@TimOberlander-k6z

As an animator that has been using Maya since version 1 I too groaned when I first saw this video. I think I took most 'offense' to the part where it says it's 'made for animators'. No, not really. This is made for people that want to make things move and not have to do the 'heavy lifting' that takes a lot of patience and years of dedication to hone. That's fine.  Somebody might be happy with that base 'performance' and move on happy that they made something move. But I don't think that they can call themselves an "animator". Just because I can hold a paint brush doesn't mean that I can call myself a skilled painter.  It will still take an animator's eye to make things look good. If a company sees this as a way to cut jobs then that will most likely backfire. It won't take long for somebody to realize that everything looks canned and will want 'better'. At least this is what I tell myself when I feel the AI creep fear.

I sort of view AI like I view mocap. When I first used mocap, it seemed like an 'attack' on my craft. But over the years, I have changed my opinion and see it just as a way to get from A to B. I'm still an animator and love to create life through motion. Motion capture, AI, etc is only as good as what the performer can do or a prompt can churn out. It's up to us animators to push that and make it something worth looking at. With that said, I still kind of groan when I am told to use mocap

Change is inevitable. It seems as though it is rarely seen as a good thing. Especially when it appears like it'll directly impact your craft and/or livelihood. AI is just a new 'shiny' tool. I fear that we need to embrace it as much as we might not want to... at least for our payed jobs. In our free time we can create whatever we want however we want.  Get good at animating and you'll stand out from the crowd regardless of what the starting point was. 

The name MotionMaker made me laugh a little. I'm guessing MotionBuilder is truly 6 feet under now!

@GENIUSGT

Autodesk:

Fix Maya : ❌
Add AI slop: ☑

@davemauriello8088

This fundamentally misses the point of creating art. It's not simply about the end, but the process, and through the struggle, art emerges with its uniquely beautiful and varied parts, not just "believable," formulaic slop.

This is not a tool to help animators. This is a tool for studios. 

Btw, no two people walk the same way, nor are any of our steps EXACTLY the same all the time. Walking, like any of our movements, is uniquely ours, colored by layers of in-the-moment thoughts and feelings. These things would be known to anyone who ever cracked open the Animator's Survival Guide, animated a character or, well, was a human being.

@morsclue

autodesk never stops disappointing us:face-blue-smiling::face-blue-smiling::face-blue-smiling::face-blue-smiling:

@sonicartist91

"Made for animators, or anyone who needs a faster way to bring characters to life." - Autodesk

"I strongly feel this is an insult to life itself." - Hayao Miyazaki

"... Replace stuff that people don't want to do, or can't do. But people get joy (and their livelihood) from creating art, and they want to do it. It's one of the things that make us human. I'm no Luddite, and I love using new tools to create my animation. But when it starts to encroach upon the fulfillment that I get from creating, then no thanks!..." - James Baxter, comment from [Smoother animation ≠ Better animation by noodle]

I don't know what else can be said that hasn't been said in the previous quotes. Granted, at the start this sounds really cool and neat. But all I see is another way for more artists to be replaced because some set of shareholders don't see a persons value over there next luxury purchase. Also people like animating walk cycles! Because it forces you to find a nuance in that characters tempo and nature.

@chenglong54

This is basically a mocap studio integrated to Maya, that's all. When comes feature film animation with pushed / cartoony animation them this new feature will be useless.

@kristafervale7999

To be honest I think ai is going to skip the co-author phase quicker than we’ll be able to even conceptualize of the workflow. 18 years pro rigger at AAA studios. Was a great run.

@D.Erikan

I have hand tremors and it will be great to be able to more efficiently block my own animation scenes. Still would want animators who's artistry brings subtlety and personality to character movement, but this sounds like a great tool to get a scene set up.

@abdellahi.heiballa

It’s great it has a lot of potential my dream is that one day you’ll be able to just like have a prompt next to you and then you can describe the motion and the movement and the trajectory and the expressions and then you could also just the hotel lip sync. It will be just amazingnow I see this as a starting point, but I hope hopeful that you guys will work forward and making it better in the future.

@mtamer2943

All I can say: I have indie animation projects to do, and I am not immortal. I am an animator, full-time in studios. I'll try this tool and see if the "made for animators" part is accurate or not. I've tried most, if not all, tools out there, open-source and not, and 90% of them are, so far, AI tools meant for beginner-level work or people who are not professionals. These tools generally do not help an actual professional individual or a work pipeline. But we'll see.

@srujansujji3803

Thank you, finally Adobe did it like in a blender.

@KoteyAnnan

This is cool 😎 probably never use it for the primary animations but I can immediately put it to use for background crowd animations and other supporting animations.

@ToonPulse88

This music heals the soul.

@digitalzenith6527

If it delivers, this will be great!

@goldenRatio_1.6180

Wow can I disable this?

@waelxcm

good competition to cascadeur's feature! noice!

@containedhurricane

It looks like a very good tool to create locomotion animations, but I bet Cascadeur developers are working on something similar

@AdamEarleArtist

This is kindaaaaaaa great for everyone who isn't an animator, because it lets them feel like they are one.

Just to play devil’s advocate though… isn't animation an art form? Isn’t that why we celebrate it?

On the night of your wedding, are you going to get an AI robot to stand up and dance for you with your wife's robot? Or are you going to take that moment and make it your own, embracing the love of your life and creating an unforgettable memory?

@TheIcemanModdeler

So esentially what if animators lost their jobs?
If u keep replacing artists with AI automation who will buy your expensive software? U can't even buy it, u can only rent it!

@damiensimper

It’s the ‘machine learning’ part of all these tools that worries me the most! Do we now have to agree to some shit that let’s Autodesk run some software that’s essentially recording the way we work with their tools and then teaching it’s system to replace us? It’s what they’ve done with Art tools right? Scrape the hell out of every style by figuring out how to see the patterns and teach the machine to replicate it. It won’t be long and animation will be speaking or prompting based work too. Puts new meaning to getting ‘notes’ from a Sup or Director!