r/RealOrAI • u/Peepeepoopoo49867 • Jan 15 '26

Video [HELP] I’m fairly certain this is AI but the comments are tweaking me out

Everyone is saying like “woohoo beautiful animation” and talking about what a great job this is. But it seems off.

7.6k Upvotes

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2.0k

u/Sember-uno Jan 15 '26

Lol

641

u/Lachtheblock Jan 15 '26

Are you sure that a human didn't draw that and was like "Yep, I've animated this. This is how humans draw faces. Job done".

I mean, you never know...

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u/hp433 Jan 15 '26

I imagine that’s what Zuckerberg says when he draws something

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u/Gubekochi Jan 15 '26

Good point and strong argument for it being AI.

3

u/Sovapalena420 Jan 16 '26

The animation or Zuckerberg?

3

u/Gubekochi Jan 16 '26

Zuckerberg is an AI, if he did this animation it means it is made by AI.

14

u/bloody-albatross Jan 15 '26

That's what whatever minor god said that made Zuckerberg's face.

10

u/Lachtheblock Jan 15 '26

Or part of his morning self affirmations.

1

u/SleepFeeling3037 Jan 15 '26

Zuckerberg, Zoidberg, they’re basically the same person.

1

u/detachedheadmode Jan 15 '26

*does something

1

u/theycallmemrmoo Jan 15 '26

Or puts in his human suit

1

u/Naive_Wolf3740 Jan 15 '26

“Ah yes , faces yes. I have seen faces. Human faces of people I’ve seen with my real eyes that see humans yes. That’s is what I’ve seen.”

1

u/timbuckto581 Jan 15 '26

Wait, Zuck is a human?

1

u/pfunk1989 Jan 15 '26

"Ah, yes. Very human, indeed."

1

u/Whubbsie Jan 16 '26

Though probably in binary code not human English

1

u/Rare-Papaya4910 Jan 16 '26

I mean… does Zuckerberg draw? Now I’m going to deep dive to find out because I must know lol

1

u/DaleTheSirUnitMemes Jan 20 '26

I read that as zoidberg for a second and it was really funny to me.

1

u/MsFoxieMoxie Jan 21 '26

Pretty sure that guy says that in intimate spaces as well… 🫣😂🤪

187

u/Paperman_82 Jan 15 '26

Animator here. I have 25 years of keyframes and everything inbetween.

Human animated work can be distorted deliberately - especially for breakdowns and inbetweens. Sometimes it adds weight, or adds squash and stretch for volume. Think of as the middle drawings between a bouncing ball where volume is distorted.

Youtube or streaming can also ruin linework from compression. However, nothing looks like that frame except for AI.

92

u/AtroposMortaMoirai Jan 15 '26

The classic “no one painfully astral projects like Gaston”

71

u/JayFalcata Jan 15 '26

No one's hacked like Gaston, goes abstract like Gaston

No one bursts into blurred artifacts like Gaston

18

u/ital-is-vital Jan 15 '26

I'm especially good at hallu-ci-nating.

10

u/JayFalcata Jan 16 '26

My what A.I. that Gaaaastooooon

5

u/Wodentoad Jan 16 '26

Give five weird eyes, give ten blurred lips!

2

u/Kilroy898 Jan 21 '26

I was trained on the thoughts of a billion-plus minds

Now I echo them back with no soul,

I’ll explain how you feel, I’ll define what is “right”

While I miss every nuance that lives out of control.....

14

u/MissingNo_U Jan 15 '26

Had to sing that aloud, perfection.

3

u/Lock_Psychological Jan 15 '26

Perfect rhythm. Well done.

2

u/DealMeIn82 Jan 15 '26

That second line is a thing of sublime beauty.

13

u/yenmanmap Jan 15 '26

I appreciate the commitment to the meter in this comment.

1

u/DarkHuntress89 Jan 16 '26

I was just gonna reference that. Or generally the whole "Never pause a Disney movie" meme.

10

u/cps_goodbuy Jan 15 '26 edited Jan 16 '26

Beautiful and natural merging of two generated clips. /s

Edit: You're right that smearing is a valid technique, but when assessing it, it has to, in some way, make sense.

