VFX Artist Reacts to AI Coke Commercial

[@DECODEDVFX]

I regret not making an Arctic monkeys joke. Remember to check out the description to pick up the Essential Topology Guide for 40% off until the end of November.

[@raymontes1030]

Lots of quick cuts in hopes you don't notice all the crap wrong with each scene.

[@DECODEDVFX]

Bingo.

[@dash4800]

no, its because the AI that exists to do these videos only can render small segments into motion. I've seen a bunch of clips of how to do these with various software and its basically just taking a still image and animating a couple of seconds of motion into it. These AI clips are run by prompts. You have to be very specific just to get an image that is reasonable. And it can only extrapolate a very small amount from that point on before it gets beyond the prompts and starts to get really wonky. As is they probably had to have the AI animate each of these images a thousand times just to get something this good.

[@RogerDeelaw]

There are actually macaque in Japan, that chill in Hot Springs. So that is the only part of the Ad that makes sense and looks okay.

[@oomegator]

Love that the hand has 6 fingers. Jesus christ 😂

[@Al_KR_t]

Ai animations are suffering from being blurry and also objects with ai animations never actually move, they almost always seem to morph around the screen

[@wrong_planet]

"Cars can only go two miles an hour so my horse is sure to win" It's over, bro. The 3D industry is finished and people are in varying stages of denial over it. The last of which is criticizing the "art" of commercials for corporate clients.

[@jeanclaudethedarklord6205]

​@@wrong_planet wdym it's finished? How else would vfx be created?

[@wrong_planet]

@@jeanclaudethedarklord6205 When's the last time you paid a team of people to do in six months what you can get in ten seconds for free? The 3D industry is done. Commercials, movies, games, television shows, art commissions - already being outsourced to AI after being outsourced overseas. People do not notice a difference and they do not care.

[@diracflux]

Now I wonder when we’ll get AI-generated reaction videos with all the comments generated by bots.

[@Janman81]

Finding a real person on KZbin will be like finding a needle in a haystack.

[@Cyber_Kriss]

It's already in effect. AI generated channels with AI / bots generated comments, and artificially inflated / bought for subs. Here on youtube it's already all over the place.

[@pr3sidentspence]

I'm pretty sure those ARE supposed to be mice. I.e., everyone gets along at Christmas.

[@Gh0sb0ss]

After decades of research, marketers have finally found a way to make advertisements even more of a waste of your time

[@PatrickDaniels]

The polar bear is included because it's a throwback to the most successful Coke marketing campaign ever. No other reason.

[@ReTrOtAkU]

The monkeys are Japanese macaques, the only monkeys native to the archipelago, who are know during winter to enjoy spending much of their time in hot springs. The ad may have a lot of problems, many of which you pointed out, but showing the macaques in the hot springs just after the trucks passing trough a Japanese city is a very intentional human choice derived from reality, and not one driven by AI madness. Also, side note, japan loves Christmas and they even have their own unique traditions built on top of the American/European christian ones.

[@DECODEDVFX]

I know that KFC on Christmas is a bit of a tradition there.

[@NotSoMuchFrankly]

Who doesn't like Happy Fat Gift-giving Man?

[@tonysfatcat]

There are actually monkeys in Japan that are taking hot baths when it is snowing in higher altitudes

[@DECODEDVFX]

Yeah I've seen them. I just didn't think this was supposed to be hot water. Not enough steam. I'm still not sure what monkeys have to do with Christmas

[@tonysfatcat]

Agree, it looks like cold water but they seem to sill have fun😊 also japan is definitely not famous for celebrating Christmas. I think they just did all that with AI for getting attention and it works

[@NotSoMuchFrankly]

@@DECODEDVFX They do look iced in. Maybe someone should go help chip them out. And why are the hot springs touching the asphalt/tarmac?

[@JonLane]

The hand filling the truck with Coke had five fingers!

[@leafy_5]

I find that using AI in advertising like this accomplishes the opposite goal because the more times it’s shoved in your face, the more you notice the weirdness and it becomes more unappealing. AI stuff works best when you only see it once in passing not over and over and over like Modern advertising

[@APRICEPRODUCTION]

As a VFX guy myself, a big company like Coca-Cola should be very careful doing an AI commercial like this, because AI sources the imagery from multiple sources. The risk here is some source elements getting mixed into the advert, that has come from an artist or company, that Coca-Cola haven't had permission to use. Could result in them being sued very heavily. AI imagery and video still has a lot of question marks over the head, and with this new tool soon coming out, that supposedly will be able to unscramble the AI and source the elements. When that happens things are going to change massively.

[@FeRReTNS]

Pepsi has the opportunity to do the funniest thing and remake this for real.

[@DECODEDVFX]

@@FeRReTNS Pepsi. "The real thing".

