[HN Gopher] Show HN: I made a web app to bring children's drawin...
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Show HN: I made a web app to bring children's drawings to life
Hey HN! I used to spend hours drawing all kind of things as a kid.
Sadly though, those drawings are long gone. Inspired by this, I
created DoodleDreams. A webapp that brings drawings to life using
AI and stores them as memories. You can always look back at the
drawings, see who made them, and even know the age they were drawn
at. I thought it was a fun way to preserve those memories. What do
you think? Viktor
Author : vikmex
Score : 211 points
Date : 2024-12-27 18:50 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (doodledreams.cc)
(TXT) w3m dump (doodledreams.cc)
| vikmex wrote:
| Hi, Viktor here!
|
| I made this as I believe it would have made me very excited to
| see my drawings come alive when I was a kid.
|
| I hope someone can get the same joy out of it as I would have at
| that age!
| maalber wrote:
| Hey Viktor, looks cool! It looks like it uses some image-to-video
| generation model. I would be interested to know which one you
| used, how you selected it, and whether you did some
| training/fine-tuning yourself in the process.
| vikmex wrote:
| Hey! Yes, it's using image-to-video. I went with a model by
| KlingAI as it seemed to produce the best results from my tests.
| gexaha wrote:
| I found their API quite expensive, I wonder how you go about
| it.
| dylan604 wrote:
| 3 for $25 is how
| eGQjxkKF6fif wrote:
| This is truly amazing. Is there a 'How it Works' a 'Potentials'
| section?
|
| I work with things that push to inspire creativity and learning
| to foster the passion behind creativity and authentic works where
| otherwise we'd see how 'AI copies our work' and now we can see
| how AI can bring works to life and make them more fun.
|
| Over-all would you like to see schools adopting your project? I
| didn't see a contact form but would love to be able to reach out
| and get more insight. I think this is absolutely wonderful.
|
| While I know tokens and generative AI have costs, I can see the
| business model.
|
| Since you've made it a web app have you explored the possibility
| of making it cross platform with something like Cordova?
| https://cordova.apache.org/
|
| Perhaps setting up a bluesky social and documenting the thought
| process as you build on would be amazing, I'd love to see more;
| but would definitely like to be able to reach out in the future.
| Definitely bookmarked!
| vikmex wrote:
| Hi! Thanks for your kind words!
|
| There's a short "How it works" section, but could possibly be
| more detailed. No "potentials" section currently.
|
| Yes, exactly! Sure, schools are welcome to adopt the project.
| Sorry, added contact details to the page now! Feel free to send
| an email to: hello@doodledreams.cc
|
| I have not looked into Cordova, will take a look at that now.
|
| Thanks for your feedback!
| DrSiemer wrote:
| Avoid Cordova, it's deprecated and the ecosystem is dead. You
| could check out Capacitor, which is supposed to be a modern
| alternative.
|
| That Cordova site really needs some kind of disclaimer.
| zengineer wrote:
| I have built something similar (without AI)which lets a group
| of children build a world together with their colored
| templates: dibulo.com - We have lots of schools / kindergartens
| using it.
| j_french wrote:
| Looks interesting, but it would be nice to be able to try it out
| (once even) without subscribing. The one token that seems to be
| available when you create an account disappears when you try to
| create an animation
| vikmex wrote:
| Hi, sorry for your troubles. It should be possible to try for
| free, looks like I have a bug after you submit the drawing, but
| it should still be visible under "History"
| scubakid wrote:
| Always a good idea to test full onboarding + purchase flow
| before posting.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Why? Test it in prod and let the users do QA is so much
| cheaper/faster. That's just the trend
| j_french wrote:
| Ah yes, so it is
| dsmurrell wrote:
| I'm getting the same. Free plan 0 tokens. New account.
| lolptdr wrote:
| Hmm, I don't see any free token. I agree that one free token
| is a good way to get interest going.
| dm03514 wrote:
| This looks really interesting, I instantly found a drawing of my
| kids to upload because I thought he would love it, but I was
| unable to even try it once without paying.