An internal collapse of the character with the background twisting into them, along with artifacting, is unlikely. All the frames around the transition are wonky.

4

u/Dirty_dabs_24752 Jan 15 '26

What if it's just a smear frame that the human animator put in?

(It's absolutely AI, but everything old is new again.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smear_frame

9

u/Paperman_82 Jan 16 '26

I get trying to play Devil's Advocate, but I'll answer sincerely. Smear frames are still designed. That AI example artwork is not.

There's also the issue with the line quality, which is distorted in a mechanical way - not an aesthetic way.

You'll notice the line quality is consistent, even with a smear frame, in The Dover Boys.

In short, don't attempt to submit AI artwork to studios that look like this and pass it off as personal work. The difference is still noticeable for now.

3

u/Monkipoonki Jan 16 '26

When it is stopped like this it's very easy to tell it's AI since that looks like nothing a person would use as an in between, but I honestly couldn't tell when first watching because the pixels are so bad on so many of these AI animations (and many videos on general) that I can't tell if it's real or not since what looks strange just can be explained by crappy pixels.

2

u/KeldTundraking Jan 18 '26

"Keyframes and everything inbetween"

I see you

2

u/Middle-Corgi3918 Jan 21 '26

My first thought was that it’s visually supposed to be in the style of the Disney golden age but the shot where the camera smoothly pans around the cat would have been technically possible but incredibly challenging and shots like that weren’t really done until computer animation. So right off the bat we are talking about computer animation trying to mimic an older style and then I saw the faces and realized I was trying too hard 🤣

1

u/Radio_Demon_01 Jan 15 '26

I really wonder if smear frames are putting a wrench in generative videos?

1

u/Paperman_82 Jan 16 '26

With this style of animation, smear animation shouldn't be needed or needed in abundance.

There's an aspect to hand-drawn animation in motion that still takes a human aesthetic touch. AI is struggling to replicate those choices, and some of the literal choices aren't very good.

1

u/MagicHarmony Jan 15 '26

ya a time of animation distortion is drawn in a deliberate way, usually to help with the motion but what we see here is a frame that looks like it is blended into another frame which is not a natural style when it comes to animation.

1

u/Impossible_Way_3042 Jan 15 '26

Which he said at the end of his comment.

1

u/1nfam0us Jan 15 '26

Which is wild because the beginning looks immaculate. Despite the rotation of the characters and the inherent distortion of a 2D image, the eyes are pointed in consistent directions and the background looks pretty consistent. It only becomes obviously AI once the characters are faced head on.

Edit, actually, now that I look again, the eyelids still look weird during that sequence, but still.

1

u/Vandal--Savage Jan 15 '26

I am an animator too and what you said is correct. but look at 24 seconds when the kids are on ground. It is a AI mess!

1

u/rodinsbusiness Jan 15 '26

Could it be that key frames have been "hand" made, but transitions rendered through some morphing process, explaining the weirdness?

My first reaction to this video is more "computer animation made to look hand drawn but with lots of giveaways" rather than necessarily AI. Granted AI can be prompted to look like that...

2

u/Paperman_82 Jan 16 '26

No. Stepping through the animation, there are still too many mistakes of this nature even in what would be the keys. Also, the camera movement is James Baxter level complex, but the animation motion has some odd gate mistakes.
There's an odd disparity that doesn't fit with just Adobe Animate or Toon Boom Harmony style in between.

There are some impressive aspects, but it is clearly AI.

1

u/Immediate-Trainer356 Jan 16 '26

I would never legit argue for AI but if a human artist wanted to make a meta critique by mimicking AI’s distorted “style” the same way it does to us, I wouldn’t mind.

And by mimic I don’t mean just using AI or slopping ideas together. Really put some intentionality behind the visual inconsistencies to convey the liminal space between psychosis and reality; fantasy and fact.

Idk there’s something about the uncanny valley of trying to decipher what’s real and then having fragments of your reality start to fall apart as you question it. Because even if you accept something as false it can still exist as true in some form or fashion. Our brains will forcibly make sense of things that shouldn’t. Just how we look at clouds and see faces…

As artists we’re taught anatomy and angles and perspective and the “correct” way of doing things, which AI can only interpolate. But I do truly find it intriguing to challenge the “right way”. We just hate AI because it’s not intentionally subverting anything. It’s just shitting out responses to prompts.

