Pixar veteran creates AI tool for automating 2D animations

Artificial intelligence is going to change just about everything — like animating video games, for example.

Animation-technology startup Midas Touch Interactive has a new tool called Midas Creature, which the company claims can automate the process of creating complicated animations for two-dimensional characters. Developer Jiayi Chong created Midas Creature using his experience from working on films like Toy Story 3, Wall-E, and Up while at Pixar. With Midas Creature, artists and designers give instructions to an automated engine, and the software interprets the character and figures out how it would move.