MidJourney AI (2 Viewers)

[Taghkanic]

ChatGBT and other text-based artificial intelligence are getting all the attention. But the AI bot which is truly blowing my mind is MidJourney AI, which a photographer friend turned me onto.

Seriously, I am starting to wonder if anyone in architecture, design, photography, graphics, and other creative fields will have jobs in another 10-15 years. This tech is just in its infancy, and is already blowing people away with the quality of its renders, and ability to generate ideas.

Right now I am a MidJourney newbie, just starting to get past the initial stages of learning how to manipulate its tools and keywords to get the best results. But I am having an absolute blast using it to generate ideas for a modern, minimalist house on a hillside, on my Hudson Valley land.

In comments I’ll post some of the concepts that MJ has created for me so far. These are just a few samples out of hundreds made in a matter of 48 hours, and I am only just starting to get up to speed on all the ways to use its tools and keywords to get better results.

 

[Taghkanic]

 

[Taghkanic]

 

[Taghkanic]

(I did some very rough touch-ups on this one.)

 

[Taghkanic]

 

[Lee4711]

As an architect this is very intriguing technology indeed. I need to look into this! hadn't heard about it. The images you are sharing do have this inherent oddness to the design....but not bad at all for a technology in its infancy. Scarily impressive...

 

[Taghkanic]

Here is an example of other things MJ can do... I asked it to create a scene of a Mohican warrior by a stream in the forest of the Hudson Valley. Note that if you get more than the most basic plans (25 images are free), the possibilities for upscaling to a wild level of detail and resolution are incredible.

 

[Taghkanic]

It spits this stuff out in like 15-30 seconds.

 

[Lee4711]

It spits this stuff out in like 15-30 seconds.

woww...a great idea generator to then refine.

we're in trouble

 

[Taghkanic]

Yeah, my uploads don’t do justice to the quality and volume of images the AI can generate in a heartbeat. At this point it's mainly a great brainstorming tool for my project, which I am a good 18-36 months away from starting at the earliest.

By the time I’m ready, I fully expect the bots to be able to take my preferred concepts and generate the floor plans, materials and fixtures specs, cost estimates, who knows. Professional architects I’m afraid may be reduced to becoming glorified project managers.

My friend who introduced me to the software makes national TV ads. He asked it to create a set concept for his next shoot based on a short list of requirements and ideas. It created the set in 30 seconds, and nailed it on the first try. He’s planning to use the images it created to organize the shoot. In 10 years, the computer will *do* the shoot virtually.

 

[Taghkanic]

Here’s a Reddit thread giving a stunning example of the kind of (imaginary) portrait work MJ can do on the fly:

https://www.reddit.com/r/midjourney/comments/119mwu2

 

[quintooo]

I'm involved in the art/animation world, not professionally, but I manage it as a side gig. I empathize with professional artists who fear AI will make their roles redundant.

I have a more optimistic view of the situation...

When calculators were invented, did mathematicians lose their jobs? No, there was simply more math to be done.

When computers were widespread, did computer scientists lose their jobs? No, there was simply more programming to be done.

I would like to believe the same will happen with art... ethics/copyrights issues aside, AI should ideally enable more art and design in life. In what ways, I don't know.

 

[Lee4711]

Yeah, my uploads don’t do justice to the quality and volume of images the AI can generate in a heartbeat. At this point it's mainly a great brainstorming tool for my project, which I am a good 18-36 months away from starting at the earliest.

By the time I’m ready, I fully expect the bots to be able to take my preferred concepts and generate the floor plans, materials and fixtures specs, cost estimates, who knows. Professional architects I’m afraid may be reduced to becoming glorified project managers.

My friend who introduced me to the software makes national TV ads. He asked it to create a set concept for his next shoot based on a short list of requirements and ideas. It created the set in 30 seconds, and nailed it on the first try. He’s planning to use the images it created to organize the shoot. In 10 years, the computer will *do* the shoot virtually.

Very interesting stuff. virtual photo shoots.....a lot of possibilities there

 

[Lee4711]

I'm involved in the art/animation world, not professionally, but I manage it as a side gig. I empathize with professional artists who fear AI will make their roles redundant.

I have a more optimistic view of the situation...

When calculators were invented, did mathematicians lose their jobs? No, there was simply more math to be done.

When computers were widespread, did computer scientists lose their jobs? No, there was simply more programming to be done.

I would like to believe the same will happen with art... ethics/copyrights issues aside, AI should ideally enable more art and design in life. In what ways, I don't know.

I tend to agree with your optimism @quintooo .....your calculator analogy I think hits the nail on the head.

 

[Taghkanic]

I think the problem with the calculator analogy is that the calculator has no “agency.” If the person using a calculator has no clue about math, its functions are very limited.

AI, by contrast, “knows” (or can learn) far more than its user. It does not require that the user be particularly skilled or knowledgeable. It can start with mere hints (e.g. “design me a modern house which is a blend of these two other houses I like”) and it can take those hints very far.

This has much more potential to cut out or reduce the role of professionals, by allowing complete amateurs and consumers to get professional results.