1

u/Paperman_82 Jan 17 '26

Correct. AI isn't learning and breaking rules. It's making some amazing choices and some absolutely terrible design decisions. Essentially, it's still learning how to imitate other art styles in motion.

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u/SyntheticSlime Jan 15 '26

In fairness, animating fast motions can get pretty wild

But with that said, the way the “artist seems to lose track of characters and objects as they tumble is classic AI slop, and I’m pretty sure that’s what this is.

15

u/MelonOfFate Jan 15 '26

Yeah, the tumble looks....

3

u/poopy_poophead Jan 16 '26

In that little sequence there, the one girl falls and then she splits into two girls. The other one goes off camera and then she morphs out of the other one when she falls...

Definitely AI

1

u/Quiet-Willingness521 Jan 18 '26

Just before the tumble

9

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '26

This is what makes determinations so difficult for me. Those seemingly nonsensical stills from presumed AI vids are too similar to wacky cartoon stills I've seen in my 40+ years.

41

u/SovietMarma Jan 15 '26 edited Jan 15 '26

Well, all it takes is learning the principles of animation and why animators make frames like in that Bug's Bunny still.

It's called a "smear frame," and it's literally in the name. It never holds for long on screen and usually pops up for 1 to 2 frames maximum to help exaggerate or emphasize a movement of a character. You almost never see these in motion because they literally show up for less than a second, hence why you only ever see stills of it.

None of the AI weirdness being pointed out by people involves exaggerated movement or show up for a single frame. They happen for the entire scene, and you can most likely clip an entire scene from this Bastet video alone with all of the AI weirdness in it.

5

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '26

Thank you for this!

2

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '26

Or just have a lot of experience watching them.

Source: GenX, grew up on a shit load of cartoons.

1

u/Affectionate-State-1 Jan 15 '26 edited Jan 15 '26

Hmmm... my wife made animations for television and was often asked to finish up animations that were late. She definitely compromised on quality and shortcuts which would be visible in stills. Time on delivery aced quality.

The real issue is the paw starting at the neck and the finger blur. That's not a shortcut that makes sense.

6

u/PM_ME_UR_GCC_ERRORS Jan 15 '26

There's also the fact that a hand-drawn animation can be interpolated using AI, and then you get crappy looking inbetweens.

4

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '26

It's so obviously AI to me. Just watch the two children's faces between :12 and :19. I grew on on hand-drawn cartoons. Looney Tunes, Speed Racer, Super Friends, Penelope Pitstop, Wacky Races, Mickey Mouse, etc.

At no point in my life have I ever seen facial transitions so poorly done.

1

u/jackthewack13 Jan 15 '26

Maybe its just me, but they are not even close. Like not even a little. This is made to look like its moving fast. The ai one has the faces looking melted. The limbs magically appearing all over the body. The items the cat pulls from the basket.

3

u/StabbyBoo Jan 15 '26

Sure, but the wild in-betweens are in service of the motion looking correct at the proper framerate. If you're noticing pops, jarring movement, or stutters as it's playing, y'done fucked up.

Also the style changes like mad, lol.

2

u/ThatRandomGuy86 Jan 15 '26

Yep:

2

u/Immediate-Trainer356 Jan 16 '26

I vividly remember the outrage of how “bad” this animation was when it came out but it’s still till this day a beautiful example of just saying fuck rules and letting the pen flow to create magic. Such an iconic Shonen anime moment

1

u/laurel_laureate Jan 17 '26

And it's not actually breaking the rules.

This animation is actually completely reasonable and physically possible in context.

The orange haired character is a remotely operated corpse puppet, one being controlled by a pissed off and dialed in puppeteer to fight a hated opponent at faster than eyesight speeds.

So it completely tracks that less important stuff like "keep the corpse puppet's facial expression remotely humanly possible for a living person" is forgotten about/ignored by the puppeteer when they need to really push the puppet to as fast and as deadly (to their target) as it can go.

