CONFUSION. The new year 2024 starts off with a lot of new AI ART tools, but it's not like I'm making better art with them. Moreover I'm having trouble getting Midjourney to take my money, and the other new AI programs are charging as well.
PIKA
I've gotten the most satisfaction recently from experimenting with both versions of PIKA -- the old one on Discord and the new stand-alone version. I pushed it a little further even, by generating 3 second videos on Discord, and then uploading those videos to make 15 second videos on the new stand-alone PIKA website.
Naturally I had to collage a few of these videos to make a couple of bigger YouTube presentations, with some AI music sprinkled in:
AI MUSIC MADNESS
CATURDAYS
at the HACKERSPACE
Unfortunately I am currently locked out of PIKA. The free version went down on Discord a few days ago (and is still down January 8th) -- and I used up all my free 300 credits on the new PIKA standalone website.
LIDAR 3D
CAR SCAN
On January 7th before the Quelab meeting, Daniel scanned my car with his iPhone with 3D Scanner App, in the dark, with LIDAR -- and the results were way better than I expected. We got a 3D model, which I used to make the animated GIF below:
LIDAR scan of my car
- NOTE: Later Adric used the Scaniverse app for the iPhone, which also used Lidar, and was very pleased with that (see his example)
I uploaded the animated GIF above to PIKA and made a couple of AI videos that were fairly decent. I then pieced them all together to make the YouTube video below:
DomoAI
Lastly I uploaded the original turntable animation, of the raw Lidar scan -- into DomoAI, a video-to-video AI -- and the AI polished up the car nicely:
DomoAI polished up the ugly Lidar 3D scan
Now if we could 3D scan a Low Rider, we could create a 3D WebAR (Augmented Reality) image from it. Then we could program NFC cards to link to that WebAR Low Rider, and scatter those NFC cards about 4th Street and Central Avenue (which were both Route 66 at one time).
Specifically we could tape the NFC cards on the inside of the window of a business (say the Secret Gallery on 4th Street) so that someone on the sidewalk could press their smart phone next to the window, and a Low Rider would materialize in Augmented Reality.
This idea was inspired by the City of Albuquerque's -- Request for Route 66 Augmented Reality (AR) Proposals
EverArt
January 5, 2024 I got early beta access to EverArt. I saw it discussed on Theoretically Media a month ago -- YouTube: AI Art Just Changed Forever:
This program allows you to make an AI model, and then create images from that model. So to make an AI model, I uploaded, in high resolution, the first 50 images from my book -- Finish My Figure Drawings. Then I uploaded the Midjourney image of five guys below, and EverArt generated four new versions of that image using the AI model of my drawing style:
I uploaded this image of 5 guys
generated by Midjourney
and EverArt generated new versions of this image
in my drawing style
(one credit each?)
.png)
Five guys in my drawing style --
this EverArt result wasn't too bad
However previously I had uploaded one of my portrait drawings to EverArt, and asked it to generate a new version of my portrait from the AI model trained on my drawing style. The results weren't that good (Leonardo.AI does the same thing much better for me, see first image in this blog post):
.png)
- I made my AI model public, so that anyone could generate art in my drawing style.
- EverArt only allowed me to make one AI model for free, and only gave me 25 free credits to generate images (one image seems to cost one credit), which was not really enough to explore the possibilities.
Curious Refuge pointed out two AI MOTION programs on Hugging Face from his YouTube channel:
YouTube: The AI Video Showdown: Runway vs Leonardo vs Pika Labs
So I made two BELLY DANCING dancing motion files:
MotionGPT
prompt: Belly Dancing
I could not figure out how to upload a "npy" file into Blender, in order to animate one of my 3D figures.
MoMask
The real challenge then was to animate one of my 3D figure drawings with the belly dancing "bvh" motion file.
There is a YouTube video that explains how to "parent" the 3D file to the belly dancing motion file:
While I did manage to animate my 3D drawing with the belly dancing motion file, I still have a ways to go to make good animations like these.
ROUGH AI START
I'm off to a rough start with AI in 2024:
EverArt did not work well for me.
Midjourney is not accepting my prepaid American Express gift card, even though there is still money on it. At first they had no problem accepting gift cards. Then they rejected them last month (November 2023), but I emailed Midjourney and they figured out a way to take my gift card via LINK, after I filled in my address and phone. However that same card did not work this time, and I contacted Midjourney billing.
PIKA LABS on Discord has been down for a few days now, and this appears to be a Discord issue.
PIKA 1.0 apparently only gives everyone 300 free credits and I ran out of them yesterday -- Update: 30 credits a day after you use your 300 free credits,. The cheapest plan is $10 a month:
Moreover PIKA 1.0 would give me longer videos on the new stand-alone website, but not necessarily better videos than on the PIKA LABS on Discord.
MOTION FAIL: While I successfully generated motion files, I could not effectively get them to animate my 3D figure drawings in Blender. This however, seems more like a personal problem, rather than an AI failure.
A lot of the AI ART programs have been free so far, which is great for trying them out. However in 2024 it seems like a lot are charging a monthly subscription fee. That can add up to quite a bit of money, pushing AI out of the range of most artists. One can download a lot of AI ART programs for free, but they need to run on expensive computers with powerful GPU cards.
The AI ART tools could all get locked behind a paywall in 2024.
ABQ ART WALK
January 2024
The downtown ABQ ART WALK was on Friday, January 5th, 2024. I started at the Secret Gallery:
painting live at the Secret Gallery
Rod Woodland had an exhibition at the OT Circus:
Painting of Rod Woodland
by Geoffrey Laurence ?
Albuquerque City Hall had an opening for their new gallery -- Gallery One:
Bill Sabatini next to his painting,
on the first floor at Albuquerque City Hall
They also let people wander throughout all of City Hall (except the 5th Floor) to gaze at the artwork in the hallways.
Henry Morales had a print at the top of City Hall, on the 11th floor, in the Mayor's Conference Room:
Henry Morales' print
hanging on the far wall
And in SANTA FE:
John Tollett went to a drawing session at the New Mexico Museum of Art on January 5, 2024:
New AI PROGRAMS:
3D Scanning apps:
- Magiscan
- Scaniverse free (with Lidar, Apple only)
- 3D Scanner App (with Lidar, Apple only)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.