Womboxane

Nanite laboratory

 This is another in a series of blog posts about AI-generated art. I've been using WOMBO Dream as a tool for creating illustrations for my science fiction stories. I was making an illustration of Tyhry and Marda at work, a depiction of how they are both trying to learn how to program nanites (see the image to the right).

nanotoy

Suddenly, Mr. Wombo made the image shown to the left and then, soon enough, Tyhry and Marda were out of the lab and into the bedroom. Rather than crafting hair and clothing nanites, they had stumbled upon the ability of Sermyth nanites to shape themselves into sex toys.

Tyhry had also done some research on feeding nanites and Marda was very familiar with Rylla's chemical synthesis of sex hormones such as clytykynyn derivatives.  

too much clytykynyn

Soon Tyhry crafted a clytykynyn delivery toy and had Marda try it out. Marda quickly over-dosed on the clytykynyn 😒. That first experiment ended with Marda gagging on the simulated semen that Tyhry had concocted (see the image to the right).

Rylla, Marda and Tyhry

When Rylla learned about the failed experiment conducted by Tyhry and Marda, she suggested some alterations to the clytykynyn delivery method.

Tyhry programmed the nanites so that she could better control the rate of delivery of her artificial semen to Marda and the next round of experiments was a success. Rylla was rather amazed by the huge doses of clytykynyn that Marda and Tyhry were able to tolerate (image to the left).

Figure 1. reference image

I tried to get Mr. Wombo to make a book cover image depicting Tyhry and Marda experimenting with the oxypathin sex hormone (see Figure 1, to the right). I tried using this text prompt: "science fiction, book cover, [printed title: "The Oxypathin Experiments"] pharmacology experiment, two women, one blond woman, one brunette woman, Victoria's Secret style". For some reason, this combination was very difficult for Mr. Wombo to deal with and I usually just got an error message, not an image.

ocular administration of oxypathin

One of the stranger results is shown to the left. Maybe Tyhry has decided to experiment with her ability to absorb oxypathin through her eyes.

nasal oxypathin

It was interesting to see Mr. Wombo almost spelling the word "oxypathin" correctly (see the image to the right). Which is better, oral administration of oxypathin or nasal?

Figure 2. just a sniff

I'm fairly satisfied with the image shown in Figure 2. Maybe the latest oxypathin molecule (oxypatiicr) created by Rylla is so potent that Marda is only exposing herself to a carefully controlled whiff.

industrial strength oxypathin

Maybe too much oxypathin causes deformation of the human hand (zoom in on Tyhry's hand in the image to the right).

Figure 3. read the label

Given the unexpected effect of oxypathin analogues such as oxypetitin on the morphology of hands, Marda decides that it is wise to read the label on the bottle (Figure 3). 

reference image (credits: see this image)

I wanted the help of Mr. Wombo to create a variation on a depiction of an Asterothrope character (see the image to the left).

the field guide to alien botany

I was surprised by the persistence with which Mr. Wombo wanted to replace the bottle with a book (example: see the image to the right).

bottles of plant extracts

However, I did get some images with bottles.

For the image shown to the left, I had to make a second bottle to cover-up her deformed hand.

Bottled alien plant extract.

Mr. Wombo then went for a big bottle with interesting alien writing on it (see the image to the right). I added a label on the bottle.

Figure 4. alien bottle works

Mr. Wombo had additional ideas for unusual bottles and he continued to have trouble with fingers. Mr. Wombo also seemed to just randomly add buttons to her blouse (Figure 4).

random fingers

In the image shown to the right, Mr. Wombo put some random fingers on one of the bottles. This image was adjusted with Photoshop so as to include several bottles from different AI-generated images.

Figure 5. Mr. Wombo's Bottles.

All of the bottles in Figure 5 were generated by Mr. Wombo in a single image. I edited her blouse to give her a hint of the Asterothrope phenotype.

I tried to collaborate with Mr. Wombo to make an image with a portal that links Earth to a distant exoplanet.

the portal to sensible shoes

Sometimes Mr. Wombo will provide women with sensible shoes (image to the right), but more often he puts them in high heels. I also wish it was easier to get Mr. Wombo to make images in which the people are doing interesting things rather than just standing around.

Moving day.

 City Life. The image to the left shows Mr. Wombo celebrating the high heel, even while she's carrying a heavy load. In some of the images, Mr. Wombo forgot about the whole "portal" thing and just made a city street scene.

Figure 6. Taken from Earth.

 Figure 6 shows a mixture of green aliens with a variety of shoes.

It is always interesting to see what type of image Mr. Wombo will generate when deprived of a reference image. I started trying to get these portal images by having a blue portal providing a view of a city.

 Figure 7. Wombo Gate.

 Figure 7 show Mr. Wombo's idea of a teleportation portal. I don't think that "show a city through a portal" has any meaning for Mr. Wombo.

A green alien near a portal

The image to the right shows another attempt by Mr. Wombo to show a green alien near a portal.

Since Mr. Wombo seemed to struggle with the concept of a portal, I gave up and tried to get a scene of Marda and Tyhry in a city on a planet of Alastor Cluster.

Figure 8. Marda, Tyhry and Zeta

I was impressed by the "traffic" signal at the left side of Figure 8. Maybe Tyhry and Marda have wondered into the red light district of this city.

Figure 9.  pedestrians vs cars

I asked Mr. Wombo to make a futuristic city of the year 2857 AD with aircars. However, I got conventional cars on the streets (Figure 9, image to the right). I tried using the "text edit" feature on the image in Figure 9, but Mr. Wombo got carried away. I asked for the cars to be removed from the street...