With the example of a house, someone (for now) is still going to be required to check the engineering on the plans, and some competent construction people are going to be needed to build it... Except that 3D printing is expanding into construction.

I expect there will still be a role for knowledgeable pros, but they will have to really adjust and in some cases be willing to have less of a leading creative role than before.

 

[Lee4711]

I mean the results we are talking about at the moment are pretty pictures that seemingly match a visual set of cues or preferences. And that is a far cry away from a functioning architectural space and even farther away from a real built environment.

A beautiful rendering, absolutely. But it’s just a pretty picture. To the layperson that may seem like it’s encroaching into architecture and construction but it’s not there yet. What it does allow you to do is rapidly explore countless of design options and variations. And that, will be a very beneficial tool for both the consumer and the professional.

Nonetheless, I’m really interested to see how this plays out

 

[CraigT78]

Can it design a 15x35' poker room with a bar and two round tables?

 

[Taghkanic]

Can it design a 15x35' poker room with a bar and two round tables?

Probably, although I am finding it gets pretty confused with poker chips. I was trying to see if it could use one of my THC cash set custom designs to create an image of the chips stacked. I gave it a pic of an overhead view of the draft lineup... But its knowledge base seems to be populated so heavily with injection molds and ceramics that it isn’t working. Maybe once I understand the command line options better this will work.

This...

... somehow led to this:

 

[Taghkanic]

I mean the results we are talking about at the moment are pretty pictures that seemingly match a visual set of cues or preferences. And that is a far cry away from a functioning architectural space and even farther away from a real built environment.

Again, this technology is in its infancy.

Compared with (say) rendering the images of human faces and hands so that people can’t tell it’s not real seems like a much harder task than taking the image of a building and generating an architectural floorplan.

I would be shocked if that ability is not coming soon. It may already exist in other apps for all I know

 

[Lee4711]

Odd but very impressive regardless!!

 

[Taghkanic]

Some more houses. I do think that a bot could very easily “measure” the dimensions from any photo and (if given a list of necessary rooms) dream up floorlpans.

 

[Lee4711]

Some more houses. I do think that a bot could very easily “measure” the dimensions from any photo and (if given a list of necessary rooms) dream up floorlpans.

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I think there's an app for your phone that allows you to measure using the camera. Its some sort of augmented reality concept that allows you to visualize and space plan. So yeah I'm sure a bot could generate a building perimeter from photographs. The challenge I see is bringing site specific accuracy to those numbers. You would probably need to couple the AI generated concepts with some sort of digital survey of the land in order to reconcile the two.

 

[Lemonzest]

All aboard the AI hype train. I have been using the ChatGPT bot optimized for "Buy It For Life" products. You can say "best watch" or "best washing machine" and it will spit out an answer.

It isn't gospel truth by any means but it is a great starting point for research a topic.

https://www.looria.com/bot/BuyItForLife?q=best+dress+shirt

 

[Joe Harris]

Been messing around with Midjourney today. There is definitely an art to crafting a good prompt. Much harder than with text -> text AIs. I guess it's a manifestation of 'an imagine is worth 1000 words'. Here are some of the best outputs I've gotten.

 

[improviseallday]

I think the problem with the calculator analogy is that the calculator has no “agency.” If the person using a calculator has no clue about math, its functions are very limited.

AI, by contrast, “knows” (or can learn) far more than its user. It does not require that the user be particularly skilled or knowledgeable. It can start with mere hints (e.g. “design me a modern house which is a blend of these two other houses I like”) and it can take those hints very far.

This has much more potential to cut out or reduce the role of professionals, by allowing complete amateurs and consumers to get professional results.

With the example of a house, someone (for now) is still going to be required to check the engineering on the plans, and some competent construction people are going to be needed to build it... Except that 3D printing is expanding into construction.

I expect there will still be a role for knowledgeable pros, but they will have to really adjust and in some cases be willing to have less of a leading creative role than before.

I agree that "visionary" pros are going to have to take a step back as capital has easier access to ideation, but there's a long journey to turn the ideas into reality, and there's plenty of room left for pros to demonstrate their worth- experience prevents problems. And fixes problems created by amateurs who don't know what they're doing.

 

[BNM]

What about landscape design? I have property i am looking to evolve and want ideas.

What about cost?

 

[Taghkanic]

Cost of a basic MidJourney account is about $10/month.

 

[Joe Harris]

What about landscape design? I have property i am looking to evolve and want ideas.

How useful the results are will depend on what you mean by ideas. PM me with some thoughts and I'll run some prompts so can get a feel for whether it's useful before you pay.

 

[BNM]

How useful the results are will depend on what you mean by ideas. PM me with some thoughts and I'll run some prompts so can get a feel for whether it's useful before you pay.

Want to narrow ideas. Thanks for the offer. Will PM.

 

[Colquhoun]

This article appeared today, where a game artist that used AI, drew backlash, and needed to explain themselves. Then deleted the post.
Oh, the shame.
https://gizmodo.com/dnd-ai-art-bigbys-giants-book-artist-generators-wotc-1850710496

So ridiculous because the new Photoshop is going to have AI enchance features, and all art going forward will have AI properties to them.

This dust-up will all be completely laughable in a VERY short time.