stroughtonsmith, (edited )
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

Midjourney v6’s new text feature is kinda fun — it does a much better job of integrating readable text into generated images

#midjourney

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

The level of photorealism is kinda incredible. You have to really start pixel-peeping to try and figure out whether this is a real image or not

(It's not)

smgalante,
@smgalante@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith Tim Theroux?

MuseumShuffle,
@MuseumShuffle@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith You're killing me Steve. My sub just expired and I said I was going to wait a while to renew. 🤣

finestructure,
@finestructure@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith Remarkable. It even has what looks like realistic distortion from the glasses' lenses. The only thing that’s noticeable after looking at it for a while is that his left hand would have to be reeeeeally long, given that his left forearm isn't angling up.

palaniraja,
@palaniraja@mastodon.social avatar

@finestructure @stroughtonsmith also left hinge stem/temple of the eyeglass style is different from the right one, left ear v right ear. Just few more iterations to do a symmetry on human features i guess

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

The next Jurassic Park movie? No, just AI…

samerfarha,
@samerfarha@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should."

chrispwalsh,

@stroughtonsmith

Clever girl!

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

That famous Pixar scene where the ChatGPT guy stares in disbelief at the Siri guy failing to toggle the light switch.

…maybe a bit of a stretch, but the image looked too good to not post. These characters and their personalities feel like they could go straight into production; how could you not include AI generation in your concept art process or mood boards?

rdela,
@rdela@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith Hair Force Siri

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

Midjourney v6 is much better at producing comic panels, and can even insert things like speech bubbles with the text you provide

mikey,
@mikey@neovibe.app avatar

@stroughtonsmith I can't wait to try v6!! Sometimes I just spend hours playing around in midjourney.

thomholwerda,
@thomholwerda@exquisite.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith Copyright infringement ahoy!

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@thomholwerda it can go in the same bin as patents 🚮

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

It's also got a whole lot better at generating pixel art, or at least what could pass for pixel art at a glance

BoscoZebra,
@BoscoZebra@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith Looks rotoscoped to me.

Still neat.

How do you access Midjourney? I'm not into the whole algorithmically created art - so I'm not familiar with the actual use - is it a website or some sort of application?

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@BoscoZebra you access it via Discord and logging in at midjourney.com. You can see the newbie channels and watch other peoples' prompts and images go by which might help figure it out

BoscoZebra,
@BoscoZebra@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith Ah! I'm off and running, I appreciate you taking the time. Hope you have a great Christmas!

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

One thing that's very evident now is that if you are a famous creative your voice, your likeness, your art style and more are all going to live on for public use looong after you’re gone. Donated to the gestalt. Digital ‘resurrections’ used to be the realm of high end visual effects studios, but now anybody can make Freddie Mercury sing All I Want For Christmas Is You. When AI-generated video catches up to this level of fidelity, we're in danger 😂

Meanwhile, here's a Dinotopia-inspired scene

bennusekabel,
@bennusekabel@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith God I haven't thought about Dinotopia in SOOOOOO long. And now I need to pass it on to my kids.

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@bennusekabel he's still selling signed copies on the website, iirc

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

Finding the magic keywords and phrases for compelling AI-generated art is incredibly satisfying. Every piece is like discovering something that nobody else in the world has seen before. You can easily spend hours crafting and iterating on a prompt to get the effect you're looking for; it seems silly to maintain that there's no effort or creative skill involved

A 90’s-style magazine ad for painting software like you might remember. Face of a woman in a hat, gradually more abstract as you get further from the focal point. Colorful, painterly
Colorful playdough shapes, rainbows, fruit
Cross-sectional architectural engineering drawing of a giant robot

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

Midjourney is so much better at generating fake album art than it was a year ago, when I did all my marketing images

image/png
image/png
image/png

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

Midjourney can be pretty consistent in style between runs, which makes it easier to see it as a useful tool in creative work. I’d love to see what comes out of a game jam that really embraces AI art

Pixel art scene. A mountainous reddish planet with low shrubs and towering mushrooms. Two planetoids appear in the sky
Pixel art scene. Rocky desert, cactii. You can imagine the tumbleweed
Pixel art scene. Ocean spire city at the base of a rocky cliff, rough sea, red cloudy sky

rixantos,
@rixantos@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith looks good! I'm still using lexica.art as it too has a consistent style, probably should checkout Midjourney.

brennansv,
@brennansv@sfba.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith Tech like Midjourney and Unreal Engine world building is already so impressive. As the tech converges for producing movies and real-time video game experiences it is going to be pretty powerful.

