One popular application of early GenAI was using style transfer to create a cartoon version of a photograph of a person. Snapchat also enjoyed success with Pixar-style filters that made a person seem to be an animated character, but these could be considered as effectively image processing.Runway has recently shown Act-One, a new tool that can be used to build an expressive and controllable tool for artists to generate expressive character performances using Gen-3 Alpha. Act-One can create cartoon animations using video and voice performances as inputs to generative models that can turn expressive live-action and animated content.Wonder Dynamics has escalated this to a new and interesting level with Wonder Animation, but outputing 3D not 2D content.Wonder Dynamics, an Autodesk company, has announced the beta launch of Wonder Studios newest feature: Wonder Animation, which is powered by a first-of-its-kind video-to-3D scene technology that enables artists to shoot a scene with any camera in any location and turn the sequence into an animated scene with CG characters in a 3D environment.Wonder AnimationThe original Wonder Studio Video-to-3D CharacterIn May, Autodesk announced that Wonder Dynamics, the makers of Wonder Studio, would become part of Autodesk. Wonder Studio first broke through as a browser-based platform that allowed people to use AI to replace a person in a clip with a computer-generated character. It effortlessly allowed users to replace a live-action actor with a Mocap version of the digital character. The results and effectiveness of the original multi-tool machine learning / AI approach were immediately apparent. From shading and lighting to animation and ease of use, Wonder Studio was highly successful and had an impact almost immediately.The most innovative part of the new Wonder Animations video-to-3D scene technology is its ability to assist artists while they film and edit sequences with multiple cuts and various shots (wide, medium, close-ups).Maya exportThe technology then uses AI to reconstruct the scene in a 3D space and matches the position and movement of each cameras relationship to the characters and environment. This essentially creates a virtual representation of an artists live-action scene containing all camera setups and character body and face animation in one 3D scene. Note, it does not convert the video background environment to specific 3D objects, but it allows the 3D artist to place the Wonder Dynamics 3D characters into a 3D environment where before, they were only placed back into the original video background.This is entirely different from a style transfer or an image processing approach. The output from Wonder Animations video-to-3D scene technology is a fully editable 3D animation. The output contains 3D animation, character, environment, lighting, and camera tracking data available to be loaded into the users preferred software, such as Maya, Blender, or Unreal.Even though there have been tremendous advancements in AI, there is a current misconception that AI is a one-click solutionbut thats not the case. The launch of Wonder Animation underscores the teams focus on bringing the artist one step closer to producing fully animated films while ensuring they retain creative control. Unlike the black-box approach of most current generative AI tools on the market, the Wonder Dynamics tools are designed to allow artists to actively shape and edit their vision instead of just relying on an automated output.Wonder Animations beta launch is now available to all Wonder Studio users. The team aims to bring artists closer to producing fully animated films. We formed Wonder Dynamics and developed Wonder Studio (our cloud-based 3D animation and VFX solution) out of our passion for storytelling coupled with our commitment to make VFX work accessible to more creators and filmmakers, comments co-founder Nikola Todorovic. Its been five months since we joined Autodesk, and the time spent has only reinforced that the foundational Wonder Dynamics vision aligns perfectly with Autodesks longstanding commitment to advancing the Media & Entertainment industry through innovation.Here is the official release video: