Tag: ai

Fridazed and confused…

Wiwohka8 Comments

It’s been an unusual week, to say the least. Things seemed normal, at first. We had our annual inspection of the apartment which went fine, and didn’t last longer than about 5 minutes. I think they’re actually wanting to just make sure we weren’t trashing their property. After living here for the last year, I can fully understand why.

Not fifteen minutes after the inspection ended, someone on the fourth floor decided to light the garbage room on fire, setting off the entire floor’s fire suppression ceiling faucets, thereby drenching every apartment below, and nearby. We had responders crawling all over the building, and water flowing freely from light fixtures, as well as power outlets. Needless to say, we pulled all our computers free of any plugins… and then waited for the water to stop.

Eventually we stopped leaking everywhere, but it took a full two days of de-humidifiers humming nonstop in all the hallways, to help the drying process. We are still waiting for maintenance to get to us, in order to replace the bad light fixtures and outlets that were affected by the water. Thankfully, we really didn’t have any damage to our personal belongings, but it did scare me enough to do an updated triple back-up of all my literary and illustration work. There’s far too much material to just do over again, before I’m ever even able to submit them to someone for publishing.

That last word, publishing, has me headed to the next issue I’ve been mulling over… trying to produce a manuscript that might rival all those new fangled ai editing and content creating applications. We now have to compete with computer generated books. I woke this morning to a commercial offering a program that will write all your ebooks for you from start to finish… it’s kind of sickening to me, if I’m to be honest.

If everyone is filling their carts with no-brainer e-books, what are us real authors left to work with? How on earth am I to get these books into readers hands, if they don’t care to look beyond their little electronic brain suckers?

I feel truly sad for all those amazing and fantastic authors out there, who slaved away to create such beautiful works of art, in literary form. They were the real trailblazers for most of us wordsmiths, and they didn’t need a smart phone to do it! Will anyone ever put proper guidelines, rules, and stipulations to how much we should use a computer to do our thinking, talking, acting, singing, writing, and surviving this world. Guess what folks? A computer is only meant for housing usable information for us to access when necessary, but the computer doesn’t think, feel, or have any awareness of itself, beyond what someone programmed it to believe.

Sorry, but that commercial really rubbed me the wrong way. I don’t disagree with the helpful usability that modern technology affords us, including some areas of ai technology. The problem I have is the lemming mentality that much of society has begun to propagate. That means when one person jumps in a particular direction, and everyone in their proximity chooses to jump along with them, just so as not to be left behind.

Seriously, are we in that much of a hurry to dumb ourselves down, and allow government, news media, and most of TikTok to regulate how we think, act, and behave? No Thanks!

Anyway, now that I got that off my chest, how about we all celebrate the end of the work week, yaaaayyyyyyyyyyy! Gooooo Frrrriiiidddaaaayyyyy!!!!!

I shall now head into an Icarus adventure, donning my high powered Sniper Rifle, and collecting my pack of wolves, in order to do some hunting for our prospecting crew. Have no fear… my puppies will keep me safe. Plus, I ride an arctic Moa named Kevin. If he doesn’t like you, he’ll swing his neck and smack you with his head. It’s rather unpleasant for whatever predator thought he’d be an easy meal.

Tuesday Tinkering…

Wiwohka4 Comments

You know, it’s much harder than you’d think to create images of myself in miniature… and even harder to make them look anything like me, at all!

I don’t know why it’s such a big deal to me, anyway, but it is.

For some reason, whenever I work with this program to generate images of the little model I’d created, it still requires me to go back and alter not only her eye color, but her hair color and style, as well. I get very irritated by this little daily detour the ai tries to take me on, so it’s time to make an actual avatar, or character, if you will.

I got to thinking about it yesterday, when I’d attempted to generate an image of myself for the daily prompt. Asking Norbert to create an image of myself dressed in a childish outfit, actually created a random image of me, but in small form.

It was actually kind of funny at first, but then I got to wondering if I could reproduce a similar image of myself for creating a child sized avatar. First of all, the child looks kind of mean. Secondly, I’ve no idea why it put me in that ridiculous pajama get-up!

So, I tried a different scene, with different clothing and actions, just to see if it might improve things.

Nope!

All I ended up with was a really creepy image of one of the von Trapp family singers from The Sound of Music…

Quickly, I realized that it would require an actual child in order to create a valid childlike appearance in the image’s rendered. So, going back to our little model of mini Wiwohka, I asked a similar question to the ai, and this is what it offered me…

While she is an adorable little girl, as you can see in the image, her hair goes blond and her eyes go any color but blue!

Now, OpenArt recently added in a new feature where you can chat with the ai, rather than trying to manually edit the image on the art board. In truth, it’s kind of like leading a child through an art class… very slowly.

I first asked for blue eyes and brown hair,

Now she looks like a small teacher, ewwwww, no! So, I asked Norbert to soften her hair…

Uhhh, no! Please shorten it…

What is this, Shirley Temple hour? Don’t get me wrong here, as I love that actress, but I’m not her!