| vikmex wrote:
| Hi, sorry for your troubles. It should be possible to try for
| free, looks like I have a bug after you submit the drawing, but
| it should still be visible under "History"
| yuvalr1 wrote:
| This looks very cool! The drawing examples on the page are
| amazing. I wish all kids could draw like that :D
|
| I wonder what the AI understands when given a more sketchy
| drawing.
|
| It's really amazing that we can even have these kinds of things
| these days. I wish you great success with the app!
| vikmex wrote:
| Thanks for the comments! I appreciate it!
| ksdk wrote:
| The loading time for the example animations is very slow, I was
| about to write a comment about how the supposed animations did
| not work.
| franze wrote:
| Pretty good animation: here is my father Christmas
| https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/doodle-dreams.fi...
| riiii wrote:
| Make Christmas great again!
| markiannucci wrote:
| :) I'm so curious what the prompt was to get this generation.
| indoor47 wrote:
| Didn't work for me.. animation just had some camera scroll, but
| figures remained static
| vikmex wrote:
| Unfortunately it might struggle in some cases depending on what
| your drawing portrays, how you took the photo of the image as
| well as the description you provided.
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| I can't try it because I'm out of animation tokens? I thought I
| was trying for free. :-(
| vikmex wrote:
| Hi, you should have been able to try once when registering.
| Check under the History tab if you already submitted a drawing.
| pj_mukh wrote:
| Super cool. If you don't mind me asking, what model are you
| using?
| vikmex wrote:
| It's using Kling
| johndevor wrote:
| Tried (and paid) but the drawing video is just a static image.
| bdangubic wrote:
| you have to use your imagination to see the video :)
| vunderba wrote:
| It's Kling behind the scenes, and unfortunately sometimes will
| produce static results or just basic camera movement like a Ken
| Burn's documentary.
| vikmex wrote:
| Sorry for the inconvenience, I've reached out to you via email.
| lolptdr wrote:
| I'm getting the same problem, just a static image panning
| around.
| tacitusarc wrote:
| First, this is a cool idea.
|
| Second, are you doing moderation? What is your strategy for
| porn/illegal content? It often seems like that managing those
| practicalities kills services like these.
| vikmex wrote:
| Hey, thanks! The model has a filter blocking inappropriate
| content
| s-sameer wrote:
| This is really interesting bro
| vikmex wrote:
| Thanks!
| vunderba wrote:
| Meta put out a pretty popular post back in 2021 around using AI
| to animate children's drawings.
|
| I believe it focuses more around using masks to build out a
| "rigging" to animate them.
|
| https://about.fb.com/news/2021/12/using-ai-to-animate-childr...
|
| https://fairanimateddrawings.com
|
| Conversely, sounds like this is just feeding directly into the
| Kling API though. I'd say pricing is going to be the roughest
| aspect since they're definitely not cheap.
|
| _To add to this - Kling 's I2V model (even as of v1.6) is pretty
| inconsistent when it comes to 2D imagery - even in your cherry
| picked examples they're unfortunately morphing all over the
| place. Since you have no control over the model or even the end
| result outside of minimal positive/negative prompts, I think
| you'll find prospective customers getting potentially
| frustrated._
| zild3d wrote:
| >even in your cherry picked examples they're unfortunately
| morphing all over the place
|
| they're kids doodles. being a bit wonky is part of the charm, i
| think its a great use case for where ai animation is at the
| moment.
|
| If this was wedding photos we'd have a problem :D
| nox101 wrote:
| Following those links lead to this website based free solution
|
| https://sketch.metademolab.com/
|
| You can upload a picture and have it animate it. Not quite the
| same or as impressive but still might be fun and it's free
| jules wrote:
| This is very cool. My nephew will love this.
| whitepaint wrote:
| This is really cool. Nice job. How did you do it?
| vikmex wrote:
| Hi thanks! I built the webapp in React and I run a backend
| python flask server on GCP.
| whitepaint wrote:
| What about software?