Typically it takes months to create a set. For the Fifth Element a scaled model was created for the city and miniatures were made for other pieces. Some of these pieces could be built with an assist from AI and then either digitally rendered or 3D printed to quickly create miniatures to make it come alive on camera in a matter of days instead of months.

https://youtu.be/WAi7N-3pyCo?si=yktW0YtTm3Eej6X7

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

I guess we've taught the AIs that we really frickin like heavy depth of field, huh? It’s almost difficult to get Midjourney to not output something like this 😂

A white boxer running along an Irish mountain trail
A group of Ancient Roman military men
A row of helmeted Ancient Roman soldiers, in profile, blurring into the distance

petehare,
@petehare@mastodon.xyz avatar

@stroughtonsmith are you using it via Discord? All these are really making me want to play around with it

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@petehare Discord, yeah. On the subscription you can prompt via DM rather than in the public lobby. It's a lot of fun!

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar
stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

Midjourney's take on 'podracing' is my new favorite thing

image/jpeg
image/jpeg
image/jpeg

williamtm,
@williamtm@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith I wish those were portrait. They’d make epic phone wallpapers!

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

I scrolled back through my Midjourney history to remind myself what its generated images used to look like, about 18 months ago. The difference to today (second pic) is astonishing

image/jpeg

CTD,
@CTD@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith hmm. Maybe it’s time to renew subscription if v6 is significantly improved

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

Blimey. These ain’t movie stills, this is Midjourney’s attempt at ‘live action Luca’

image/jpeg
image/jpeg
image/jpeg

petecarr,
@petecarr@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith I’m glad that my commercial photography is based on the idea of documenting things my clients do, because YIKES!

stroughtonsmith, (edited )
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

Re-running last year's prompts (Midjourney v2) in Midjourney v6:

"a vector illustration of david bowie performing on stage, bright colors”

How do you quantify this kind of progress?

bgrinter,
@bgrinter@mastodon.sdf.org avatar

@stroughtonsmith replace with Paul McCartney and see if it knows he’s left handed

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@bgrinter ask and you shall receive

gruber,
@gruber@mastodon.social avatar
stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

"The weeknd in the style of sin city, painterly”

Again, huge leap forward in v6

Razor sharp, high fidelity painted illustrations of the weeknd on a red background, Midjourney v6

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar
mknepprath,
@mknepprath@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith 😮‍💨

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

As a topic, I think this stuff is fascinating. If you're not keeping up with the bleeding edge on Midjourney, you would totally miss the huge improvements that have come to image generation since you last ran something like DiffusionBee on a Mac. It has gone from 'silly little images' to what I would say are stunning works of art and demonstrations of capability. I have no idea what this tech looks like one year from now, never mind ten

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

To get a feel for what kind of keywords will make for great Midjourney output, I like to pick an artist name and ask for a 'landscape by <name>’. A really basic prompt — effectively ‘when I say this person's name, what comes to mind?’; makes for an easy comparison point. Oftentimes generated art looks nothing like what that artist would actually create, but still conjures distinctive reusable style elements

Names used here:

  1. David Hockney
  2. Takashi Murakami
  3. Yayoi Kusama
  4. Kara Walker

Abstract colorful shapes, thin line art style. Lots of circles and flowers and floating elements, pale background colors on an off-white
Beautifully-vibrant colorful elements making up a landscape, lots of little circles or ring shapes, mushroom-y, coral-like. As if painted by an octopus
Two tone blotchy inky black on an off-white background. Marshy, lakeside, dark foreground shapes, trees, fishing boats, people, less distinct into the distance

nuthatch,

@stroughtonsmith “as if painted by an octopus” 😆

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@nuthatch I am slowly descending into madness trying to translate some of these to alt text

bonney,
@bonney@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith Love Midjourney, hate hate hate Discord 🙃

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

I can't trust myself to not run in /relax mode, I would (and do.) burn through all my monthly credits in a day 😂

ezekiel,
@ezekiel@hachyderm.io avatar

@stroughtonsmith what is /relax?

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@ezekiel infinite generations per month at the cost of speed

MuseumShuffle,
@MuseumShuffle@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith @ezekiel How much extra time are we talking when that's turned on?

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@MuseumShuffle @ezekiel most things start fairly instantly, but sometimes a minute or two. I queue up a bunch at a time

MuseumShuffle,
@MuseumShuffle@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith @ezekiel Oh wow, that's not bad at all. Thanks for the tip. I will absolutely use that.

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar
stroughtonsmith, (edited )
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

Midjourney still lets you generate with each of its model versions, which is kinda neat! So I ran off the same prompt — "a boxer dog” — in the six major versions. V1 was released February 2022, V6 is the new alpha hotness

(Bonus points for the tiny doggy boxing glove)

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

A tip that's new to me; Midjourney's /describe function can take an uploaded image and spit out prompts that could guide it back to making more. And you can use this to reverse-engineer images it has generated in the past, of styles or elements you don't recognize, to figure out how to make follow-ups.

