Tonic DNA And Filmmaker Malcolm Sutherland Launch AI-Powered Animated Game Concept ’10th Life’

Montreal-based animation studio Tonic DNA, which is known for its high-end 2d animation on hand-drawn projects like The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie, Animaniacs, and The Bob’s Burgers Movie, is dipping its toes into the AI field with an experimental in-house game project called 10th Life.

The project was developed through the company’s advertising division and is the brainchild of Malcolm Sutherland, one of the company’s in-house directors as well as a highly-regarded indie animation filmmaker.

Sutherland, who was explored many techniques throughout his filmmaking, has been working with AI for a few years now with the goal of understanding how the technology can complement, and not replace, the work of an artist. “I was interested in finding ways of using AI tools alongside my existing illustration, animation, and film skills, instead of handing everything off to the AI wholesale,” he said in a statement.

Working with Tonic’s R&D team (Jay Caplan, Philip Jan Franjo, Victor Franjo, Nadim Chartouni), 10th Life was designed as a real-world test of new AI-integrated animation workflows that preserve an artist-first approach. The company explained that two different techniques were developed:

• AI-Assisted Environments: An AI model was trained on Sutherland’s own art style, generating backgrounds from 3d layouts and text prompts. The result? A fast, visually coherent method for building rich animated worlds, up to 75% faster in some sequences. Additionally, the company has developed a 2d environment generator tool, capable of rendering the same environment from different camera angles.
• AI-Assisted Character Animation: Inspired by rotoscoping, Sutherland acted out scenes, drew over the first frame, and used Runway to restyle footage. While cleanup is still necessary, the process accelerates the overall workflow and unlocks stylistic experimentation.

Sutherland said that he’s impressed by the possibilities: “Using an AI pipeline to help visualize the world and characters for 10th Life has been a powerful way to develop tone and style. It’s been an amazing exploration so far and has really changed my views on AI.”

Tonic is currently working on a full gameplay trailer that will demonstrate both of the above techniques in action, but in the meantime, has released the following teaser:

A making-of video below, as well as this Linkedin post, offer greater detail on the techniques that Sutherland and team are employing: