Entry tags:
What have I been doing today...
...instead of anything I should be doing? (In other words, I have emails from several of you that I need to answer. If I don't reply by Wednesday, nudge me!)
If you haven't heard of Artbreeder, it's an AI-driven way of creating images by combining images and tweaking various things. It's sophisticated enough to use for character development and can be a hell of a lot of fun.
So I ended up seeing if I could produce Calli and Burn from Deadfall and Deadwater. I haven't gotten Calli yet, but I'm working on her. I've gotten very very close to Burn. He's still a little too good-looking but after I used Photoshop to scar him up and put a lot of sun damage on his face, I decided that I was fine with Hollywood-ugly instead of actually ugly and left it at that.
The image I managed to get out of Artbreeder, before roughing him up in Photoshop, was this:
I love the artlike look of it. I haven't been able to get Calli to be a more arty and less realistic version without it going really weird. So far I've gotten this:
I do not know why Artbreeder insists on giver her false eyelashes on one eye but not the other. I have not yet hit it with Photoshop to do any editing.
My biggest problem is that I came across this image of a samba dancer in, I believe, Trinidad, who is, like, exactly Calli and I'm having a hard time getting closer to her:
I embiggened and uploaded the dancer's face to start messing with the Artbreeder "genes", which you can see in the face shape of the first image, but...eh, still not there.
And now for some fun with Artbreeder's weird-ass random genes! Most especially, one very important gene called "Hat."
HAT.
So! I uploaded Burn's newly scarred-up visage, and after Artbreeder processed it (it always changes uploads a bit...presumably to get away with copyright stuff?) this is what we have:
Artbreeder cannot deal with a missing eye and a scarred-up face and has smoothed him out a bit, but he's recognizably Burn.
Now. There is a slider in the panel where you tweak the "genes" called "Hat." Other genes make more sense: there are ethnic-feature genes (which are..not entirely unproblematic, but oh well), gender ([cis] masculine/feminine), blue eyes, brown eyes, earrings, colors, makeup, facial hair, etc.
We are, however, concerned with Hat. The default is zero (0) Hat. You can move it up by increments to 2 Hat or move it down by increments to -2 Hat. The above image is Burn with Zero Hat.
Now let us nudge the pointer up to about .6 Hat:
We see something like a beanie creeping up over his head, but it could be hair or something else.
Let us push the slider to 1 Hat:
Not bad! It looks a bit like he's wearing a beret a bit oddly, but it also looks like a fairly credible Renaissance hat. Not that Burn would wear that sort of hat (and frankly he looks a bit angrier, presumably because he doesn't like the hat) because I am swiping cavalier hats from the 17th century for my hat-wearing characters because of the Rule of Cool.
But now let us push the slider aaall the way up to 2 Hat:
Burn has aged at least a decade, and has mellowed out in his old age because he now rather likes this hat. It is definitely more Renaissance-y, but it also appears to be bending reality a bit.
But I know you're all going "![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
telophase! I don't care about more hat! What happens when you take a bare-headed character and give them less hat?!"
Let us find out. I shall push the slider down to -1 Hat.
Ah. Burn has at least lost his right eye again, but his jawline has gotten significantly less robust...I don't know why less hat translates to less jaw. He's also de-aging a bit and looking decidedly nervous about it.
So we shall now push the slider all the way to the left and give him the least amount of Hat possible! -2 Hat!
DESTABILIZATION COMMENCES
Burn has significantly more hair, but significantly less human! He has swallowed his lips, and is looking very worried about it, his flesh is turning into putty and the background is leaking through, and his eyes have glazed over and turned his vision inward, into the abyss.
So I now see why the humans of the past all wore hats almost all the time: hats prevent the Great Cosmic Horror from leaking through into our reality.
In conclusion: MOAR HAT
If you haven't heard of Artbreeder, it's an AI-driven way of creating images by combining images and tweaking various things. It's sophisticated enough to use for character development and can be a hell of a lot of fun.
So I ended up seeing if I could produce Calli and Burn from Deadfall and Deadwater. I haven't gotten Calli yet, but I'm working on her. I've gotten very very close to Burn. He's still a little too good-looking but after I used Photoshop to scar him up and put a lot of sun damage on his face, I decided that I was fine with Hollywood-ugly instead of actually ugly and left it at that.
The image I managed to get out of Artbreeder, before roughing him up in Photoshop, was this:
I love the artlike look of it. I haven't been able to get Calli to be a more arty and less realistic version without it going really weird. So far I've gotten this:
I do not know why Artbreeder insists on giver her false eyelashes on one eye but not the other. I have not yet hit it with Photoshop to do any editing.
My biggest problem is that I came across this image of a samba dancer in, I believe, Trinidad, who is, like, exactly Calli and I'm having a hard time getting closer to her:
I embiggened and uploaded the dancer's face to start messing with the Artbreeder "genes", which you can see in the face shape of the first image, but...eh, still not there.
And now for some fun with Artbreeder's weird-ass random genes! Most especially, one very important gene called "Hat."
HAT.
So! I uploaded Burn's newly scarred-up visage, and after Artbreeder processed it (it always changes uploads a bit...presumably to get away with copyright stuff?) this is what we have:
Artbreeder cannot deal with a missing eye and a scarred-up face and has smoothed him out a bit, but he's recognizably Burn.
Now. There is a slider in the panel where you tweak the "genes" called "Hat." Other genes make more sense: there are ethnic-feature genes (which are..not entirely unproblematic, but oh well), gender ([cis] masculine/feminine), blue eyes, brown eyes, earrings, colors, makeup, facial hair, etc.
We are, however, concerned with Hat. The default is zero (0) Hat. You can move it up by increments to 2 Hat or move it down by increments to -2 Hat. The above image is Burn with Zero Hat.
Now let us nudge the pointer up to about .6 Hat:
We see something like a beanie creeping up over his head, but it could be hair or something else.
Let us push the slider to 1 Hat:
Not bad! It looks a bit like he's wearing a beret a bit oddly, but it also looks like a fairly credible Renaissance hat. Not that Burn would wear that sort of hat (and frankly he looks a bit angrier, presumably because he doesn't like the hat) because I am swiping cavalier hats from the 17th century for my hat-wearing characters because of the Rule of Cool.
But now let us push the slider aaall the way up to 2 Hat:
Burn has aged at least a decade, and has mellowed out in his old age because he now rather likes this hat. It is definitely more Renaissance-y, but it also appears to be bending reality a bit.
But I know you're all going "
telophase! I don't care about more hat! What happens when you take a bare-headed character and give them less hat?!"Let us find out. I shall push the slider down to -1 Hat.
Ah. Burn has at least lost his right eye again, but his jawline has gotten significantly less robust...I don't know why less hat translates to less jaw. He's also de-aging a bit and looking decidedly nervous about it.
So we shall now push the slider all the way to the left and give him the least amount of Hat possible! -2 Hat!
DESTABILIZATION COMMENCES
Burn has significantly more hair, but significantly less human! He has swallowed his lips, and is looking very worried about it, his flesh is turning into putty and the background is leaking through, and his eyes have glazed over and turned his vision inward, into the abyss.
So I now see why the humans of the past all wore hats almost all the time: hats prevent the Great Cosmic Horror from leaking through into our reality.
In conclusion: MOAR HAT