How to guide – AI Mortal Kombat Video

Get over here!

In this blogpost I’ll show you how I created the viral Mortal Kombat video of Famous 🇧🇪 Belgians 🇧🇪

This was a long process of trial and error.

I tried many different ways but found a very easy solution that delivered great results.

The process is roughly divided in these steps:

Decide on who you want the characters to be
Look for images of your characters and existing Mortal Kombat characters
Describe through AI vision
1. your chosen characters
2. existing Mortal Kombat characters
Use Midjourney (or other capable image generator) to create characters using the descriptions from the previous step
Use video generator to bring the character to life
Bring it all together in Photoshop and Premiere (Download those files at the end)

Let’s discuss these steps and the logic behind them in a little more detail.

The end result

How to make this video

Detailed explanation below 👇

Step by step guide

1. Decide on your characters

First thing you want to do is decide on who you want your characters to be. I created a list of famous Belgians. I think you need some consistency ion your list of characters to create an interesting video. Choosing to broad a category muddles the idea of the video. Choose a category of people you think will be interesting to face off against each other.

Next very important part is making sure that the characters have an interesting attribute. This can be something they invented, from their profession, a pet, something in their physical appearance etc.

It’s important because that makes them instantly recognizable. Image generation in the way we’ll use it doesn’t always provide great recognizable characters in terms of facial features, so giving them an weapon or other attribute helps.

Interested in an AI workshop?

If our project resonates with you, reach out.

We offer amazing workshops.

2. Look for images of your character

You’ll need 2 sets of photos:

1. Find photos of the real life people you want to feature.

2. You’ll also need Mortal Kombat characters that you want to use. You can find those on the official website or fan made artwork like this one from Xamoel on DeviantArt.

This is creative commons fan art, so not what the official characters look like exactly. I would use something like this, just to make sure I don’t use any licensable images.

3. Describe through AI vision

Next up is describing the photos and artwork you found.

This is the prompt you’ll need:

“ Describe this image as if it were created by a prompt ”

Let’s take an example.

Inside of ChatGPT we use this image and the above prompt and we get:

To clarify, this was the image and underneath the prompt and what we’re going to keep from it:

A powerful martial arts warrior stands in a commanding pose, glowing eyes radiating energy, surrounded by a mystical fiery aura shaped like a dragon symbol. He wears traditional Eastern-inspired clothing with intricate embroidery on his sleeves, a red sash around his waist, and long dark hair tied back with a headband. His hands are clasped in front of him, forming a fireball of energy between his palms. ~~The background features lush, mountainous terrain under a blue sky, blending natural beauty with magical power.~~ The scene conveys strength, mysticism, and heroic presence in a high-fantasy video game style.

Make sure to remove any references to the background. We don’t need those. Only the character description matters.

We will add our own background description to every character:

“ The background is black with embers and fire ”

Now let’s pick one of our chosen characters (like painter Jan Van Eyck) and mix him with this character.

I used MidJourney for this because it’s a great image generator for fantasy and it allows for very fast image generation of 4 images at the same time that way you can easily try again if you’re not happy with the result. Compared to ChatGPT or Flux or others that would also do the job but just a lot slower.

Aaaaaand one more thing: You also want to change the dimensions to 16 : 9

4. Use Midjourney to create the characters

Midjourney, ChatGPT and others give you the option to create an image and refer to a character that you want to depict in the image. This doesn’t just refer to facial features but also to the clothing of the character. This might interfere with what you have in mind for your mortal character. That’s something you can solve by only using a close up of the face.

In our case we choose the prompt we created from the Mortal Kombat character before and either mix it with an actual image OR with the text of what we want the character to look like.

In our example we’ll use a Mortal Kombat description prompt and a photo of the character we want to create. This is the easiest solution but doesn’t always work.

The Prompt

A powerful martial arts warrior stands in a commanding pose, glowing eyes radiating energy, surrounded by a mystical fiery aura shaped like a dragon symbol. He wears traditional Eastern-inspired clothing with intricate embroidery on his sleeves, a red sash around his waist, and long dark hair tied back with a headband. His hands are clasped in front of him, forming a fireball of energy between his palms. The background is black with embers and fire.The scene conveys strength, mysticism, and heroic presence in a high-fantasy video game style.

The image

The Result

Interested in an AI workshop?

If our project resonates with you, reach out.

We offer amazing workshops.

Some of the other MK players

Click on any of the images to see the prompt that was used to create it.

Some of these had Character Reference images attached as shown above.

Some were created with a very short prompt, others with very long prompts.

Often not everything that was requested in the prompt was actually shown. As long as I was happy with the result, I used the image. With AI you can’t be to picky with what you want.