There are so many features buried in slash commands that I might never come across

image/jpeg
image/jpeg
image/jpeg

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar
stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar
donaldhays,
@donaldhays@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith Well now I want a kobold movie, too.

So long as they're puppets.

I love the candles on their heads in the second image. Was that part of the prompt, or is the cultural impact of World of Warcraft on the idea of kobolds just that strong?

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@donaldhays not part of the prompt! 'No take candle!' must be baked in

DavidAnson,
@DavidAnson@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith Tagline: Ko-boldly go where no one has gone before

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

Lesser-remembered thread in Love Actually

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

Just a happy little guy

collette,
@collette@sfba.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith beautiful! Your art?

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@collette all AI!

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar
dmnelson,
@dmnelson@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith 3 is my pick

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar
jfred,

@stroughtonsmith Second one is a great computing vibe especially because of:

> It’s in the wilderness for some reason

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@jfred oh that's not the actual prompt, that's me reverse engineering the image for alt text readers 😂

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

Midjourney prompting incidentally feels like a great way to validate your alt text descriptions. Alt text for art is incredibly difficult, and I agonize over describing some of these outputs, but if you can describe something with words and have it come back and re-create basically the right image, then you know you're communicating the right concepts to paint a picture in somebody else's head. And that feels like a neat little superpower

neilbruder,

@stroughtonsmith Does the “for some reason” make a different to the output or is that just for added fun? :)

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@neilbruder I like to have fun with how I write my alt text

drwhitt,
@drwhitt@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith “neat little superpower” is so, so succinct

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

This little dude needs a name

gh0sti,
@gh0sti@mastodon.social avatar
mtynior,
waynedixon,
@waynedixon@mastodon.social avatar
supergarv,
@supergarv@phpc.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith Splorona

rjfaas,

@stroughtonsmith I don’t know but I want a squishable plush of it.

atobsmith,
@atobsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith Sunsplash

igorcferreira,

@stroughtonsmith Bartolomeu or Blob for short

JPZ,

@stroughtonsmith Splatto!

czottmann,
@czottmann@norden.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith Looks like a “Hank" to me, please don't ask me to explain that because I couldn’t 😂

BoscoZebra,
@BoscoZebra@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith Sploogie

alexmcroberts,

@stroughtonsmith it’s name is sploop.

jimmylittle,
@jimmylittle@hachyderm.io avatar

@stroughtonsmith #3 is objectively the best, but #4 has my heart.

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@jimmylittle I have so many alternates 😂

WTL,
@WTL@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith First one, I think. 🤣

jason,
@jason@logoff.website avatar

@stroughtonsmith what you’re showing me in these threads is how garbage composition is in these things. It’s completely lifeless

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@jason yeah I composed that one from a couple different images, but thanks ☺️

vandal,
@vandal@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith Just wait a couple of years and you'll probably be able to make it yourself through AI. No more studios needed!

MrNuclearMonster,
@MrNuclearMonster@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith Do you have any issues with it plagiarizing the work of living artists?

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@MrNuclearMonster nope. No more than any person who I might ask to paint something inspired by an existing artist or work; it's not even close to a 1:1 copy, ‘plagiarism' is a huge stretch. I find that whole argument ridiculous. It's a tool — use it or don’t

MrNuclearMonster,
@MrNuclearMonster@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith It’s definitely not a 1:1 copy yet, many of the people in the “art” are either slightly off or extremely off as you noted but it seems like it could be close enough to fool people and you’ve demonstrated it’s getting “better” at the job. I wish we didn’t live in a capitalist system that’s gonna punish living artists but it sure seems like it’s going to punish them over time as their art is fed into it and the machine improves at reproducing and plagiarizing the original art.

cabel,
@cabel@panic.com avatar

@stroughtonsmith Man the technology is truly interesting but I just will never ever get over how fundamentally gross it is to ask a computer to copy the work of a (living!) artist and being excited as the computer gradually does a better and better job of copying

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@cabel I mean, if I wanted to copy the work of a living artist, I could right-click the original and 'save as’ 😅 If I want to generate something new, inspired by the original, that's a whole other thing

cabel,
@cabel@panic.com avatar

@stroughtonsmith Yes, totally! At least a Save As is an exact copy of an intentional, intended work of art, existing only thanks to the creation of a skill and style forged over an individual’s literal lifetime, a singular vision that would not exist otherwise. The second one is the gross one

bgrinter,
@bgrinter@mastodon.sdf.org avatar

@stroughtonsmith @cabel does AI art still get inspiration from the artist signature too or was that fixed?

