Using AI
Exploring OpenAI's ChatGPT & DALL-E
DALL-E delivered this beautiful picture after a simple prompt (something like 'Kirk and Spock in a loving embrace, Spock wears no shirt'). Note however that it got the captain's rank stripes wrong.
ChatGPT is a chatbot and virtual assistant developed by OpenAI and launched on November 30, 2022.
Based on large language models (LLMs), it enables users to refine and steer a conversation towards a desired length, format, style, level of detail, and language.
Successive user prompts and replies are considered at each conversation stage as context.
DALL-E, DALL-E 2, and DALL-E 3 are text-to-image models developed by OpenAI using deep learning methodologies to generate digital images from natural language descriptions known as "prompts".
Source; Wikipedia
You can tell DALL-E to 'try again' and the result will be more or less a variation on its previous offer.
This time the rank stripes (here on Spock's sleeve) are right, but Kirk is shown to be taller than Spock, which of course is incorrect. (Yes - and so is Kirk's chest hair.)
My prompt was something like 'Kirk and Spock on a beach, a romantic setting, Kirk in bathing trunks. After several tries / prompt adjustments I got this interesting result.
It presents several correct details which were not part of my prompt:
Spock in typical posture with his arms folded and with a fitting facial expression; Kirk is smiling in a beautiful contrast to Spock's attitude, his skin is shiny and - I must say I simply ADORE this little detail - it gave Kirk bathing trunks in blue & gold! There have to be K/S disciples at OpenAI.
Another example of my 'Kirk and Spock in a loving embrace' prompt.
It is one of many results showing at least one character looking in a strange direction which makes it look odd.
Note the ficticious department symbol on Spock's shirt.
Quite a lovely result with an interesting turn as it's a black & white pencil drawing (as requested by my prompt) but with a nice little addition:
We see Spock's left hand actually drawing the picture. Also nice to have this part in color, adding to the effect of the addition.
These pictures are the result of a night spent with DALL-E, prompt refinement after prompt refinement, until I finally saw what I had in mind.
I eventually used this set of beautiful illustrations for a video, you can find it on my Music & Videos page.
'Spock in a black robe' and some remarks as to the scenery and his age produced this amazing depiction of an older Spock.
DALL-E allows for every kind of style, just name it! Deepai.org also has lots of styles to choose from: I really like this image of Spock, also the coloring is quite beautiful.
To achieve the look you want however it may take quite some time and a lot of refined prompts.
There's a high probability that DALL-E changes the entire picture if you alter your previous prompt or ask it to try again with the original prompt. To keep this from happening it might be useful to mark an area of the picture you want to be altered, This is definitely about trial and error.
Spock in bed...ok! The comic style picture however reveals some limitations of AI as it's far less accurate when it comes to details it considers negligible: note the distorted imagery in the magazine Spock is reading.
A Vulcan for all Seasons...
Here are but a few examples of Deepai.org's different styles.
Pictures were created by using the same prompt:
'Spock as portrayed by Leonard Nimoy in his blue uniform'
Designing your own Action Figures with Deepai.org:
Using Deepai.org's Action Figure Generator, I tried to create images of Action Figures based on our beloved TOS bridge crew. It took me quite a while to get fairly good looking results, and here's what I came up with:
Mr. Spock
Uhura
Dr. McCoy
Mr. Scott
Mr. Sulu
Chekov
Captain Kirk
While the program does a decent job with the overall look of the figures, their posture and coloring (although it's not really precise and makes little variations here and there to the uniforms), it has its limitations when it comes to depicting details like hands. Even after post-production some hands / fingers simply look strange. There's definitely room for improvement here.
There are restrictions when using DALL-E to depict nudity, other tools like deepai.org may be more generous in this matter. But they also have restrictions, as you can see here:
The private parts are pretty much obscured and almost unrecognizable (no, that's NOT a Vulcan feature).
This is one of my favorite outcomes of AI-generated imagery so far:
An elderly Spock with a beautiful smile, looking at his beloved, no doubt.
And here we clearly see Leonard Nimoy's features which is simply catching. Sometimes AI just gets it right.
Like DALL-E, deepai.org sometimes will not let you see a likeliness to Leonard Nimoy's appearance, and asking specifically for it won't help much since DALL-E usually denies such requests, stating it might be a violation of the actor's rights, and deepai.org may have similar reasons.
And another example of obscured genitals... We'll probably never find out what these look like on a Vulcan.
An extremely accurate and moving 'pencil drawing' of Spock, taking care of his t'hy'la.
It's a bit unpredictable when DALL-E will produce this level of quality, but it's all the more fascinating when it happens.
This remarkable picture took quite some time and many prompt-adjustments in DALL-E until I finally got what I had in mind.
