Higgsfield AI Motion Designer: I Tested the Claims — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00Spoiler [music] alert, it's all fake.
2. 0:02Higsfield AI Motion Designer is not what
3. 0:04they want you to think it is. I've
4. 0:06tested out myself and in this video I'm
5. 0:08going to show you my authentic first
6. 0:09impressions of how it performed. And I
7. 0:11put chapter markers if you just want to
8. 0:12skip there. But I want to talk about the
9. 0:14promotional video real quick because it
10. 0:16is a blatant [music] false advertising.
11. 0:18It follows this young woman who's just
12. 0:20talking to an AI agent. It looks a lot
13. 0:22like chat GBT voice and she's just
14. 0:24asking for things and those things
15. 0:25magically appear inside of After
16. 0:27Effects. She doesn't even have to touch
17. 0:28the computer. [music] I'm 99% sure that
18. 0:30all of the footage in this promo video
19. 0:32is AI generated and that's genuinely
20. 0:34impressive. It looks consistent from
21. 0:36shot to shot and from what I've been
22. 0:38told, Higsfield is a really good product
23. 0:40for [music] using video generation
24. 0:42models to create convincing footage, but
25. 0:44I can guarantee you that none of the
26. 0:46motion graphics that you see in this
27. 0:47piece were created by their own product.
28. 0:50This whole marketing campaign is
29. 0:51centered around the idea that Higsfield
30. 0:53is bringing you the power of GPT6 Astra,
31. 0:55[music] which is the latest frontier
32. 0:57model from ChatGpt. The thing is, they
33. 1:00don't give you access to that model. You
34. 1:02have to bring that model to Higsfield.
35. 1:04All they're giving you is an extension
36. 1:06that you install into After Effects and
37. 1:08an MCP server. That's model context
38. 1:10protocol. And it's just a way for AI to
39. 1:13control apps. So, when you install that
40. 1:15Higsfield plugin, you're just creating a
41. 1:17bridge between Chat JPT or Claude, which
42. 1:20they don't say anywhere on the page. You
43. 1:22can also use Claude to use After
44. 1:24Effects. And you don't need Higsfield to
45. 1:26do that. You could literally ask Chad
46. 1:28GPT or Claude to build an MCP server for
47. 1:30After Effects for you and start asking
48. 1:32your agents to just make you things
49. 1:34inside of After Effects. [music] I've
50. 1:36done it. It actually works really well,
51. 1:38but AI is just terrible at animation at
52. 1:41this point. And AI Motion Designer from
53. 1:43Higsfield doesn't bring anything new to
54. 1:45the table. What you're really getting
55. 1:46with their plugin is the ability to link
56. 1:48it to your Higsfield account and [music]
57. 1:50use credits that you've purchased or
58. 1:51your subscription to generate assets as
59. 1:54you're talking to ChatGBT or Claude. and
60. 1:56you'll see how that works with my tests.
61. 1:57[music] Besides that, I'm sure there's
62. 1:59custom tooling and prompt engineering
63. 2:01that is built into their plug-in that
64. 2:03guides chat GPT [music] to create
65. 2:05interpretations of what you prompted to
66. 2:08build very specific types of motion
67. 2:10design, which is taking creative control
68. 2:12away from you. And I don't see how
69. 2:13that's helpful. [music] And I want to be
70. 2:15very clear that in this video, I'm being
71. 2:16extremely critical of Higsfield and
72. 2:18specifically their marketing. Their
73. 2:20social media posts are complete ragebait
74. 2:22and they're claiming things that are
75. 2:24just absolutely not possible with their
76. 2:26own product. I'm not saying that I don't
77. 2:28think AI can get there. I am not going
78. 2:30to be surprised at all if in the future
79. 2:32we can literally talk to our computers
80. 2:34and see the motion design that we have
81. 2:35in our head appear before us inside of
82. 2:37After Effects. [music] But we're not
83. 2:39there yet. And AI Motion Designer from
84. 2:40Higsfield is not that. So give this
85. 2:43video a like and let's take a look at my
86. 2:44first impressions of AI Motion Designer
87. 2:46from Higsfield. I know I've been talking
88. 2:48a lot, but I just want to share my
89. 2:49frustration with the setup process.