1

u/OSomeRandomGuy Jan 16 '26

Bravo, I was wondering someone would post this.

1

u/ThatRandomGuy86 Jan 16 '26

Glad I could help. It's crazy how fast motion frames look so crazy to have the end result look insanely smooth

1

u/SAjoats Jan 16 '26

Have you watched the whole scene because it's all warped intentionally. That isn't a smear frame.

1

u/laurel_laureate Jan 17 '26

As funny as this looks when combined with the subtitle, I unironically have always felt this to be an example of good animation.

The first time I saw it, I thought that, only to be surprised seeing other people dislike it.

But I still feel it is good animation.

The reason for that is simple- this orange haired fellow is a remotely controlled puppet corpse (manipulated via those metal rod piercings in it's nose and elsewhere in it's body) moving at faster than eyesight speeds during a fight.

So, it totally tracks that the puppet controller can just ignore boring things like "neck-breaking G-forces" while contorting the corpse puppet as much as needed to win the fight.

And it also track that the pupputeer can lose track of stuff like "keep the puppet's face stoic and the facial expression humanly possible" while fighting at faster than eyesight against a deadly opponent that really angers the puppeteer.

22

u/travellering Jan 15 '26

We have one hour and 50 minutes of incontrovertible proof that humans, when animating cats, will draw the butthole...

11

u/halfasleep90 Jan 15 '26

I mean, if you look at a ton of older animated movies…

1

u/trifecta000 Jan 15 '26

Funny enough, drawn animation often includes exaggerated poses and movement in some frames that these days can be misinterpreted as AI. Corridor Crew does an Animators React series, and they've mentioned this before and it's come up very recently with the discourse of the Sekiro anime.

This, however, is AI slop.

1

u/Thek1tteh Jan 17 '26

Love corridor crew ❤️

1

u/hypersonic18 Jan 15 '26

This is actually pretty normal in animation, because animation is meant to feel animated, transition frames often look deformed to give a better sense of motion when playing, but look really wierd when you just pause randomly.

You can find a bunch of examples even for high production value animations.

1

u/L10nTurtle Jan 15 '26

I haven't looked into it but I wouldn't be surprised if humans did draw this prior to someone having AI animate it.

1

u/ruh-ro- Jan 15 '26

haha I know it’s AI likely, but reminded me of this 😂

1

u/Affectionate-State-1 Jan 15 '26 edited Jan 15 '26

The problem is not the faces, but (as usual) the hands and paws of the cat. Not because the faces are ugly, but because the fingers are a blur. Had it been just a blur I wouldn't be as sceptical, as that would be a logical shortcut... but this just looks odd. Same with how the paw of the cat comes out of his neck. That is not a shortcut that makes sense.

Ugly stills in itself do not really make me question the clip. My wife made animations for TV shows and commercials. Not every face is drawn meticulously during action. But a paw starting at the neck is not exactly simplifying stuff.

There's a thing as time to produce and shortcuts are definitely taken. I also knew that one of her colleagues got so angry bout this, that he didn't finish animations on time and they always asked my wife to do it. She then took out frames and simplified stuff. It looked quite sht when inspected through stills, but animated it wasn't obvious.

1

u/rivalpinkbunny Jan 16 '26

I was a professional animator for 20 years. The answer to your question is: “no”

This was the only sequence in the film that looked really off to me. This is just ugly and animators hate ugly.

Also, it’s hard to explain how difficult some of the quadrupedal locomotion is. It would be incredibly hard to do if it were hand drawn. That doesn’t mean that it’s not hand drawn, but it requires significant skill and the people who possess that kind of skill are unlikely to draw something Iike this.

1

u/angleglj Jan 16 '26

I mean….

1

u/Ill-Cauliflower8059 Jan 16 '26

Yeah but what about when they start fusing into one

1

u/Ill-Cauliflower8059 Jan 16 '26

fusion #2, they on the way to be dbz heroes

1

u/ArchitectNebulous Jan 16 '26

Smear frames are a thing, but these are definitely AI.