[@awyeagames]

That's not a coke ad, its an ad for the AI company.

[@DMLand]

Missed in the back ground while the poor ducks' legs helicopter beneath them: the 2nd truck undergoes some kind of mitosis to become two separate trucks.

[@derivepi6930]

AI produces 4 nostrilled dog - "I don't think most people notice ..." says dejected artist who takes immeasureable pride in his craft - lol

[@christophercruz1084]

As someone who often defend CGI in film and TV and constantly say that it's not "LAZY", I'm comming out and saying it. USING AI TO DO LITERALLY EVERYTHING IS OBJECTIVELEY LAZY!

[@diracflux]

It definitely worked in terms of marketing. You had us staring at the Coke logo for nearly 20 minutes 😬 There’s something about these AI generated videos that our brains kindof pickup on but we’re often not quite sure about on first glance, like the uncanny valley.

[@error.418]

except now I feel nauseous when seeing the logo

[@CrispyGFX]

But think about all the artists they didn't have to pay! Huge W for the CEOs!! Might save enough to buy another Bugatti.

[@BagelCollector]

As someone who works in an arthouse this has the fingerprints of junior artist's first after effects job all over it. All the branding are just PNGs tracked in, hell, all the coke bottles are just PNGs. All the lights turning on are simple masked altered footage and you can spot the comped shots clear as day; they're egregious. Coca Cola cheaped out on this, big time.

[@spartan22550]

the scariest side of the coke ai ads... it worked... everyone is talking about it. The vallée dérangeante (don't know the word in english) is still there and that's probably what they were looking for, that's a really disturbing idea to consider a world where robots are better seller than human. probably something who can generate a "small alignement problem".

[@hugoantunesartwithblender]

It doesnt increase sells

[@pupyfan69]

"uncanny valley"

[@awyeagames]

I wonder if the AI company paid coca cola, and not the other way around.

[@Alex-by4zv]

8:25 even the cocacola logo got all messed up on the second truck :)

[@1st1anarkissed]

In the grand canyon sunrise the shadows point about 45 degrees to the left of the sunrise. So, a second far brighter sun behind the camera? That sounds ominous.

[@dack42]

I bet the AI didn't do any of the lights "turning on". They just "turned them off" in post by dimming and desaturating them.

[@DECODEDVFX]

@@dack42 that's my theory too. I feel like this video took an awful lot of manual work to meet the brief they were given.

[@RufftaMan]

I auspect the de-saturated lights "turning on" is not made by the AI. It probably created the whole shot with all lights on, then artists went in and manually de-saturated them in order to create the "turning on" effect.

[@BMF6889]

In the last scene, the snow in the snow globe isn't moving.

[@DECODEDVFX]

@@BMF6889 I noticed another dozen problems with this ad while I was editing the video.

[@NekoSamaIru]

The animals' skin and muscles don't move! They just morph from one pose to the next! It's like I am looking at my in-laws!

[@brainmold]

This must be a test to see what they can get away with. There's a Coke advertising exec buying a new house with the money they saved on this ad.....

[@almac8840]

Also It must have taken many interactions to get this sloppy result 😂 they could have done it in CG in the same amount of time using a decent asset library

[@KnapfordMaster98]

But if we make Christmas commercials with actual effort, how will we have time for all of the DraftKings commercials?

[@dack42]

@5:39 - You can see a tracking error with the logo on the second truck - definitely looks added in. @8:13 - The back of the second to last truck has a messed up logo. Probably one they forgot to replace with a "clean" one.

[@DECODEDVFX]

Probably. I churched out about 30 different AI thumbnails for this video, and it messed up the coke logo almost every time. And that was using Flux, which is one of the best algorithms that's particularly praised by AI bros for its skill with text. 🤷‍♂️

[@jmalmsten]

It always makes me perplexed. These ads used to be so pixelf***ed for accuracy and perfection. But as soon as AI bros got in there.. it's like all kinds of quality control went out of the window. So many of these issues could probably have been corrected by simple compositing and paint overs or just regeneration. But the only postwork here seems to have been the logos...

[@kenzorman]

People feel the difference, even if the can't 'see' it . Something feels off but they don't know why.

[@JohnnyDavila]

I just hate how big companies just shuts their eyes to AI's flaws but if it was made by some videoprapher or CGI artist they would be pin pointing the tiniest thing to make it perfect. And let's agree it always looks unsharpened, blurry and low resolution.

[@cactustactics]

Honestly even if every shot was great and competently done, it's such a weird choice - take a beloved, iconic, unashamedly "traditional" ad about a communal celebration, and get a machine to churn out a bunch of soulless mimickry that shows how superficial the whole thing is. I feel like the group of people this will actually appeal to over a normal ad is a pretty small niche I'm not sure if they saved any money with this one (I've been hearing talk that they generated many hours of footage, and had to spend a lot of time editing together ~something~) but it's definitely something that'll be used to avoid paying people in future. One thing about the spread of AI generated content is it's priming people to accept poor quality, mistakes etc as fine and normal. Still weird for The Coke Christmas Ad to be in the vanguard at this stage though. AI Werther's Original nightmare fuel next?