90. 2:51Following Higsfield's own instructions,
91. 2:53it took me almost an entire hour [music]
92. 2:55to get ChatGpt to be able to control
93. 2:58After Effects through their own MCP
94. 3:00server. The first thing I asked for
95. 3:02using the commands that Higsfield told
96. 3:04me to use [music]
97. 3:05gave me a video generated by Higsfield.
98. 3:07There was nothing built in After
99. 3:09Effects. [music] And when I pushed on
100. 3:10chat GPT, it found a bunch of errors
101. 3:12that it had to diagnose and fix in
102. 3:15Higsfield's MCP server so that it could
103. 3:17actually communicate with After Effects.
104. 3:19It wasn't a great start and it took
105. 3:20almost an hour, but I'm going to spare
106. 3:22you watching any of that and we'll just
107. 3:23get to the very next prompt where I was
108. 3:25successfully able to get Chad GBT to
109. 3:27build stuff in After Effects. I want you
110. 3:29to animate the comp that I have open in
111. 3:32After Effects. It's my logo as a shape
112. 3:34layer. You're the motion designer, so
113. 3:36you decide how it should be animated.
114. 3:38Just make sure it's in a 1080p comp at
115. 3:4030 frames per second. Do not generate
116. 3:42any assets. Only use After Effects, the
117. 3:46existing shape layer in the open comp
118. 3:48and create everything else inside of
119. 3:50After Effects. We'll send that off and
120. 3:53hopefully it starts to use After
121. 3:54Effects. There are key frames. Let me
122. 3:57just check on Chad GBT. Okay, so it's
123. 3:59just checking its work. It actually
124. 4:00finished. Let's see what it did with the
125. 4:02animation.
126. 4:06Okay, honest opinion, that's not half
127. 4:09bad. It used trim pads to bring the face
128. 4:11on. It even animated the eyes blinking a
129. 4:13little bit, and that's great. The thing
130. 4:15is, this is not unique to Higsfield in
131. 4:17any way. They just created an MCP
132. 4:20server, which I've done myself. I can
133. 4:22control After Effects with Cad GPT or
134. 4:24Claude through my own extension that
135. 4:26acts as a bridge between the two apps.
136. 4:28And if we take a look at my credits, I
137. 4:30didn't even use any credits on that
138. 4:32generation. That was entirely chat JPT,
139. 4:35most likely with some custom tooling and
140. 4:37prompt engineering that came from
141. 4:39Higsfield. But that is taking creative
142. 4:41control away from you and allowing
143. 4:42Higsfield to say, "This is what your
144. 4:44motion design project should look like."
145. 4:46Now, as you can already tell, I'm
146. 4:48convinced this is a waste of your time
147. 4:49and your money. But I'm going to throw
148. 4:51something more complex at it so that we
149. 4:53actually use some video and asset
150. 4:55generation from Higsfield and combine it
151. 4:57with their MCP server to see how
152. 4:59expensive it is and how good it actually
153. 5:01is at following my directions. Now,
154. 5:03because this chat has the context of how
155. 5:06to actually use Higsfield's MCP server,
156. 5:08I'm just going to continue it here. What
157. 5:10I want to see is a quick bumper that
158. 5:12looks like stopotion animation where my
159. 5:16logos are printed out on white copy
160. 5:19paper. I'd like to see a bald up version
161. 5:22of that paper animated up into the
162. 5:25center of the frame and then unfurled to
163. 5:28reveal that logo printed on that paper.
164. 5:31Then I'd like to see it crumpled up
165. 5:33again. some kind of fun animation.
166. 5:36Again, stop motion happen on the screen
167. 5:39with that paper and then unfurl one more
168. 5:41time to reveal the text version of that
169. 5:44logo and then finally crumple up and
170. 5:47transition off the screen so that I can
171. 5:49proceed with my video. I want this to be
172. 5:52photorealistic, so use a combination of
173. 5:54generating assets through Higsfield and
174. 5:57animation inside of After Effects. I'm
175. 6:00leaving the design direction and
176. 6:02animation completely up to you because
177. 6:04you are the motion designer and I'm not.