| xiaodai wrote:
| Scammy. I can't even preview one
| vikmex wrote:
| Hi, look under the History page if you already submitted a
| drawing with the free token.
| higty wrote:
| This is such a beautiful idea! I can totally relate to spending
| countless hours drawing as a kid, and it's sad how many of those
| creations are lost to time.
| higty wrote:
| Drawing is facinating. I think it is beautiful idea to spent
| life.
| block_dagger wrote:
| Sent this to a friend in her 70s who does children's
| illustrations. Hoping she enjoys seeing her creations come to
| life.
| ardit33 wrote:
| This is really cool. I have a couple of children's stories /
| illustrations I always wanted to animate.
|
| Will check it out
| some_furry wrote:
| Has anyone tried uploading pure noise (e.g. random number
| generator output) to see what the model does? Curious about this.
| rroose wrote:
| Cool stuff, but I rather don't want to use Google to log in. Is
| there, or will there be, any way around this?
| vikmex wrote:
| Hi, I understand, I will look into adding more options for
| logging in
| saasxyz wrote:
| why not google login? what would you choose?
| globnomulous wrote:
| This isn't the future or the internet I want.
| ErigmolCt wrote:
| What's the point?
| ErigmolCt wrote:
| That sounds incredible! I have a strong desire to upload my
| childhood creations there.
| bambax wrote:
| That's cool. Can you talk a little about the tech: front end,
| back end, and API (Kling, apparently)?
| vikmex wrote:
| Hi, Frontend is built using React and for the backend I created
| a python flask server that runs on Google Cloud, and I use
| Firebase for database, authentication etc. The backend handles
| the API calls to OpenAI for image analysis, and KlingAI is used
| for image-to-video. Not using the KlingAPI directly though as
| this is too expensive for me to use in a hobby project, instead
| using PiAPI.
| bambax wrote:
| Thanks!
| butz wrote:
| How about just teaching kids to do animation on their own?
| Suggesting drawing pictures on pages of a book and flipping them
| probably won't fly at this day and age, but maybe there is some
| tool like good old Macromedia Flash, where kids could unleash
| their creativity?
| naveensky wrote:
| This is just so cool, all the best for your launch!!
| qwertox wrote:
| I wish I had kids in order to see them laugh when they could see
| their drawings come to life.
|
| One point of critique: Simple, Transparent Pricing -> Currency is
| tokens. Transparent would be: Currency is animations". Even if 1
| token == 1 animation, it gives the feeling as if this would be
| changed in the future, like 2 tokens == 1 super-animation, which
| breaks the "simple and transparent".
| saasxyz wrote:
| the design looks cool, are you using any UI components under the
| hood?
| solardev wrote:
| The free plan still doesn't work. I never submitted anything. Was
| login gated, then forced to sign up with Google, then brought to
| the dashboard with 0/0 tokens, no way to submit anything, and
| nothing in the history.
|
| Too bad. Wanted to show this off to a nephew.
| vikmex wrote:
| Hi,
|
| Sorry, had to stop the free plan for now. The traffic got so
| high I was unable to sustain the cost myself of letting
| everyone do free testing.
| solardev wrote:
| Understandable. Thanks for the response! In that case, a few
| more screenshots or videos of the process would be nice.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| I do not like this at all. Why? What is the need for this? How is
| using even the most minimal amount of energy and computing time
| worth making a child feel like his drawing alone is not enough?
| Something that turns what was uniquely his/hers to when is not
| theirs?
|
| Can we not just share time with our children without the constant
| push of a third person (tech) getting in the middle of our
| relationship?
| tadeegan wrote:
| Did the t-rex snort the lava off the volcano? badass!
| ck45 wrote:
| This reminds me remotely of a German startup that offered
| handmade plush toys from drawings. The page
| (https://www.ellapaul.de/) unfortunately returns a 404
| armelssartist wrote:
| Is there any way to get support? Either the animations don't work
| (eg things are added in front of the picture) or I get "unable to
| process video" but nothing can be done afterwards
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(page generated 2024-12-28 23:01 UTC)