Express Midjourney Animations
In this episode I will be introducing a technique for creating quick and easy animations with your Midjourney results.
This technique is not only efficient in terms of time but also cost-effective.
First you’ll have to create a base image that you like. Let’s go with:
Two elegant skeleton brothers by peter mohrbacher --ar 3:2
I really like the one on the bottom left!
Now that we have the image we want to make an animation of, let’s make 4 variations of it.
Make sure you are making 4-6 variations of the original image, and not variations of the images that come out of the variations!
No we have 4-6 similar copies of the image we want.
Do note that making 4 variations also seems to do the trick. It’s up to you how many variations you like more after doing some experiments.
Now let’s download all the variated images we made into a new folder.
The next step would be cutting the 4x4 image grids into singular images. We can do it by using a tool such as Photoscape X which is free to use:
http://www.photoscape.org/
(There are also many alternative tools you can use online, but I personally like using Photoscape X).
In Photoscape X simply choose all the 4x4 images grids, right click and hit “Split”.
Don’t forget that a video is basically a string of images running one after another in a certain speed.
Now let’s take all the split images and throw them in a basic video editor:
Click “Split” again.
Make sure “Subfolder” is check and name it “Split”.
This will automatically create a new folder with all the split images.
Great! Now we have a chain of all the separate images!
Great! Now we have a simple short sequence.
We can duplicate that sequence as many times as we want to make it the length we need it to be.
Let’s save it, and then we can use an Upscaling software to upscale the footage to 4K!
Upscaling & Interpolation
Video upscaling is the process of increasing the resolution of a video, typically from a lower resolution (such as 480p) to a higher resolution (such as 1080p or 4K).
The goal of video upscaling is to improve the overall visual quality of the video and make it appear more detailed and sharp on high-resolution displays.
Video interpolation is a technique used to increase the frame rate of a video.
Interpolation can be used to convert a video from 24fps to 30fps or 60fps, for example.
The goal of interpolation is to improve the visual quality of the video by making it appear more smooth and natural,
especially when there is fast-moving action on the screen.
My favourite Video Upscaling Software is Topaz Video Enhance AI:
https://www.topazlabs.com/topaz-video-ai
It might be rather costly, but if you are planning to make videos professionally i’d say it’s pretty much mandatory to use Topaz.
Since it’s really high quality and also has interpolation options (allows you to change the FPS) and many other settings all in one place.
In Topaz we can first interpolate the footage to 24fps (if we want)
We have a short animation out of a Midjourney image.
After doing that we’ll upscale it to 4K, and Viola!
After doing this process a couple times it will take you no longer to get to the point where you make an animation out of an image in a matter of a few minutes.
Most people I have seen trying this technique are upscaling every single image in Midjourney, and then eventually use them in the editing software.
I believe that method is incorrect because it takes way longer and also costs a lot more in GPU hours.