It will be part of the illustrations for my upcoming story 'Labor of Love'.
When working on a story I have a very clear perception of what it 'looks' like, with the imagery unfolding in my head. I love how DALL-E lets you get to what you invisioned, the results being more than convincing in my opinion.
However, you need to have an eye for details: in my various attempts to achieve the result I had imagined, Spock got sometimes unexpectedly 'promoted' to the rank of admiral, with additional rank stripes. Then again he was demoted to... lieutenant. These little details need to be fixed with GIMP etc. And yes - Spock's sleeve shows his correct rank since he's given command of the Enterprise during the events of my story.
A beautiful variation of one of the pictures shown above, this time completely in black & white. Love it!
Another thing ChatGPT can do for you is... writing.
All you have to do is give it a few parameters like K&S get stuck in a turbolift, temperatures are rising while they wait for rescue, and at the end McCoy walks in on them etc. - and in a matter of seconds (!) the text appears on screen.
I don't have to mention the potential for misuse of this feature.
Nevertheless, it shows in an impressive way how capable this program already is, and it's getting better as we speak.
There are however still a few mistakes to be found in this overall nice and funny little story ChatGPT wrote for us:
A TOS turbolift does not function by 'punching in a command' for your desired destination, the crew has no communicators to be tapped on (we first see that on TNG) and a moment later the story tells us it's in fact a classical communicator (which they don't carry around while on board), and there are no buttons on their uniform shirts.
I still enjoyed this story a lot anyway, the title ChatGPT came up with is hilarious, and the pacing in which Spock changed from 'captain' to 'Jim' is perfectly in character. The best part of course is when they get caught by McCoy and Kirk tells him 'this isn't what it looks like...', followed by Spock's typical way of describing the situation in detail in an effort to obscure what really happened. Great fun!
'The Heat of the Moment'
by
ChatGPT
Unspoken Bonds
Kirk's PoV
Two Voices, one Bond
Dialogue
Irresistible Pull
Spock's PoV
ChatGPT also does poetry!
I gave it a few parameters what the poems should be about, one from Kirk's point of view, the other from Spock's. And the 3rd poem should contain both voices like a dialogue.
When you ask ChatGPT for a poem however it has a nasty habit of giving it rhymes - which for me just doesn't work. So if you don't like such 'rhymes at all costs' you will have to strictly tell the program not to use any at all.
Finally I asked it to create watercolor-style illustrations, fitting for each of the three poems. Again it took a series of prompt adjustments to achieve what I had in mind. What a remarkable result!
Silent Observations
McCoy's thoughts
Through her Eyes
Uhura's musings
... and if you're wondering what Bones thinks about our two lovebirds, or what's on Uhura's mind when she watches them on the bridge - here's a possible answer to these questions:
Using the amazing animation tool on Hedra.com:
Here's a first try, using one of Playmates 9" figures, showing Kirk in casual clothing (shore leave perhaps?).
All you have to do is deliver a decent picture, preferably showing the character from the front since the tool always turns the head in this direction. and without proper information regarding the look of the character it tends to make something up, thus sometimes spoiling the look.
For my second try, I did a little post-production to the figure's head: I removed the line showing where the head is actually attached to the body. This way, the image looks even more realistic.
Using one of the pictures I created earlier with AI, I made this little scene with Spock, explaining the facts to his bondmate.
Using a purely AI-generated picture, here an image I created of Spock in a comic-like style, also works just fine!
To my surprise the German text was perfectly understood and used by the program and sounds absolutely natural. And although I used the same AI-voice for this video, it sounds different, more fitting to the serene look of the character.
This tool also works quite well with a drawing, in this case an AI-generated image of Spock, sitting in the command chair.
There is however a slight discoloration in the second half of the video, when the AI-tool deals with having to generate the face from the front.
The next step was finding out if this would also work with... music?
And, yes - it absolutely does! Watch and listen to Uhura singing her beloved 'Beyond Antares', playing Spock's Vulcan harp!
The level of accuracy is astounding, and I got the impression it gets even better when giving the program more than one try on the same file.
Another example for a German video, this time I had some difficulties to get the tool to accept my text: it got denied several times because the program detected 'harassment' in it! After I changed some words the video was generated successfully - although the meaning stayed the same, only the wording was different.
Mirror Spock shows us how beautifully this tool also works with original dialogue from the show! The voice of Leonard Nimoy was accepted without any problems, you might more likely get into trouble when your drawing or your action figure looks too much like the actor ;-)
Don't miss AI-generated content on my Music & Videos page!
© Isolde Sturm / Easy [MrsAtoz]. All rights reserved.
No usage of my content in any form without my express permission.
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