Alright, so today I’m gonna walk you through my little experiment: trying to recreate something that resembles the epic Lennox Lewis vs. Mike Tyson fight using some basic AI tools. Don’t expect miracles, I’m no pro, just a guy tinkering around.
First things first, I needed some source material. I spent way too long digging up old footage, interviews, anything I could find of those two fighters. I wanted to get a feel for their styles, their stances, their signature moves. This was mostly a YouTube deep dive, honestly.
Then, I hopped onto a few AI platforms. I messed around with some image generators, trying to get decent likenesses of Lewis and Tyson. This was a pain. The AI kept wanting to add weird artifacts or merge their faces. It took a lot of prompting and tweaking to get something even remotely usable.
Next, I needed to animate them. I found this one online tool that lets you upload images and then puppeteer them with keyframes. It was clunky as hell, but it got the job done. I spent hours trying to mimic their boxing styles. Tyson’s bobbing and weaving was particularly tricky.
After that, I pieced together some fight sequences. I’d animate a jab, a hook, an uppercut, and then stitch them together in a video editor. The transitions were rough, the movements were jerky, but hey, it was progress.
To add some spice, I tried to generate some crowd noise and commentary using another AI tool. It wasn’t great. The crowd sounded like a swarm of bees, and the commentary was mostly nonsensical. But, I layered it in anyway, just for the effect.
The whole thing was a mess. The animations were stiff, the visuals were janky, and the audio was atrocious. But, seeing those two kinda-sorta-resembling fighters throwing digital punches at each other was oddly satisfying.
What I learned:
- AI tools are cool, but they’re not magic. You still need a ton of manual work to get decent results.
- Animation is hard. I have a newfound respect for animators.
- Sound design is also hard. Making something sound realistic is way tougher than it looks.
Would I do it again? Maybe. It was a fun way to kill a weekend and learn a few things. But next time, I might try a different fight. Maybe Ali vs. Frazier? We’ll see.
