- Disney Imagineering is planning to use Adobe's Firefly AI services to build the next generation of theme park rides based on its own IP
- Disney says the move builds further on decades of collaboration between the two companies
- The move is being seen as an important win for Adobe as it navigates increasingly pessimistic investor sentiment with its own AI offerings
Adobe and Walt Disney Imagineering have revealed the studio's research-and-development arm will leverage Adobe's Firefly Foundry's tech to design future parks, hotels, cruises, and attractions.
Adobe's Firefly Foundry AI offering is not just another one-size-fits-all service but one custom-tuned to handle Disney's unique needs. The customized AI is trained on Disney's own IP offerings, allowing for what the companies call a 'responsibly built' solution to handle the following workflows to start:
- A sketch-to-image model that transforms rough hand-drawn concepts into fully rendered 2D concept art.
- A custom image model trained on Disney's own IP that generates franchise-accurate creative assets across Mickey & Friends, Frozen, Moana, Lilo & Stitch, and Cars.
- A 3D modeling capability that takes 2D renderings and transforms them into detailed prototypes for planning builds and coordinating with engineering teams.
How does AI help build the next generation of Disney rides?
Kyle Laughlin, SVP, Walt Disney Imagineering Research & Development, stated that the company is 'long-time users' of Adobe's Creative Cloud tools, with a relationship spanning decades, and were also among the early adopters of its Firefly offerings.
“We were looking to find a collaborator that could help us do that responsibly and do it in a way that ultimately respected the fact that we are a creator-driven company," Laughlin noted. "We are a talent-driven company, and respecting that the creative process has a human as a part of what we do.”
Disney says it does not plan to replace the human element in the process but will use solutions provided by Firefly to compress workloads and speed things up considerably, even as "outputs remain consistent with the company’s storytelling heritage and visual language."
"As the teams at Imagineering build new experiences for fans around the world, our tools and workflows will provide a creative foundation to explore bolder ideas and make the best ones a reality," noted Hannah Elsakr, vice president, GenAI New Business Ventures at Adobe.
Collaborations with companies such as Disney are the need of the hour for Adobe, which has investors often questioning the viability of its business model in an AI-enabled future where everyone has access to generative AI tools, even as it pitches itself as a frontrunner in a fast-evolving industry.
The move is being seen as a big win for Adobe, with Walt Disney Imagineering Research & Development arguably being one of the biggest clients it could court for its Firefly Foundry service.
The move comes at a time when Disney is a plaintiff in multiple IP-centric lawsuits against AI firms, including image- and video-generation firm Midjourney, that have allegedly plagiarized and therefore abused its copyrights.
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