from my renders to remove the background. This worked initially but failed towards the end of the sequence due to the nature of my element. Consequently, I had to remove the background in Houdini and render it again.

• I created a mask setup to isolate the red or blue channel from my render, using it to mask a section of the original render. This masked section then served as a new source for my animation.
  

⚡I’ll write a full update about masking soon.

🎁 Project Breakdown: here

📺 Youtube link: here

👾Learn more about IPAdapter and its functionality. here

What is AnimateDiff MotionDirector?

💡Training camera motions is now possible and I plan to include this in my upcoming experiments.

AnimateDiff is a plug-and-play module turning most community models into animation generators, without the need of additional training.
MotionDirector is a method to train the motions of videos, and use those motions to drive your animations.

-newslounge

We are seeking:
full-stack software engineer
web developer
social media marketing expert

[email protected]

SNIPPETS

🚨Midjourney dropped "Niji v6" this week and people are already creating insane anime images and videos.

😂Pepsi trolls Coca-Cola again in provocative new campaign

🚀Apple Vision Pro is a revolution in AR/VR interfaces

💲Crypto: Texas Man Indicted for Failing to Report Hefty Bitcoin Earnings on Tax Forms

👩‍💻Microsoft plans to train 2M Indians in AI

🎬Unity MuseLab allows you to do text to full human animation

AROUND THE WORLD OF AI

IBM At The Forefront Of AI Patents

The company specializing in patent services, ‘IFI Claims’, has published a study detailing the surge in patent activities within the Generative AI sector.
The analysis highlights IBM as the frontrunner, boasting in excess of 1,500 patent filings in this domain.

🚨Big Moves:

The UK is investing over 100 million pounds ($125 million) to launch 9 new AI research hubs and train regulators on the technology.
Midjourney: AI image generation company Midjourney has reportedly hired an engineer from Apple to lead its hardware division, potentially signalling plans for a new device.

-AA

RunwayML is currently hosting an AI Film Festival featuring some very impressive projects.
You can watch them here. 😎

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