A recent article on CNN pointed me in the direction of some very interesting new technology. I'd seen a previous article about Artificial Intelligence making art earlier this year and been intrigued but little else. This CNN article talked about a guy making a movie using the technology so I dug a little deeper out of curiosity.
The main tech in use here is something called "Midjourney" which is a very nifty app that turns a string of text into a series of pictures. From there you can either make variations of one or more of the produced images or scale them up to get more detail.
Something like "high rise buildings buried in sand sci-fi" results in this:
Each image can be used to make further variations
They give you about 25 freebies, (it's based on processing time, so you might get more or less than that) and then you have to sign up at one of a couple of membership tiers. It's probably just as well that they limit you to that small amount or I'd still be making pictures instead of telling you about it. It's bloody addictive.
You can add terms like "moody" or "oil painting" to get results that skew in different directions. What's really remarkable is that there's no set list of terms. You're imagination (and a general directive to stay PG13 and avoid offensive imagery) is the only parameter. You work in a sort of chat room (no chatting required if you don't want to) and see the images created by other people while yours are being processed. I saw images generated by a single word and others prompted by a paragraph long entry. The styles and subjects are extraordinary and almost as interesting as doing your own work.
After entering my Three Day novel this year, I find myself anticipating self-publishing it sooner or later. To that end, I tried my hand at a cover for it. It's a sci-fi murder mystery that is based around concepts of quantum entanglement and teleportation. The whole point of Midjourney is that your creations are yours to use as you like, unless you're creating as employee of a large company in which case you need to purchase a commercial membership.
Any preferences?
My first effort. You get neat results by adding the word "Giger" to a string of text
The mood here is very "dark sci-fi" and looks like a poster for a movie I'd enjoy
This has a more "weird science" vibe
This reminds me of a bunch of Heinlein novels I read in the 80s
I know which one I like and of course I actually know what's in the book I'm looking to eventually publish, but I'd love some feedback on these. I may actually take one or two and work some Photoshop on it to get a little closer to what I'm after.
Anyhow, go to the Google machine and enter "midjourney" to try your hand at it.
Fair warning: This was one of the most annoying sites I've ever signed up for with multiple verification prompts and more before you get to the fun. Plus, a slight learning curve to actually get the thing to work. I recommend leaving the "Getting started" page open in a tab while you go through the sign up so that you have it handy once you actually get into the Discord chat room to start making art.
And don't blame me if you wind up spending $10 a month for a membership. You've been warned.
The other thing that struck me about this site is the potential to unlock creativity.
I'm currently in training at a new job, so I'm not going to sign up and start (yet another) new project at the moment, but once my life settles a bit, I think I'd like to play in this sandbox. I have an idea for a visual novel that I think would be amazing, but while I can draw and paint, my skills are amateur and far too slow to satisfactorily tackle something like that, at least not quickly enough to finish in my own lifetime. With Midjourney, I can see a way to produce images to enhance a story at a pace that will make it possible to tell an effective story that y'all might get to see one day.
Stay tuned. Much more on this to come.
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