So, I took the first image of the child and took it to my art board, just to adjust the eye color, which worked better for what I was looking for…

From here, I went back to Norbert for another go, but this time I chose to make mini Wiwohka her own beautiful self instead of trying to copy me! Why? Because, I’m not that little girl anymore, so of course it’s going to be an impossibility for me to duplicate the Now ME into an image of the Then ME. Hopefully, I’ve not just talked you into a giant circle. Sorry for that.

Before I finalize her into the actual avatar, I thought to ask what your take on her personality and image in this next photo…

I tweaked a few colors for comparison, but I can’t decide which is better. Your feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Til next week, thank you in advance for any feedback, and I’ll do a whole fun photo reveal for her… hugs

Tuesday Tinkering…

Wiwohka7 Comments

Norbert is in a timeout!

I’m already having to do his job, so it’s best he be in timeout, rather than scrapping the whole project out of frustration. At this point in the game, the ai simply cannot comprehend how to create an image with more than one subject character.

Without paying to upgrade both characters, or paying to rebuild two entirely different characters with the new upgraded features, I’m still left with an editing board to copy, cut, paste, and/or delete any given image.

If nothing else, I’m stubborn, so there’s that!

I refuse to allow Tilly, nor any of my other characters, to be swapped out for differing other ai generated pictures… I’ll not stand for it!

Let me show you what the (now in timeout) ai sought to produce for my requests, and that way you cans see why I refuse to compromise with Norbert.

This is what Henry should look like,

… see what I mean? Now, this is our Henry!

And, this is our Tilly,

In my opinion, she is unmistakable, with her soft doe-like eyes, those adorable ears, and the gentleness that always shows on her face, as well as the way she carries herself. Tilly is just Tilly, ya know? I can’t think of any other way to explain it.

Now, watch what happened when I prompted Norbert to put them in the same image:

As adorable as this young couple may be, while exchanging their vows… they aren’t anything like Henry or Tilly. The ai recognizes the two characters as themselves in any given individual query I ask of it. But the moment that I ask it to combine the two, Norbert goes on some random field trip to two entirely different characters, of which I do not recognize in any fashion!

The new upgraded video creation, is still far off from being any good, unless I simply allow the ai to take over… and that AIN’T gonna happen!

Until further notice, all my tinkering will be strictly my tweaks and adjustments… NOT Norbert’s!

It may take me more effort, along with extra time at the editing board, but I’ll do whatever I must to honor each individual character’s true self, that is their visual integrity…

It’s still far from perfect, but it’s workable. We’ll get there…

Tuesday Tinkering…

WiwohkaLeave a comment

Guess what? Norbert got an upgrade!

Well, OpenArt was actually what got a facelift, but I like to refer to the AI by a fictional name, just for fun.

Anyhow, one of the changes to the program was an upgraded visual for all my characters… that means, more realism and more accuracy. I love it! Of course I’ve no intention of paying for a silly account upgrade, but they did give me a freebie, so I chose Squagon.

Our tiny flying squirrel has never been the same since the switch to this AI application, so I gambled with my freebie character upgrade, and look what we got…

SUCCESS!!!

This new upgrade made it possible to put life back into our little guy, real fur and all. Plus, no matter what I tell him to do, the program now keeps the character perfectly in tact. No more free range, off the reservation, loose AI interpretations of what I ask… at least, with the visuals. It still tries to change what I ask for it to do, in some futile hope that I’ll like it’s version instead of mine, but I enjoy telling it off. I’ll have to make all new characters for each of them, but it’s cheaper than paying for the next tier of membership.

There are also a number of improvements on the beta version of putting two characters into the same scene. It’s still not good, but it is better than before…

They’ve even made improvements to the storyline side of things, like the short videos…

I didn’t like how the AI opted to change faces by the end of the video, but it still felt like somewhat of a success, in and of itself. Don’t think for one moment that I’ll settle for anything less than a true Tilly and Henry. This was just the first of many tests and trial runs, but I don’t mind, really. It gives me time to improve my own skills, utilizing ai for my illustrations without letting ai change my direction, if that makes any sense.

For now, it’s back to the drawing board, or rather, back to the ai program. I intend to become quite proficient with this program, but let it be made quite clear that I am NOT an artist, but simply a writer who enjoys bringing visuals into my writing. I think it helps with introducing an atmosphere that enhances the readers ability to see and feel what I do when I write. Trust me, if I had an actual publisher with an actual illustrations department, I’d leave the graphic visuals to the pros. But, til things change in this department, OpenArt is my go to.

Tinkering is by far the best way for me to become more proficient in the editing department, as well as sharing my progress with you.

My hope is that I’ll have some better pieces of video and images to share by next week so that you, me, and Norbert, can view the improvements made. I think I want to tackle both Osrig and Peanut, as they are both a battle with Norbert’s abilities. The ai program really seems to struggle with creations that are human, vs, fictional, or animal combinations. My characters are nearly all part human or animal, mixed with a fictional imaginary type creature. That’s why I love them so! These characters each have a life of their own, which I strive to keep true to their personalities, not just what Norbert thinks.

Well, that’s it for now. Maybe next week will have some real successes, but I’ll probably show you the failures, as well. Sometimes the mistakes are better than the perfect outcomes, wouldn’t you agree?