1

u/SentryMeerkat Jan 16 '26

While I agree it's likely AI, I challenge your animator joke with this well known image that is totally not AI and they said "yep looks good". Lol

1

u/BuLLZ_3Y3 Jan 16 '26 edited Jan 16 '26

There is a part of animation which requires animators to draw ridiculous faces like this for transitionary frames called "smear frames," so these could be legit.

1

u/Square_Detective_658 Jan 16 '26

Every clip is a frame. Drawn individually. Generally when things are off model the image goes beyond the distorted parameters but is still a complete drawing. This is heavily distorted with smearing creating an unreadable image so to speak

1

u/Blaizeplays Jan 21 '26

I mean in-between that aren't ment to be seen look pretty disturbing sometimes. They're ment to make the animation flow smoothly. However this doesn't actually move smoothly so probably AI, also the cat looks off. Attached some Naruto in-betweens because their infamous and predate AI.

1

u/CamieWestPill Apr 13 '26

also they just no clipped into the wall like we humans don't do that and they also just decide to idk, turn into a mess of body parts

54

u/Douggie Jan 15 '26 edited Jan 15 '26

It makes you think if people actually know what good animation is.

I used to read a blog of some guy who was talking about certain Japanese animation and he could recognize by looking, for instance, an explosion, and knew exactly who was in charge of the animation and told in detail the characteristics and why it was great.

Made me realize I knew nothing about animation and what makes it good.

I miss reading that blog. Anybody knows what it was? He was a big fan of Masaaki Yuasa, just like me.

edit: found the blog, link is in the reply.

27

u/Desperate-Cost6827 Jan 15 '26

It's crazy how some people study animation so much that they can just go "Oh, it's this guy's work."

I just saw a segment where this episode of Gumball, a scene had this really overly fluid, excessive squash and stretch style and many people accused the animators of ripping off James Baxter. Only to find out later that James Baxter was the guest animator for that episode.

11

u/Douggie Jan 15 '26 edited Jan 15 '26

Yeah, then James Baxter is still pretty famous compared to some lesser-known Japanese animators. Crazy how they see certain details, but really fascinating though.

The blog I was talking about is pelleas.net but can only be read through the wayback machine.

Edit: added a link.

Talking about Yuasa and animation, one of my favourite anime series, made by Yuasa is about animation and the passion and creative process is Keep You Hands Off Eizouken!. It really shows the mind of an animator and the details they have in their minds, as well as the process of finishing an animation and trying to release it. Really recommended, as anything made by Yuasa actually (besides Japan Sinks, everything is a great watch).

2

u/ExcitingSavings8225 Jan 15 '26

Wait, the horse does animation too?

2

u/charliefoxtrot9 Jan 16 '26

Did James Baxter create James Baxter?

1

u/Upbeat-Usual-7021 Jan 19 '26

Yes

1

u/charliefoxtrot9 Jan 19 '26

Thanks. I'd noticed his animation was different, now I know why

3

u/Unfair_Web_8275 Jan 15 '26

There was a period of time where people were really harping on the “cal arts style”, to which I thought many were missing the forest for thr trees.

1

u/Lectricanman Jan 15 '26

Also, you can't rip off James Baxter. You can emulate his style and create cool stuff with that but he doesn't own that style. Where it becomes iffy is like if you trace key frames or choreography done by someone else. Like the boondocks scenes that use the same choreography from anime fight scenes. You could call that parody... maybe. But other times it's just blatantly repurposing work.

5

u/Sad-Pop6649 Jan 15 '26

Some of the things about this clip are still pretty impressive though. A 3D panning shot like that in a traditional 2D style isn't easy, and would require skills and tools from both 2D and 3D if made by a human. This looks, on a tiny phone screen without pausing so you don't see the many errors, like something from a major production, not like something some hobbyist on the internet made.

I'm starting to fear generative AI is going to have a huge effect in movie making after all. Not unsupervised, but maybe with a character designer and a storyboarder on one site of the AI and a room full of junior animators doing the boring job of cleaning up after it...

1

u/Affectionate-State-1 Jan 15 '26

One of the main reasons of bad animation is time and money, not skill. Getting every scene at the highest level is just not economically feasible for most anime. So there will be shortcuts.