178. 6:06And then I'm going to end my prompt with
179. 6:08something I do with a lot of my
180. 6:09prompting, which is ask clarifying
181. 6:12questions if you have them before
182. 6:13beginning. And I think that's just a
183. 6:15really smart thing to do when my actual
184. 6:17usage for chat GPT and credits from
185. 6:20Higsfield are at stake. So I'm going to
186. 6:22send this off and we'll see what we get.
187. 6:24Okay, so it is asking questions. How
188. 6:26long should this bumper be? I'm going to
189. 6:27say 5 to 6 seconds. What should sit
190. 6:30behind the paper? We're going to say a
191. 6:31photoreal, tabletop, or studio surface.
192. 6:34Should I add paper crumpling and
193. 6:35movement sound effects? Yes, let's
194. 6:37include sound effects. And in fact,
195. 6:39let's add music, too.
196. 6:41This is the part that I don't like where
197. 6:43it's actually exporting an MP4 so that
198. 6:45it can check its own work rather than
199. 6:46just letting me watch it and asking for
200. 6:48my input. In fairness, I did say it was
201. 6:51the motion designer, not me. All right,
202. 6:53that's time. Let's watch this for
203. 6:54ourselves in After Effects.
204. 7:03Okay, listen. I'm going to be 100%
205. 7:06honest with you. That's impressive. It
206. 7:08is impressive that I can speak to chat
207. 7:10GPT and end up with something that I had
208. 7:13imagined in my head. And it's honestly
209. 7:15pretty close. There are things about it
210. 7:17that I don't like, but it made the
211. 7:19entire animation for me, generating the
212. 7:21assets for me, so I didn't actually have
213. 7:22to physically print this out on paper
214. 7:24and actually take my own stopmotion
215. 7:26animation photos. It animated those
216. 7:28assets using the same techniques I
217. 7:30probably would have myself and it even
218. 7:32made sound effects and music. Now, I
219. 7:34didn't give it any direction on the
220. 7:36music. I don't particularly like the
221. 7:38music, but I'm still pleasantly
222. 7:40surprised with this result. The reason
223. 7:42I'm not instantly recommending this to
224. 7:44everyone and saying that Higsfield has
225. 7:46solved motion design is because I could
226. 7:48already do this with my own MCP server
227. 7:51and my own extension for After Effects
228. 7:53that ChatGpt built for me. And so can
229. 7:56you. It's as easy as asking ChatGPT for
230. 7:59what you want. The benefit of the
231. 8:00Higsfield integration is that they have
232. 8:02good asset generation. ChatGPT
233. 8:05understood what I was asking for and
234. 8:06Higsfield was able to generate these
235. 8:08assets for me. But the work being done
236. 8:10in After Effects, that's all Chat JPT.
237. 8:12I'm going to play this one more time.
238. 8:20Honestly, it's fun. Now, if I went in
239. 8:22here and started pixel peeping, I see a
240. 8:24ton of weird compression artifacts. I
241. 8:26don't know if that's AI generated, if it
242. 8:28was trying to add that texture or what,
243. 8:30but I would have rather seen none of my
244. 8:32logo when it's crumpled up and have it
245. 8:35appear as it's coming out. Now, between
246. 8:37this frame and this frame, I can tell
247. 8:39that the logo shrinks down. And I would
248. 8:41really like that to be photoreal to
249. 8:43where it seems like that was actually
250. 8:44printed on the paper. And we use that
251. 8:46same piece of paper the entire time.
252. 8:49There is a slight drop shadow there, but
253. 8:51it is rotating with the paper. So,
254. 8:53that's not photoreal. And it didn't
255. 8:55really do much with the background. I
256. 8:56was expecting more than just a subtle
257. 8:58paper texture using my brand color when
258. 9:00I asked for a studio kind of setup. I
259. 9:02thought there could be some elements
260. 9:04around the frame, but again, I let chat
261. 9:06GPT make those calls. And the great
262. 9:08thing is this is all actually built in
263. 9:09After Effects. These are real layers.
