Find AI Warper on Twitter and Instagram.
Viggle: Many know you as A.I.Warper, your handle on X/Twitter. Few know exactly who you are and what you do. So, who is A.I.Warper, and why are you so passionate about AI tech?
A.I.Warper: I’m a registered Professional Engineer in Alberta and British Columbia with a master’s in chemical engineering. I’ve spent the last decade building cross-country pipelines in Western Canada. While I’ve been a passionate CGI / VFX hobbyist since I was a teenager, AI has opened new doors for me. Balancing a full-time job and a young family, AI allows me to streamline tasks that traditionally take thousands of hours to master and a team of specialists—like 3D modeling, texturing, rigging, and animating—so I can create on my own in a fraction of the time. AI technology like Viggle has made it possible for me to bring my creative visions to life efficiently, even with my hectic schedule.
Viggle: Your first AI content was in October 2023. What prompted you to do that?
A.I.Warper: I’ve always been interested in video generation. I entered the generative visual AI space about 2-3 years ago, starting with image generation using Disco Diffusion in a Google co-lab environment. Back then, a single image could take hours to create, and the results were often disappointing. When Stable Diffusion came out, I joined the beta on Discord and spent a lot of time there experimenting. Even then, I was focused on converting images to images rather than creating from scratch with text-to-image. I would often use Stable Diffusion as a base and then use Disco Diffusion to build details on top of it.
I always aimed to figure out how to apply these tools to video frames. My work stands out today because of many of the experiments I did back then. I employ techniques learned from those early image-to-image experiments that others might not know about. Before ControlNETs even existed, I was pushing video to video. I participated in a community event hosted by Corridor Digital (9.9M followers on YouTube), where the challenge was to convert supplied videos into anime—before many of the current tools even existed. This was my first large connection in this space, and I remain in contact with the Corridor team (mostly Neko). I’ve worked on projects directly for them, and my work was even presented at an AI summit in LA months ago as a proof-of-concept VFX tool by Neko. Most of my early activity was on Discord, but friends there encouraged me to share my work on Twitter/X, and that’s when things took off.
Viggle: When you first started using Viggle, what drew you to it?
A.I.Warper: I started using Viggle in March, and I was honestly blown away. Before Viggle, we did not have any tool available that could do the character replacement so seamlessly and quickly. The main standout features that impressed me were how quick the tool was (often only seconds of process time) and how well it retained the source video expressions (lip movement, eye direction, etc.) Truly, no other tool was doing this at the time, and there still really isn’t.
Viggle: Let’s talk about the Joker/Lil Yachty video. It went viral—what was the story behind that?
A.I.Warper: Before the Joker video, I made a Matrix video that got about 9 million impressions, so I was really trying to keep that momentum rolling. I had done some testing with Viggle, and I knew I wanted to try it on a full shot. It started when I was searching for “epic movie entrances and walk-ins,” and I came across a video of Lil Yachty’s stage walk. I thought it was a cool concept and wanted to pair it with the right character. I pulled up a list of “the most iconic pop culture characters” and just started picturing each character in the scene. I eventually settled on the Joker as his persona fit the mood.
I was impressed at how well Viggle handled the Joker transfer, and my friend, whom I was chatting with at the time, was just as impressed with how smooth and fast the output was. This was back in March 2024; I never expected that video to blow up the way it did; if I had, I probably would’ve polished it more! But the fact is, I did the whole thing in just one day, and that initial transfer took just a few seconds. Without Viggle, I honestly wouldn’t have considered attempting that shot, as the time would have been weeks.
Viggle: What is your everyday workflow?
A.I.Warper: It varies depending on the project, but the general process for a shot like the Joker is:
- I usually start by rotoscoping the video to extract the subject from the background, which makes it easier to work with.
- I run the video through Viggle to get the motion transfer.
- Then, I bring it into Adobe After Effects and loosely overlay the Viggle output onto the original footage.
- Next, I refine the animation using AnimateDiff and ComfyUI.
- Finally, once the video is finalized, I upscale it with Topaz.
Two years ago, I was making pictures with friends in Discord, but now I have made some fascinating industry contacts and have had the pleasure of working with startups, VFX shops, and general titans of the industry that I could never have dreamed I’d be in contact with. It just shows you how quickly your life can change if you take the time to learn a new skill set in a rising AI world.
Viggle: AI video tools are evolving fast. How do you think tools like Viggle will change how creators make content in the future?
A.I.Warper: To me, AI opens doors to what used to be AAA-level content done by a professional team. You can now create with just a group of friends without a AAA budget. Sure, it’s not quite there yet, but all of this tech is improving so rapidly that it will only get significantly better. These tools give people unique ideas and stories a chance they never had before to tell their stories.
Viggle: YourTwitter presence has exploded with your AI experiments. How has it been for you?
A.I.Warper: The sudden fame was pretty overwhelming, to be honest. After the Joker video went viral, a ton of people reached out, offering to pay me for projects. I had a young child, another on the way, and a full-time day job at the time, so I was juggling everything at night. Managing was a lot, mainly because you never know what will resonate with people.
What really caught me by surprise were all the spinoffs—even Elon Musk made one. The video blew up in ways I never imagined. Suddenly, people were remixing and reimagining it in their own way, and it felt surreal to see how far it reached. I think for AI videos, you need content that’s either incredibly good or completely ridiculous—often a bit of both.
Viggle: Many in the traditional creative fields fear losing creativity and ownership of work to AI. What's your point of view?
A.I.Warper: Honestly, I think it’s just a loud minority. Most actual artists (VFX, 3D, Digital) I speak with are excited about AI—they want to dive into it and learn everything they can. I get that there are valid concerns, but at the end of the day, I believe that AI isn’t going to replace anyone with creative talent anytime soon.
For me, AI eliminates the tedious tasks that nobody wanted to do in the first place, which means I can focus on the fun, creative parts. Will AI become more autonomous over time? Maybe. But my advice is to learn it and embrace it. I get tons of emails from VFX studios wanting to incorporate more AI into their workflows. A mega-corporation has even asked me to run a “ComfyUI boot camp” for their entire team, but I don’t have the time right now.
Viggle: What is your next goal in AI?
A.I.Warper: I don’t have a specific end goal in mind. It’s more about continuing to do what I’m doing—experimenting with new tools as they come out and trying to be the first to use them in a non-traditional way. I am just enjoying the ride, trying to improve every day, and grateful for the people I meet.
That's the story of A.I. Warper and his journey with Viggle to date.
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