Animate AI Matte Paintings in After Effects

Arguably the best video use for AI generated images is Matte Paintings. While you can use generative AI for all sorts of things, it often has limitations for films, movies and TV show, not to mention web content – mainly because its static and a bit lifeless. AI video generation looks impressive, but that could be a while before it becomes main stream. In the meantime, the artists who create matte paintings have been finding ways to get movement and life into their artwork using techniques perfected for over a century of movie making.

In this video, I take an image generated by Adobe Firefly and animate the clouds, add water, make the leaves on the trees flutter, animate a 3D camera to push in and even add stock footage of birds! All to bring the scene to life. And as always, I’ll try to introduce you to tools in After Effects that you may not be familiar with, like the liquify effect, adding layer markers and track mattes.

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