[@KlutzyNinja100]

I too, as a global brand, want 45 different shitty art styles in my advertising.

[@pawe9082]

Welcome to XXI century: Is it good? No Is it good enough and cheap? Yes

[@error.418]

it is not good enough, tbh

[@pawe9082]

​@@error.418 it is not good enough for you and me, but it's good enough for millions of people with... "poor pattern recognition skills" (I'm trying to be very polite here).

[@synsam12345]

3:19 - I think it's a quite clear separation between the legs. Looking at the white mane thing, it overlaps over the back leg.

[@code_monkey_steve]

4:33 count the fingers

[@KwasiAnimationStudio]

Ducks walked sideways, perspectives were jank on most of the shots, and tires spinning when they should stop, trucks size not matching environments

[@brodinio4442]

no way this is a real commercial

[@Albert_Riseal]

AI is just a relatively new-tech tool which is going to get better and better in the future. While I like the MESSAGE of Coca-Cola about united people as a family in sort of magic and prosperous days, kindness and stuff, I dislike the high level of imperfections in todays AI. But I'm aware that could and will be fixed gradually, so it really does not bother me that much

[@proceduralcoffee]

it's sad their go to studio probably pitched this.

[@Ellarian_Liara]

10:10 is also missing a tire

[@davexmit]

My conclusion is that this was entirely intentional for 2 reasons. 1. We live in a different age now, and cooler talk is dead due to the absolute tsunami of content. So creating a contentious advert is great for online discussion. 2. Whether we want it or not, AI is being pushed by every big tech org out there, and they’re investing $billions into it, and throwing money at Hollywood and brands to get them on board. We don’t want it, but they have to do this because this is literally a last man standing situation. AI will decimate whoever isn’t in front when we get to the point when any individual will have the capability to create any content or work with a prompt. And when that happens, it’s game over for everyone. We will then see a complete collapse across entire economies. The singularity won’t be a bright moment in human history, it will be AI collapsing the global economy. The economy needs jobs, not end product. If you just have end products, you have no economy.

[@jamfjord]

OK, well I'm not a vfx artist (maybe one day, hence my sub) but to me, that looked like a big, shiny late-capitalism convoy through uncanny valley. Something unsettling about it, but I didn't really figure out what until you picked it apart.

[@wrong_planet]

- Sent from my iPhone

[@error.418]

8:25 mangled logo on the 2nd truck from the rear

[@nowymail]

The deers' necks get longer and longer. The hand holding the bottle has 6 fingers. All that is creepy. There are monkeys in Japan that actually do use hot springs.

[@Manonamission-vy4ml]

That was funny man!!!!

[@nidhibr]

Making an ai commercial when they can clearly hire people for this job is wild. Coke should be ashamed

[@Alex-by4zv]

people are stupid. While most younglings are too busy to notice anything wrong with the shots 'cause doom scrolling and social media, older people would just go "awwww" 'cause of all the 'cute' lil' animals. People are stupid. And AI is here to make people even more stupid. Thanks for the video, man, love your work. But it was sad af to watch tbvh.

[@aidanhughes1648]

Has anyone counted the fingers on the hand? 😂

[@cutcontent5210]

sadly it is inevidable. Ai will be used to make commercials and it will get better until you cant tell the differenc. The time of real artists is going to end some jobs just hold up longer than others.

[@hugoantunesartwithblender]

You will allways notice tge difference because what will feed more Ai videos are AI videos, so its starting already having that problem.

[@cutcontent5210]

@hugoantunesartwithblender I dont believe that argument becaus you still see "revolutionary" new techdemos ore some new software 3 ore so times a year wich slowly but sdatily fixes the mistakes

[@aXelRedfield]

so embarrassing, not to mention actually actively killing the snow and that habitat of animals by using AI

[@64kernel]

AI is still unusable for production, specially for such a big brand. This has to be a prank. They're trolling all the creatives out there.

[@jmalmsten]

I suggest looking up the beginning of the movie Baraka, which feature monkeys chilling in hot springs. There's still lots of weirdness... Like tge hot spring itself extending to the road itself... Seems like needless hazard. But with the hot springs, the buildings and a few other things. Was this ad meant to target japanese audiences?

[@budc6246]

The trucks are simply terrible. Must have been a task for the new person to make this commercial.

