This AI breathes life into your photos and the result is magical

AI company Runway has released the latest version of its image-to-video generator. As a user, you can now circle or highlight any location on a photo that you want to animate, and the AI ​​will create a short video of it.

This is what this looks like:

Or so:

Generative AI adds animation to any still image in seconds. Example videos on the internet and our own experiments show that this mainly works with animals and objects such as cars, while AI sometimes takes more effort with human faces and requires more knowledge to achieve convincing results.

In the next video you can see how the image of a bird comes to life or leaves on a branch dance in the wind thanks to AI magic – the result is almost terrifyingly real.

This is how the AI ​​tool works

Runway calls the feature that brings photos to life, so to speak, Motion Brush. The AI ​​tool runs directly in the browser. You upload a photo, mark the places you want to move, and use a slider to choose how fast and in which direction the animated part of the image should move. For example, a photo of clouds can be turned into a time-lapse video in just a few seconds.

With the new AI function Motion Brush, clothing, hair or eyes can also be animated in no time.

To animate a face, first upload a photo of a person and tag the face. In a second step, the facial expression that the person should have can be described in a text field. For example: “The man in the photo is sad and frowning.”

Text input can therefore be used in combination with Motion Brush (image highlighting) to give the AI ​​more precise instructions. The following two-minute video explains the basic capabilities of the AI ​​video generator.

Oh, and before I forget: you can also animate memes with Motion Brush…

Who is Runway?

Runway was founded in 2018 and played an important role in the development of the well-known text-to-image generator Stable Diffusion. With this AI technology it is possible to create realistic images from text input alone.

In 2023, Runway launched a generative AI model that can also be used to create and customize videos using text input. The software can also convert an existing video into another video in any style, such as a black and white live-action movie or cartoon, using text input. Optionally, the AI ​​video generator receives a reference image for the desired film look.

And this is what it looks like:

AI tools such as Runway are widely used by TikTokers and YouTubers and now also by major film and television studios. For example, Darth Vader is already being talked about as artificial intelligence.

The AI ​​startup Runway competes with the AI ​​applications of the large tech companies. Unlike Meta or Google, which have developed similar software, Runway focuses mainly on creative people and the film industry. “This is one of the first models developed in close collaboration with a community of creators,” Runway CEO and co-founder Cristóbal Valenzuela said in early 2023.