

Onoma (official site) is an AI firm presenting its first AI-powered service known as TooToon at CES 2024. TooToon is a webtoon creation instrument, and should you don’t know what webtoons are, they’re a type of digital comics or graphic novels which might be particularly created for on-line platforms or cellular apps. The time period “webtoon” is a portmanteau of “net” and “cartoon.” What distinguishes webtoons from conventional comics is their distinctive format, usually offered in a vertical scrolling fashion.
Identical to producing comics or manga, making a webtoon is extremely time-consuming and it seems to be like most of that point is spent in storyboarding because the creators work on the visible construction of the story. It is perhaps counter-intuitive if you realize nothing about this, however as soon as the storyboarding (tough drawings) is completed, including the ultimate particulars doesn’t take that lengthy.
As such, TooToon focuses on accelerating that side of the work, because of generative AI. This begins with the high-level concept era, synopsis, and storyboard achieved by the AI, based mostly on person inputs, whether or not textual content prompts or pictures. For instance, the creator might draw stick figures or 3d model figures and add these as 2D pictures. From there, the AI takes over and does the heavy lifting.
The Tontoon service lets creators add a number of views of their characters as a reference for the AI, which may later re-create them underneath any angle and place. Apparently, as few as 30 pictures can be sufficient to create a reference character.
As you’ll be able to think about, utilizing generative AI on this context might ship an unimaginable enhance in productiveness for present webtoon creators. However this might open the door to much more folks into the webtoon universe. Why? Since you might conceptually have nice story concepts however little drawing expertise. Rent somebody to create the character references, or use Onoma AI’s asset retailer, as soon as and use the AI to generate future drawings.
Positive, it’s not that straightforward to supply a commercial-grade webtoon, however this might entice many individuals and spark new passions.
From a enterprise standpoint, Onoma AI deploys TonToon as a SaaS, so we’re speaking a couple of recurring revenue supply. Identical to TV Exhibits, webtoon creators have to churn new episodes and as soon as they’ve began, it’s straightforward to think about they’ll keep invested to protect the workflow and magnificence of their work.
Onoma AI has not revealed pricing but. Now, they’re working carefully with high webtoon creators to find out the ultimate public pricing. Simply as a reference, the corporate estimates that its instrument saved as a lot as 30% to 40% of labor throughout one of many take a look at initiatives.
From the demo that I’ve seen, the workflow made numerous sense. I used to attract Mangas and I might see how TonToon might save an unlimited period of time. And I’ve a way that is just the start. Generative AI presents much more alternatives not just for storyboarding but in addition for remaining rendering, permitting totally different kinds. I can’t wait to see webtoons created with this instrument.
Filed in AI (Artificial Intelligence), CES, CES 2024, Comics, Korea, SBA, Seoul, Seoul Business Agency and Startups.
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