The video features these characters

Pommelien Thijs – Belgian singer-actress
Jean-Marie Pfaff – Football goalkeeper
Meneer De Burgemeester – Children’s show character
Adolphe Sax – Saxophone inventor
Son of Man – Magritte painting
Jean-Claude Van Damme – Action movie star
Jan Van Eyck – Flemish painter
Kim Clijsters – Tennis champion
Frank Deboosere – Weather presenter
Erik Van Looy – TV host-director
Georges Lemaître – Big Bang theorist
Bart De Wever – Current Belgian PM
Tintin – Comic book character
Waffleman – made it up 🙂
Father Damien – Missionary
Zatte Rita – Flemish sitcom character

An evil muscular vains priest wielding a large, deadly metallic fan with sharp, blade-like edges, while his other hand is poised for battlestanding in a mortal kombat power pose. The background is full of stars and planets as if the big bang just happened. — Georges Lemaître

An evil mortal kombat character, extremely angry and holding a Tennis racket in a fighting pose, She wears an armored bikini with an armor belt filled with tennis balls, black ember background — Kim Clijsters

Evil mortal kombat character with huge green apple in front of face, you can only see the green apple, black ember background — Son of Man (Painting by Rene Margritte)

A mortal kombat character, a towering, muscular four-armed monster with golden-hued skin, wearing nothing but underwear, standing in an intimidating pose. In each of his four arms he has kitchen utensils, black ember background — Piet Huysentruyt

Evil Zombie Roman legionnaire with red shield and centurion helmet carrying an SPQR staff in a mortal kombat fight pose, black ember background — Bart De Wever

An extremely muscular man playing a saxophone with fire flying out of the saxophone in a mortal kombat power pose. The background is black with embers flying around. Everything is in full color. The man is standing still. The camera stands still. — Adolph Sax

A reptilian humanoid warrior clad in dark green and black ninja armor, standing in a battle stance. His muscular frame is accentuated by reinforced leather and metal plating on his shoulders, forearms, and legs. His skin is a vibrant shade of green with a scaly texture, and his hands and feet are clawed, resembling a lizard-like creature. He wields a flaming soccer ball as a weapon. standing in a mortal kombat power pose. The background is black with embers flying around — Jean-Marie Pfaff

An evil super muscular catholic zombie father with small round glasses is wielding a sharp wooden thorny weapon and standing in a mortal kombat power pose. The background is black with embers flying around. Everything is in full color. The man is standing still. The camera stands still. — Pater Damiaan

A fierce and battle-ready warrior with huge white teeth with a gap in the middle. He is clad in black and gold armor, standing in a powerful stance. You can see his huge crooked teeth that look weird. His outfit consists of a sleeveless armored vest with intricate gold detailing, layered over a dark, rugged bodysuit. His muscular arms are wrapped in leather bands, and his hands are covered with reinforced gauntlets. The warrior’s back is equipped with crossed weapons, adding to his lethal appearance. Wielding a huge sword standing in a mortal kombat power pose. The background is black with embers flying around. — Erik Van Looi

A mortal kombat character, looks drunk and holding a bottle of whiskey in a fighting pose, She wears an armored bikini. She has four muscular arms, black ember background — Jacky Lafon as Zatte Rita

A mortal kombat character, a towering, muscular woman holding Sai melee weapons in a fighting pose, She wears an armored bikini. She has four muscular arms, black ember background — Pommelien Thijs

An evil mortal kombat character, extremely angry and holding storm clouds in his hands that have thunder and lightening. His eyes have tornados in them. He's a superhero that can control the weather. black ember background — Frank De Boosere

A terrifying, monstrous mortal kombat warrior with a grotesque, deformed face featuring sharp, jagged teeth and deep scars. His muscular body is covered in fresh wounds, stitches, and protruding spikes, suggesting a history of brutal battles. — Jean-Claude Van Damme

A powerful lightning-wielding mortal kombat warrior wearing traditional martial arts armor. His glowing eyes radiate intense energy, and his hands channel bright blue sun rays, black ember background — Jan Van Eyck

Walter De Donder as Meneer De Burgemeester

These 4 images rolled out of MidJourney. I particularly like the second and fourth option.

I also tried ChatGPT with this prompt

Which gave this result:

Definitely a great job but it doesn’t have the same fantasy feel as Midjourney so I’ll stick to that for the time being.

5. Create a video

To create the video I used Kling A.I. 1.6 in Professional Mode. I access it through Replicate so I don’t have to purchase a subscription on Kling but can use them on a per video basis. I would highly recommend using Replicate for all your AI shenanigans 😃

The Prompt

Angry man creating a growing magic fireball in his hands. Flying embers and fire in the background. Static camera.

The image

The Result

Take into consideration that creating one 5 second video will cost you about €0.5

Not that much money but enough that you don’t want to iterate a lot.

In terms of Video prompting tips I would recommend:

Use short and to the point descriptions: If you make the prompt too long, most of what you write won’t get shown anyway.
Use simple terminology: for example, don’t say ‘fierce warrior’ but rather ‘angry warrior’. You’ll retain the same feel and the AI will understand your prompt much better.
Use ‘static camera’ in your prompt: Otherwise you’ll get a pans, zooms, rolling shots and much more camera angles you don’t need.
Describe the background: Clearly state how you want the background to be animated or it might be static.

Video prompt examples

Some example prompts to create these videos to show you how to create them.

Frank De Boosere: Evil man starts shooting thunder from his hands and laughing. Storm background.

Kim Klijsters: Doing a tennis serve with her tennis racket, fire ember background

Jean-Claude Van Damme: Muscular man starts boxing with fists showing his strength. he shows his ugly teeth. His scars and vains are pumping. embers fly in the background.

Zatte Rita: Woman drinks entire bottle of whiskey very fast, flying embers in the background

Pommelien Thijs: woman shakes her body and showing swords, embers fly around in the background. Static camera.

6. Bring it all together

I used Adobe Premiere and Adobe Photoshop. But other video editing software will of course work to. All files are to be found and included right here.

What else you’ll need:

1. The Player 1 highlighting tag that jump from 1 character to the next.