8 AI Tools Every Motion Designer Should Try to Streamline Creative Workflow

In today’s dynamic world, video has emerged as a dominant format for conveying and perceiving information. We’ve developed a habit of turning to video content for entertainment and to meet various lifestyle, educational, and consumer needs. In an oversaturated digital landscape, the better the video is designed, the more visually captivating the way the story is told or information is delivered — the higher the chances it will attract attention and be watched. Therefore, staying ahead of the curve of the latest tech advancements and creative features in motion design and video making is crucial for those involved in content production.

And this is where AI comes in, inviting you to ignite a new wave of creativity and making the design process faster, easier, and cheaper along the way. AI tools can be of help with ideation and concept development, creation of mood boards and color palettes, storyboarding, character and background design, animation, creation of voice-overs and sound effects, video quality enhancement, and much more.

These are eight of the best AI-powered design solutions covering the entire creative process, worth adding to a motion designer toolkit to streamline the workflow and push the boundaries of visual storytelling.

Best for text-to-image and image-to-image generation: Midjourney

Midjourney’s AI algorithms effortlessly bridge the gap between textual concepts and visual representation, providing a playground for creative exploration and design experiments and deftly handling complex scenarios and abstract ideas. The tool is capable of visualizing textual and interpreting image inputs and excels in both text-to-image and image-to-image generation. It enables the creation of almost any image you can think of, enhancement of an existing image with a text prompt, or morphing one image into a stunning another with remarkable precision.

Best for image-to-video and video-to-video generation: Stable Diffusion

Regarding a motion designer toolkit, Stable Diffusion’s strength lies in its ability to interpret image inputs and create video outputs, transforming static designs into moving visuals. Besides high-quality image-to-video generation, the tool provides video-to-video functionality, allowing the translation of an existing video into a completely new visual experience while accurately representing the details coming from the original concept.

Best for image generation on mobile: ARTA

When you’re away from your desktop, ARTA is a great visual-generating solution that fits your pocket and keeps your creative ideas flowing. It offers top-notch text-to-image and image-to-image output with the convenience of a mobile app, enabling you to brainstorm and draft visual concepts even on the go. Besides, ARTA is a powerful avatar-maker tool that can inspire unique character design for a multitude of projects.

Best for scriptwriting and storyboard creation: ChatGPT

Weaving compelling narratives and well-crafted scripts is no less important than visual design to captivate the audience. ChatGPT is a tool that stands out in this regard. It is capable of drafting stories that are not only grammatically impeccable and coherent but engaging and tailored to the specific styles and topics that align with the project’s tone and objectives. In addition, it can be used to generate textual storyboards to plan and refine the video’s narrative structure comprehensively before moving on to the design stage.

Best for creation of talking animated avatars: D-ID

D-ID is particularly adept at making static characters come to life, transforming them into interactive virtual avatars that can speak like real people. Its deep learning algorithms analyze a static image, mimicking basic lifelike human expressions and movements, and generate an accurate lip-sync animation for a required text script.

Best for voice-over synthesis: ElevenLabs

ElevenLabs is renowned for creating voice-overs from text scripts. The tool imitates human speech with remarkable realism, replicating natural nuances and intonations. It also offers several voice customization possibilities, such as pitch, speed, and tone adjustments tailored to your project's stylistics and mood.

Best for background removal: Runway

Runway carves a place in the list for its superb video background removal feature. As if you filmed your footage on a green screen, with just a few clicks, the tool allows you to isolate subjects from their original context, so you can transfer your video characters into any setting by superimposing them onto a new background.

Best for video quality enhancement: Topaz Video AI

Topaz Video AI has you covered for enhancing your video quality, whether you’re looking to boost its overall resolution or upscale specific parts of the image. The tool enables the increase in video definition up to 16K and helps denoise footage with cinema-level detail, stabilize shaking frames, and reduce motion-induced blur.

Takeaway

Not only are AI tools worth experimenting with to enhance the productivity of the design process, but they can enrich various creative aspects of design projects with fresh elements and trendy, innovative features.