264. 9:11There are key frames. If I go into this
265. 9:13comp, I'm going to see that animation
266. 9:16taking place. I'll withhold key frames
267. 9:18on the opacity of those layers. That
268. 9:20doesn't bother me too much. I probably
269. 9:22would have handled it slightly
270. 9:23differently. And then back in this comp,
271. 9:25if I press U, there are a whole lot of
272. 9:27key frames and expressions. So, let's go
273. 9:30into the effect controls. It added a
274. 9:31drop shadow, renamed it, and then added
275. 9:33a bunch of expressions and key frames.
276. 9:35I'm not exactly sure what these are
277. 9:37meant to do. Hold each photograph pose
278. 9:39for three frames. So, it's just
279. 9:41posterizing the time. And I don't know
280. 9:43why there are key frames on each one of
281. 9:45these, but that's essentially what it
282. 9:46was trying to do, which was posterize
283. 9:48the time. I would have done that by
284. 9:49either dropping the frame rate of the
285. 9:51comp or just applying the posterized
286. 9:53time effect. But if you're asking AI to
287. 9:55animate something for you, you probably
288. 9:56don't care that much how it's done. If
289. 9:58the end result is what you had in your
290. 10:00head, who cares? Well, actually, you
291. 10:02should care because if the client has
292. 10:04any notes, then you're going to be the
293. 10:05one who has to dig through this. I could
294. 10:07ask ChatGBT to make changes to this, but
295. 10:09I don't want to waste any more usage on
296. 10:11this because I have one more prompt that
297. 10:12I want to give it. So, on this one, I'm
298. 10:14honestly pleasantly surprised with the
299. 10:16result. It's actually giving me an After
300. 10:19Effects comp that I can then go in and
301. 10:21make changes to. All right, for this
302. 10:23next project, I wanted to animate my
303. 10:25effects of After Effects logo. And I
304. 10:27actually took four frames from my actual
305. 10:29animation to use as a story board. But
306. 10:31I'm going to give it complete creative
307. 10:33control over the style, the colors,
308. 10:35textures, the animation, and we'll see
309. 10:38what it comes up with. In the open After
310. 10:40Effects project, there's a comp with
311. 10:41four frames of a title locked up in
312. 10:45several different stretched versions. I
313. 10:48would like you to come up with a fun
314. 10:50animation using that as reference that
315. 10:53brings in the title effects of After
316. 10:55Effects. I do not want it to be pure
317. 10:58black and pure white. I want you to have
318. 10:59fun with it. Use your best judgment.
319. 11:02Play with the colors, the texture, the
320. 11:04stretching of the text, and the timing.
321. 11:07Also, feel free to add in some faux 3D.
322. 11:10Don't actually use 3D geometry, though.
323. 11:12I want to see this as a 2D primary comp.
324. 11:16I'm a fan of printed textures that looks
325. 11:19like it's handmade or maybe from screen
326. 11:22printing or print making. Halftone
327. 11:24textures are also great. It should feel
328. 11:26fun and pop and have some personality.
329. 11:29Play around with animation principles to
330. 11:32really make this feel handcrafted and
331. 11:34like an actual professional motion
332. 11:35designer created it. If you need to
333. 11:37generate any assets, that's fine, but I
334. 11:39would love to have this primarily made
335. 11:41inside of After Effects using native
336. 11:44After Effects layers. That being said,
337. 11:46if you want to make custom textures,
338. 11:48feel free to generate those assets. I
339. 11:51would also love to hear some music and
340. 11:53sound effects timed to the animation.
341. 11:56So, feel free to generate those as well.
342. 11:58The frame rate should be 24 frames per
343. 12:00second. The entire animation should last
344. 12:03about 5 seconds long. The overall
345. 12:05progress of the animation should reveal
346. 12:07the text in some fun way. Have the text
347. 12:10stretch and animate, moving in however
348. 12:13you see fit, and then finally animating
349. 12:15off the screen. If you have any
350. 12:17questions, ask them before beginning any
351. 12:19work. Let's see what we get. I literally
352. 12:22just got an email from somebody
353. 12:24representing Higsfield asking if I'm
354. 12:26interested in doing a sponsored video.
