I think you’ll agree with me when I say:
MidJourney is an amazing tool for bringing your imagination to life.
But, we can take this one step further by animating our MidJourney creations.
So in this guide, I’ll break down how to animate MidJourney images, walking you through 4 amazing that allow you to bring your creations to life.
Let’s get to it.
How to Animate MidJourney Images With Runway ML
So, the first tool that we’re going to be using is called RunWay ML.
This is my go-to image-to-video tool for several reasons.
- It’s relatively cheap and you get a ton of credits for just $12 USD per month
- It’s got a ton of other features outside of the image-to-video tool that we’ll be using
- A lot of creative control in the video generations, with a relatively easy-to-understand interface
- It’s fast, only taking a couple of minutes per 10-second animation.
- Lastly, it delivers great-looking results, both in terms of camera movement and character motion.
Ok, so how do we use Runway to animate our MidJourney images?
Head over to runwayml.com, create an account, then head over to generative video.
We can select between the various Runway models.
If you’re a free user, you’ll want to use Runway Gen-3 Alpha Turbo, however, if you have a paid subscription, then I’d suggest using the Gen-3 Alpha.
Either will give you good results, so it doesn’t matter what you use.
Now we can go ahead and upload our MidJourney image that we want to animate.
Once that’s uploaded, we can now enter our prompt.
You can choose to leave this blank if you wish, however, adding a prompt will give you more control over the result.
If you have a character in your image, I’ve found that it’s best to refer to them as “the subject”.
For example: “the subject lifts the turtle and laughs”.
You can also select whether the shot you uploaded will be the first frame of the animation or the last frame. Essentially, will your animation begin or end with the image you upload?
You can then set the video time to either 5 or 10 seconds.
Hit generate and wait a few minutes for your new animation to be created.
Awesome, as you can see, Runway has done a pretty amazing job of animating our images.
All in all, it probably takes 2-3 minutes to animate a MidJourney image with Runway.
And given the overall quality of animation you get, that’s pretty mindblowing.
Right, let’s move on to the next tool.
How to Animate MidJourney Images With Leonardo AI
If you’re looking to add nice camera movement to your image, then Leonardo AI is a good choice.
That said, you’re not actually able to add any text prompts alongside your image, which could be either a good or a bad thing.
Obviously, you have less control over the result, but on the other hand, the process is incredibly simple and easy to do.
Ok then, so how do we animate our MidJourney?
Head over to Leonardo.ai and create an account.
Once you’re logged in, head over to Motion.
Then select an image.
Click upload an image to get started, then upload your image file.
Now we can select a motion strength from 1-10.
I’ve found 3 to provide the best results, however, the number changes from image to image, so might require a bit of tweaking on your end.
Now we can click generate and wait a minute or two for Leonardo AI to animate our image.
Once the animation is finished, you’ll be able to find it in your library feed, so let’s check it out.
Nice, as we can see we’ve got some hand-held-like camera motion, and our character is moving.
Really not a bad result given how little effort was required.
Right, let’s move on to tool number 3.
How to Animate MidJourney Images With PixVerse
Ok, so the next tool we’re going to use to animate our MidJourney images is called Pixverse.
You get a few free credits that you can use, or you can buy 1000 credits for $5, which isn’t bad considering that image-to-video generation uses 15 credits.
I will say that PixVerse does struggle to animate characters, and is better suited for more abstract and arty images that you want to add some motion to.
With that said, let’s give it a try.
So, head over to pixverse.ai, and you’ll be greeted by this page.
Click the image icon to upload your MidJourney Image.
Now, we’ve got a fair few options to play around with.
The magic brush allows you to paint specific areas of your image that you’d like to animate.
PixVerse will automatically highlight some of the elements in the image, and if we check one of the boxes, it’ll paint these elements for us.
However, I want to animate the background, so I’m going to highlight that manually.
Next, click on the draw magic brush direction. This tells PixVerse in which direction we’d like the motion to occur.
So I’ll draw an arrow down and click confirm.
Then we can enter the prompt, I’m just going to put in a basic prompt for now, as we’ve got our motion already mapped out with the brush.
Prompt: an astronaut sitting on the moon with the stars flying by.
Then we have the duration, which can be between 5 and 10 seconds – I’ll go for 5.
Select the most recent model, which at the time of writing, is version 2.5.
I am going to leave the motion mode as normal, as well as leave the camera movement as default.
However, if you want to introduce some camera movement to your shot, you can click the drop-down here and select the type of movement you want.
Once you’re happy with the settings, go ahead and click Create and wait a few minutes for the video to be generated.
As we can see, our astronaut is now happily typing away on his laptop, as the camera reveals the stars in the background.
Right, let’s move on to our next tool.
How to Animate MidJourney Images with Luma Dream Machine
Okay, so the next and final tool that we’re going to use to animate our MidJourney image is called Luma Dream Machine.
Head over to Lumalabs.ai, sign up and you’ll find yourself on this screen.
Click the image icon to upload an image, and select your file.
Make sure the enhance prompt is enabled and go ahead and write your prompt.
For my image, I’ll write:
An astronaut working on a laptop, whilst stars float past.
Click this arrow icon and now we wait.
Great, as you can see, Luma has done a pretty incredible job of animating our image.
Now a really, really cool thing you can do with Luma is transform a character in your image.
This requires you to have two of the same image but with a different character. This is really easy to achieve with MidJourney’s edit feature.
So I’ve got these two images that are very similar, however the character is slightly different.
I’ll upload my first image, and make sure that it’s set as the start frame.
I’ll then upload my second image and have that set as the end frame.
I’ll then type in the following prompt:
An astronaut wearing an orange outfit on the moon transforms into an angelic astronaut. Stars floating past.
I’ll submit this and wait for it to generate.
As we can see, our astronaut now morphs into a more angelic-like person.
And there we have it, a pretty amazing animation stemming from a simple MidJourney image.
Optional Step: Upscale Your Video
The resolution of these AI video generations tends to be pretty small.
Luma dream machine for example exports its videos at a 1360 X 752 resolution.
So we can use a free tool such as this free video upscale I found. While it’s not the best, it is free and gives you a larger resolution to work with.
Head over to free.upscaler.video, select your file, and click start upscaling.
This should help out a bit if you want to edit in a 1920 X 1080 resolution
Wrapping Up
Well, there we have it.
I do hope that you’ve found this useful, and if you have any questions about the tools I’ve discussed today, feel free to drop a comment down below.
Thanks for reading!
