From Improbable Lorikeets to Moving Pictures: AI Animation

For a long time, AI-generated images were… let’s be kind and say enthusiastic.

Australian wildlife suffered particularly. Kangaroos that looked like deer. Lorikeets that looked like they’d been assembled from fruit. But now AI Animation has arrived.

That phase is mostly behind us now, and the change has been surprisingly fast.

What’s really catching my attention recently isn’t static images, it’s animation. Taking an existing photograph and letting AI introduce movement.

I’ve done a few of these now.

One was from an old photo of me. The AI adjusted my position in the chair. It was remarkably life like. (Even if it wasn’t quite me)

Here’s the photo

And here it is animated

Here’s another one based on a very old sepia photo from 1954. Here’s the original.

And here it is brought to life. Sort of.

Others have been wildlife shots, especially birds in flight. This is where the tech really shines. A still image of a bird already contains implied motion. AI animation can lean into that, turning a frozen wing beat into something that actually beats. Feathers lift. Bodies tilt. The bird becomes what your brain already expected it to be.

Look what happened with this one. The original photo isn’t wonderful. It’s grainy. and not well focused.

And here’s what the animation did.

What’s interesting is that the best results come from restraint.

Early AI tried too hard. Too much movement. Too much “look what I can do”. Now it’s learning subtlety. The animations that work best are the ones you almost miss at first glance. You watch for a moment, then realise the picture isn’t quite still.

Here’s one of those. This alien is a Yrmak matriarch. Her kind appear in all of my Dryden Universe books

And here she is animated.

That’s a big shift from novelty to tool.

For writers, photographers, and creatives, this opens up new ways of presenting work without replacing the original craft. The photo still matters. Composition still matters. Timing still matters. AI just adds a small layer of motion on top, like breath.

It’s also a reminder that this technology isn’t static. The kangaroos improved. The birds improved. And now animation has moved from “that’s funny” to “that’s actually useful”.

I’m still cautious. I don’t want everything moving all the time. Not every image needs animation. But used sparingly, thoughtfully, it’s becoming another option in the creative toolkit, not a gimmick.

And I have to admit, watching a still image take a quiet step forward into motion is a little bit magical. And that’s especially true when using old, real photos, moments in your life you’ll never get back, people you’ll never see again.

Yes, I know the AI subtly changed the faces in the photos. It’s not perfect yet. But it will be soon. Very, very soon.

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