355. 12:28They say the budget is between $500 and
356. 12:30$10,000. And I can assure you that if I
357. 12:33ever do a sponsored Higsfield video,
358. 12:35it's because they offered me enough
359. 12:37money to pay off my mortgage. All right,
360. 12:40it finished. Let's see what it looks
361. 12:42like.
362. 12:48I mean, listen, it did what I asked for.
363. 12:50It used native After Effects layers. It
364. 12:53added texture, which it didn't have to
365. 12:55generate any assets for. I don't think
366. 12:56that used any of my credits. Just purely
367. 12:58chat GPT usage. It added in the sound
368. 13:01effects. I don't like the colors at all,
369. 13:03but that's besides the point because I
370. 13:05didn't specify what colors to use. It
371. 13:07clearly used some animation principles
372. 13:08like squash and stretch, and the easing
373. 13:11isn't horrible. I really don't like the
374. 13:12way that it animates out at the end, but
375. 13:14it did animate from referenced PGs.
376. 13:18Something that looks passable, but it is
377. 13:20not at all what I had in mind. So, what
378. 13:22I'm going to do is give it a whole bunch
379. 13:24of reference frames from screenshots of
380. 13:27an animation that Higsfield posted
381. 13:29itself claiming that Higsfield animated
382. 13:31all of it. So, I'm just going to give it
383. 13:33the name of the folder and say there's a
384. 13:35folder in After Effects named Higsfield
385. 13:38reference. I don't have time to give you
386. 13:40any more feedback or the budget to
387. 13:42create something original. So, I just
388. 13:44want you to take a look at the style of
389. 13:46all of the screenshots in that folder
390. 13:49and apply them to this logo animation.
391. 13:51change everything about this original
392. 13:53comp. Don't worry about using live text
393. 13:56layers to pull off the animation. You're
394. 13:58going to need access to the paths
395. 14:00anyway, but don't let me tell you how to
396. 14:03do your job. Just update it as quickly
397. 14:05as you can to match the screenshot style
398. 14:08as closely as possible. Let's see what
399. 14:10that does. All right, that only took 10
400. 14:13minutes and I'm honestly pretty
401. 14:14impressed. It only used 3% of my Chad
402. 14:16GPT usage and it didn't generate any
403. 14:18assets through Higsfield, so it didn't
404. 14:20use any credits. But let's actually
405. 14:21watch the animation.
406. 14:34Well, it tried. I honestly was expecting
407. 14:37a lot more from this and hoping that it
408. 14:38could stick to what I saw on social
409. 14:40media and that's just not what I got.
410. 14:42There's more to the animation. The
411. 14:44letters are spinning around. It kind of
412. 14:46did this faint outline to make it look
413. 14:48kind of 3D. And there's even some scan
414. 14:50lines to add some textures, but overall
415. 14:52it's a terrible composition. I don't
416. 14:54really like the design and it doesn't
417. 14:56move like what I saw on social media,
418. 14:58which is what I was really hoping for.
419. 15:00On the other hand, ChatGBT was able to
420. 15:02pull this off and it did it through the
421. 15:04MCP server that Higsfield is providing.
422. 15:07Now, I don't think it's any surprise
423. 15:08that this doesn't look anything like
424. 15:09Higsfield's own release video of AI
425. 15:12Motion Designer because they have a
426. 15:13history of ragebait marketing. It's all
427. 15:15completely false advertising. You're not
428. 15:18getting what they are saying that you're
429. 15:20going to get. Honestly, I don't even
430. 15:21like making these videos because I don't
431. 15:22want to bring more attention to
432. 15:24Higsfield. But the reality is they are a
433. 15:26decent platform for generating AI
434. 15:28assets. I just absolutely despise their
435. 15:30marketing and it makes me not want to be
436. 15:32associated with them at all, even for
437. 15:34debunking their videos because I think
438. 15:36it's giving them more promotion. But I
439. 15:37think I've said enough about this and
440. 15:39hopefully you got all of your questions
441. 15:40answered about Higsfield's AI motion
442. 15:42designer and you now know that you can't
443. 15:44trust anything that they post on social
444. 15:45media for marketing their own products.
445. 15:48Do something kind for somebody today. I
446. 15:49hope you have a fantastic day and I'll
447. 15:51see you in [music] the next one.