AI for Makers | Issue 4

Welcome to Issue 4 of unfolding ai, we are delighted to have you as a reader and thank you for sharing that really helps us out.

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We spread our thinking at unfold over three broad types of AI user, Everyone, Leaders, Makers.

In this issue, we'll explore how AI is changing the world of making and how you can get involved.

Paul, Co-founder (and newsletter editor)

In AI who is a Maker

Artificial intelligence has the potential to unleash creativity and innovation by making technology more accessible to everyone, regardless of their skill level. By democratising technology, AI can lower the barriers to entry and allow anyone to become a maker. In this issue, we'll explore how AI is changing the world of making and how you can get involved.

Everyone can be a Maker, augmented with AI

If you have used Midjourney or chatGPT, congratulations you are a maker. Its that simple. You may be novice, or you may be a seasoned expert. Welcome to the makers studio.

What ever you make, whether it meets the needs you intended or not, you still made it.

Making with AI is a fine balance between amazing, inspiring, and frustration. These tools are still young, even though they are accelerating. They benefit from experts using them, and in a trickle down effect every maker benefits from that.

Consistently frustrating

The most obvious and approachable tools to exercise the maker itch is text to image. Probably the most common question I am asked is ‘how do I get the same result’, or more specifically given different inputs a consistent output.

A typical question is ‘I want this car that Midjourney made, but to be able to put it in different locations’. You can swap out car for almost anything, character, person, tee-shirt design.

The answer is right now you can get near, but you simply can not. There are tricks and tips that can help.

try this for example in Midjourney.

a children's book illustration of a curly haired girl, character sheet, different angles --ar 16:9 --style raw

You can then play around with the images (in MidJourney 5.2) by using the upscale and vary buttons.

Start by starting

The hardest part of being a maker sometimes is looking at the blank page, work bench or canvas. This is especially true when learning a new skill. Here is an example prompt for chatGPT, which can break through that learning process. Helping you to leap into action.

I want to learn to use midjourney better, I am a novice. A better understanding of image composition, colour, shape and how to build more complex prompts would be useful, take me on a 5 week plan where each day over a coffee I can explore and learn these concepts. Explain any art terms that I might not understand. Explain what the lesson is teaching and why. include a starter prompt for me for midjourney, put the prompts in a code box I can copy paste

We do have a course on Midjourney in the works, and we also have some prompt with me sessions for premium members.

Whilst the above prompt may have well given the content to get you started. Once you enter the world of generative AI images, you wont look back.

Personally I have generated over 10000 images of various forms now, also as an experienced traditional digital artist and photographer, we bring in guidance on how to fit it into a creative workflow.

Character generation

Ideation is a great feature of chatGPT, especially for spring boarding ideas. Its been interesting watching the various movements of Hasbro (and Mattel) on where AI might fit in. In-case you have missed this market, Dungeons and Dragons et al fit into a 97$ Billion market place growing at approx. 8% per annum, excluding video games and apps.

Lets Imagine we want to create some interesting background characters for a new adventure.

As an experienced author of role playing games, dungeons and dragons, and a dungeon master. I want you to create three fully described background characters. They live in the town of 'kettering', which is a run down rural town. They  should all have at least one secret that needs to be discovered by the players of the game, also each one of them knows one of the others secret, be creative but consistent, you can use any of the races or classes from dungeons and dragons 5th edition. provide the following

Name
Age
Race
Profession
Where they can be met
Physical Description
Environmental Description of where met
Detailed background
Their Secrets
The Secrets the know, and who that secret belongs to from the other 2 characters
What they might ask the players to do
Their demeanour and personality traits and quirks

It would be fairly easy to pick apart the key parts of this prompt, the setting, the basic local concepts and create characters for a work of fiction, or other narrative piece.

As an experienced author of teen fiction I need a group of 5 characters, one of which is the main hero, 2 are friends, 1 is a foe that becomes a friend, and one is the main villain of the story. The story is a teen science fiction adventure story based around having to leave the comfort of playing video games and go outside. Its set in the future.  Provide the following

Name
Role in the book
Background
Description
How they know the other characters
Plot twist ideas or secrets that are interwoven in the other characters backgrounds

Quick things to check out

video generation, but a lot more abstract, here are two tools to have a play with.

Did you miss this article on our blog?

Every wanted to start to use code, well we are starting right at the beginning, learning to think like an engineer in an AI powered development world

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