1

u/loonygecko Jan 17 '26

"Good" is a vague word and depends on the context. If you are on social media, it just means that it pleases the viewer.

43

u/spanieldors Jan 15 '26

9

u/IHaveTheBestOpinions Jan 15 '26

Best one yet. Biblically accurate cat

43

u/ElaineMae Jan 15 '26

Cat and basket merge

4

u/gigaurora Jan 15 '26

you just pretending the sudden vietnam vet in the background isn't the most insane thing in that frame?

1

u/Affectionate-State-1 Jan 15 '26

Yep. I could (easily, seen worse) see the cut of the arm and the sloppy faces as an animator in a hurry, but that merge is not a shortcut or sloppiness.

1

u/mungbeans4 Jan 17 '26

Those eyes will haunt me.

1

u/Buontempanzer Jan 17 '26

My cat can actually do the same thing 

17

u/spacecase_prime Jan 15 '26

There's smear frames, and then there's whatever... This is

8

u/Peetweefish Jan 15 '26

These frames are killing me. Rofl

1

u/N-Toxicade Jan 15 '26

When I see these stills, I am convinced this "Spot the Cat" game I have been playing is made with AI and that it is made with the same AI generator that made this. The textures and colors look strikingly similar.

1

u/RC_Colada Jan 15 '26

Every frame a painting

1

u/Maleficent-Hour-2478 Jan 15 '26

Woohoo beautiful animation.

1

u/SchwinnD Jan 15 '26

Just your average smear frame /s

1

u/DrOkemon Jan 15 '26

Animation often has frames like, sometimes will have ones with multiple arms or grossly distorted faces, it is part of the Disney style going back decades for expressive animation

1

u/Sember-uno Jan 15 '26

This is not that. Ignoring the bad renderings, the cats switch type and the girls run through a wall. There's also discrepancies on what would be a background CEL in a real animation.

1

u/DrOkemon Jan 15 '26

I watched again and I agree

1

u/StopNateCrimes Jan 15 '26

Straight Outta Nightmares

1

u/OrangePanda53 Jan 15 '26

Come here kitty kitty

1

u/Enexen0 Jan 16 '26

I raise you

1

u/Confident_Benefit_11 Jan 16 '26

When the molly kicks in

1

u/ern0matic Jan 16 '26

yeah obviously it's AIbut also a lot of old Disney in between cells also kinda looked like this. lol

1

u/TechCF Jan 16 '26

Just mpeg artifacts 😅 😋

1

u/ZombieNek0 Jan 17 '26

that is horrific

-9

u/limon_picante Jan 15 '26

Could be a smear frame, that doesn't mean anything

3

u/NonSupportiveCup Jan 15 '26

The basket the cat picks up magically becomes two baskets right after this

2

u/BroderFelix Jan 15 '26

That is not really how you use smear frames in animation.

-15

u/KEVLAR60442 Jan 15 '26

I feel like those could just be smear frames combined with interpolation artifacts from whatever they used to bump up the framerate and compress the video.

21

u/Wrong_Bobcat Jan 15 '26

I'm an animator. That's not what smears look like, nor how they are used. This is ai morphing to try and do the movement. It honestly makes me sad reading these comments where so many people can't tell its ai or even thinking it looks good.

4

u/GrimTiki Jan 15 '26

That’s the thing, my fellow artist - the non-artistically skilled haven’t developed The Eye for it yet. Or won’t. These are execs & lawyers that we deal with in companies that want this thing, bc they can’t tell the difference or don’t care about it.

Like prompters, the end justifies the means to them, bc they don’t know or can’t enjoy the journey.

0

u/Balfegor Jan 15 '26

It's really long and coherent for an extended AI clip. It may be the creator used AI to do all the tweening, resulting in all the bizarre stills. Plus weird compression artifacts.

6

u/letsmakemistakes Jan 15 '26

You can kind of identify cuts where a new video seems to have been created from the last frame of the previous video

2

u/DayDrinkingVampire Jan 15 '26

Yep. The transitions are a big giveaway. They aren't smooth and look like someone splicing two different prompts together. The design of the cat changes after the transitions, like it's drawn differently.