https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/signatures-lensa-ai-portraits-1234649633/

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@bgrinter @cabel it’ll mimic a signature, sure. The art it learned from has signatures, so it hallucinates up nonsense signatures to put on top of AI art. If it’s seen a ton of a particular signature, it might even be able to approximate that too — it’s real good at the Apple logo, for example. They’re all just features and traits with weights in the end. It’s not like it houses a database of art inside the model

rwitherspoon,

@stroughtonsmith i’m so glad you do these posts. As somebody that doesn’t have one of these AI generation accounts but likes to keep tabs on it, I find this super helpful.

stevex,
@stevex@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith InvokeAI runs well on a Mac with enough ram, and civitai.com makes it easy to find and download models. Can do pretty amazing stuff with no subscription required.

bondo,

@stroughtonsmith Before Midjourney v1.

haifisch,
@haifisch@nso.group avatar

@stroughtonsmith its impressive... say... take a single frame here, could Midjourney or another AI make a short scene given additional prompts for direction?

danielg88,
@danielg88@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith Wow! They look really good
but please no more live actions

palaniraja,
@palaniraja@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith Santa mozzarella!

DavidNielsen,
@DavidNielsen@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith Silenico Bruno!

vancura,
@vancura@mastodon.design avatar

@stroughtonsmith You can try a prompt with “powerless fridge,” “screaming men,” and “food in danger” to make you feel a bit better :)

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@vancura I did try "the consequences of an internet outage”

vancura,
@vancura@mastodon.design avatar

@stroughtonsmith That’s cool! I love the painting-ish form. I think I should pay a monthly fee as a Christmas gift for myself and play a bit with it, too. Merry Christmas, Steve!

vancura,
@vancura@mastodon.design avatar

@stroughtonsmith Here is my “Vančugen” GPT take on “powerless fridge,” “screaming men,” and “food in danger.” I hope this is not what you experienced today.

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@vancura glorious!

unsoluble,
@unsoluble@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith Could you share a sample of the kind of prompt you’re using for these? I played around with v6 a bit today and wasn’t nearly as successful.

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@unsoluble any particular image?

unsoluble,
@unsoluble@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith Oh, any really! How about the cowboy Gandalf there?

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@unsoluble try this

unsoluble,
@unsoluble@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith Oh wild, so a very broad prompt all things considered. I might be too used to being overly chatty with DALLE3 😅 Thanks!

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@unsoluble I like to start broad and then specify when I stumble upon a good keyword

cobyalmond,

@stroughtonsmith wow this stuff has come a long way

tantramar,
@tantramar@nojack.easydns.ca avatar

@stroughtonsmith feels more like curation than creation, though. It’s not nothing, but it’s nothing-adjacent.

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@tantramar I don't see it that way. The director will get top credit on a movie, but a lot of other peoples' work actually made it

t9mike,

@stroughtonsmith @tantramar those actors writers etc were willing participants who gave consent (and paid!). Artists feeding the algorithm have not given any consent.

tantramar,
@tantramar@nojack.easydns.ca avatar

@t9mike @stroughtonsmith The ethics of these services are laughably bad.

I can only wonder whether my own artwork has been ingested; I know that if it has, it’s been done without my knowledge, consent, or compensation.

rixantos,
@rixantos@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith agreed! Try finding a prompt to make a sweet abstract wallpaper ... it's not easy!

mikecane,
@mikecane@mas.to avatar

@stroughtonsmith All the AI artists are on X. They've been sharing prompts and tips for months.

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@mikecane I saw somebody over on Threads joke ‘the patrons of the nazi bar are nazis’, and I think that sums up my feelings 👌

palaniraja,
@palaniraja@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith wait the eyebrows are not matching the reaction? open eye should have the curved eyebrows.

Going by The Rock’s image from wwe era though

dmnelson,
@dmnelson@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith I like the vibe though. How about a feral Jenna Ortega, raised by and living with velociraptors.

i_jason,
@i_jason@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith noob question. What’s the easiest way to try this out?

stroughtonsmith,
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

@i_jason midjourney.com, sign in with a Discord account, you can try prompts in the free public rooms for newcomers

i_jason,
@i_jason@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith thank you. I’ll give that a go

jhuenne,

deleted_by_author

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  • stroughtonsmith,
    @stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

    @jhuenne I think several games are already using AI-generated assets, text, audio, or upscaling techniques. I think AI-assisted assets are just going to become the norm, and far from reducing costs, I think they're going to increase the expectations of output/scale from studios. More assets, content, dialogue expected for the same budget as before

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