Pika 1.5's new surreal special effects let users create videos that bend the laws of physics

Pika (Labs), a leading AI-powered video generation platform, recently launched Pika 1.5, a major update that brings new cinematic shots, character moves, and what the company calls Pikaffects: animated special effects that radically depart from photorealism to let users explode, melt, crush, inflate, or even cakeify any object they want.

Pikaffects will have a dedicated button that brings up the available effects: explode it, melt it, crush it, inflate it, and cake-ify it. Once the effect is chosen, Pika 1.5 attempts to identify an object in the reference image that will be subjected to the effect. For some effects, like the squish, cake-ify, and crush effects, Pika generates additional props to interact with the animated object, such as hands, hydraulic presses, and knives.

The new cinematic shots offer enhanced motion control, enabling users to leverage camera effects like Bullet Time, Dolly Left, and Vertigo. Moreover, users can create five-second clips featuring realistic movements such as running, skateboarding, and flying with the new character moves selection.

While the subscription pricing remains unchanged, each video generation now requires 15 credits, reflecting the increased computational demands of the new model. Only paid users retain access to Pika 1.0 features; the model to which features including lip sync, automatic sound effects (powered by ElevenLabs), upscaling, and video e.