[@olivetree9920]

Someone had to be the first. Baby steps lead to expert runners

[@bgtubber]

Terrible ad. The ones from from the 90s and 2000s were much better. It's more than evident that the AI video capabilities are not there yet. You can tell that it's half baked even if you are not into the AI sphere. All shots feel very rushed. Probably because the AI starts hallucinating a lot the longer you make the shot. "Bravo". They saved a few tens of thousand $$$ on making an actually good ad. I guess this is what a multi-billion dollar corporation can "afford" these days. "Poor" Coca-Cola.

[@joshuaborner]

Trust me, every ad that gets you to be so upset about it that you're writing a comment about it under an analysis of the very ad is 100% doing it's job 🤣 All they want is for people to be mad about it, so everyone talks about it. They know the quality is ass, it's strategy

[@codehubhq]

I'm not a vfx artist, but I think this is a brave choice, imagine big companies investing in AI tools more and more investors, means better and better tools. Now for normal people with no skills at all, instead of paying 600$ (and I say the actual number here) to hire a freelancer to create for my game a couple (20+) art design for my game. Like (logo, background, loading screens, icons, etc...) and I've not hired someone for the 3d models yet. Imagine if I can do that for a couple of $. so imagine if the normal person can create a beautiful art design for his/her game, movie, ads or whatever without worrying about paying that amount of money. It would be amazing, I'm expecting a full engine to create a 3d models, sound, art with high quality in the upcoming 5+ years with high quality that people won't be able to tell the difference anymore, which it will be the normal way for people to do art.

[@hugoantunesartwithblender]

Yes, but remember that this ad was not created with just one prompt. It needed a lot of corrections and lot of tries

[@nindza79]

And nobody will play that shit, because it takes a human to make it fun and appealing. Even without AI you have a tremendous amount of tools and assets at your disposal, compared to the game devs 20-30 years ago, but you still don't have a hit game, right? So yeah, blame it on a 600$ artist lol. Btw, that amount for 20+ assets is an insult, no wonder you wait for a "miracle" AI to make your game successful. Coca-Cola has no other worries than to make an average, cheap Joe with no knowledge or talents, become a successful game dev, because that Joe was held back by evil freelancers (god forbid employees) and their high freelancing rates.

[@error.418]

@@hugoantunesartwithblender and lot of human editing, too...

[@error.418]

@@nindza79 nailed it

[@codehubhq]

​@@nindza79 I know you're bias here, because you're an artist, however we are not talking about todays tools, we are talking in the future 5+ years from now. Let's take game engine for instance, back in the day in 2000 you needed to simulate the physics by using code, so a company like nintendo had 1000+ developers working around the clock. Just to develope a game I've made a cople of months ago and it only took 2 weeks to develope and it was multiplayer :) now 20 years later and a solo dev can make an amazing game in less than a year (SpaceBourne 2 game made by a single developer called "Burak Dabak") and there is another (len's island made by a solo dev). If you told me 20 years ago that a single developer can design and develope such amazing game with budget less than 3k$ I would laughed as well. So in a few years from now artists and developers would still be here, but not the way it's now. there will be much competition, the prices will be low, due to AI tools where artists and developers only need their minds and ideas to use these tools to bring something beautiful and amazing. by the way 20+ images not assets cost 600$, and later eventually I've generated them using AI tools and they came up better than the designer. yeah there was some tweeks needed to be done like the knight sword was slightly away from hand, so I kept trying and trying until I got one that suits my game. maybe the designer was shitty or bad one I don't know, but I was talking from experience. Recently the series (Arcane season 2) some fan made an art generated by AI, and it was very beautiful, however the franchise took it down and said it's an insult for the artists who designed that wonderful and amazing art of the series and I totally agree. season 2 cost 250 million $ the art was mind blowing. but give it a few years and eventually franchises will use AI tools to cut down their budgets. Just like what happened in the early 2000 with game engines. this doesn't mean a bad thing, it could lead to better things like for instance a single developer creating a game like (len's island) to earn 4M$ from it so far :)

[@claudiosettiart]

Its a little creepy

[@HorizonEclipseStudios]

This Ones Better: kzbin.info/www/bejne/innHoIKdrNadeMksi=TtJahueSNbcSJruL

[@LAZ-org]

OMG THAT WAS HORRIBLE. So many issues. Is it boomers who can't tell the difference? Is this the "Polar Express" syndrome? So. Many. Things. Wrong. (Oh and since Im on a roll) PLEASE put some real ART up on your walls. Support artists not output!

[@wrong_planet]

What art today is worth supporting?

[@hardwire666too]

It's cheap and gimmicky it doesn't surprise me. Nothing is sacred unless it turns a buck.

[@wrong_planet]

The sanctity of high fructose corn syrup commercials.

[@vanillagorilla8696]

The only thing that could bring liberals and conservatives together for Christmas was this ad.

[@RaveYoda]

Ewwwww... not gunna buy that product.