Figure 10. Green City

Mr. Wombo went over-board and made Figure 10. Maybe in the future people will not have to make choice between city life and living in a forest.

Manny, Tyhry and Marda

I was fairly happy with the image to the right since it showed some other pedestrians on the street. Maybe the visitors from Earth are the only people on the planet who jaywalk.

Figure 11. Marda, Zeta and Tyhry

In the end, I probably have to settle for an image like the one shown to the left (Figure 11) in which Tyhry, Zeta and Marda are emerging from a city park. I was impressed by Mr. Wombo's futuristic city in this image.

Tyhry in Alastor Cluster.

Here is an image of Tyhry in Alastor Cluster (image to the right). Jack Vance established that extremely tall buildings could be built in Alastor Cluster. Maybe some of these buildings are over a mile high.

Marda in Alastor Cluster

 Marda, too. Marda and Tyhry are searching Alastor Cluster for programmable nanites. I like the image to the left because Mr. Wombo relented and finally put many people into the street.

full sized poster here

Just for fun I asked Mr. Wombo to make "movie poster, thelma and louise as pulp science fiction space-girls top left of scene, hover-car, flying aircar at bottom of poster, thelma and louise inside the aircar, brad pitt in spacesuit". There was quite a bit of manual image processing required after Mr. Wombo did his best.

Wombo style

The image to the left shows what Mr. Wombo does with just the text prompt (above) and no reference image.

Alastor dreaming

Also, here (image to the right) is another image that explores the question: is Tyhry worried about her trip to Alastor Cluster? This might be her worst nightmare. This image also took quite a few iterations starting with an insectoid alien and a sleeping women. To see an alternate version of this flying alien, go here.

nanite researcher

Dr. Crystyl Ymágy

While visiting Alastor Cluster, Tyhry and Marda visit a scientist who is developing hair nanites (see the image to the left). 

Dr. Crystyl Ymágy is perfecting hair nanites that can provide a user with red hair (see the image to the right).

I've previously imagined ways to reboot both The X-Files and Star Trek with a new generation of actors. 

I asked Mr. Wombo to put Zendaya Coleman into a Starfleet uniform.

Starfleet officer

version 2.0

The first image is shown to the left. Another rather conventional "poster" image is shown tot he right. The busier Flora v2 universe version is below...

Flora v2 style

another Zendaya

Another AI-generated version of Zendaya in the Star Trek universe is shown to the left. I wanted an image in which she was meeting an alien. To force Mr. Wombo to make an image with the kind of alien creature that I wanted, I made a reference image that included the space alien shown in the 5th image down on this page. 

Figure 12. a blue alien

Mr. Wombo definitely has a preference for making creatures that walk around on two legs as shown to the right (Figure 12).

Star Trek science officers are always interested in the unique biological features of newly-discovered alien species.

Sometimes there is a serious language barrier between humans and other species at First Contact. I've never been comfortable with the idea of a magical "universal translator" that can speed up the plot of a television show. In some cases, inter-species communication can be facilitated by telepathy or the direct physical linkage of two nervous systems by way of synapex connections.

a rare quadruped (full sized)

telepathic contact

Although bipeds are common in the galaxy, Mr. Wombo finally relented and made some aliens with four legs. The image to the right needed some adjustment with Photoshop; the AI-generated image had an amazingly wrinkled sleeve for her right arm. Maybe this is her first mission to make contact with a new alien species after graduating from Starfleet Academy. Since this is the Star Trek fictional universe, the planet of these blue quadrupeds is called "Othengla", not "Ottengla". (see a similar image here)

close dance #1

I've been trying to figure out of Mr. Wombo can count and if he knows right from left. Text prompt: "two women, close embrace dancing, blond left, brunette right, Victoria's Secret Style". Is the default for Mr. Wombo to build every scene on a city street? Maybe in this town, there are confetti machines that go into operation when dancing breaks out (see the image to the left).

hand knot

The image to the right shows an indoors scene, but there are three dancers. Maybe the woman on the left only had one foot... Mr. Wombo can't be bothered with details.

I really have to hand it to Mr. Wombo because he seems to randomly subtract feet and add hands to scenes.

Figure 13. hand it to Mr. Wombo

The image to the left was generated in the "Flora v2" style. I'm not sure if there are two women in this scene or three. Strangely, while getting so many things wrong, Figure 13 does seem to capture the idea of an embrace.

Figure 14. blonde right

 Arm Lock. In the text prompt for the image to the right, I specified that the blonde should be on the right. The ladies were rendered on a blank background, so I pasted them onto the first scene that Mr. Wombo generated when I asked for two dancing women and got a street scene with two women on the street.

Figure 15. blonde left

I immediately changed my request asking for the blonde to be on the left. When the blond was rendered on the left (see the image to the left) I got my hopes up.

Both Figure 14 and Figure 15 have the "linked arms" phenomenon that I discussed in my previous blog post and which was very popular when I put this image on display.

Figure 16. "blond right"

However, I'm not convinced that Mr. Wombo actually knows left from right. For Figure 16 I requested that the blond be on the right and Mr. Wombo got cheeky, putting the blonde on the left. I'll call the arm anatomy of the brunette in Figure 16 "reverse polish".

Figure 17. "blond right"

And  Figure 17 was also with the request that the blonde be on the right. Maybe Mr. Wombo just flips a coin. I'm not sure how many left arms Mr. Wombo gave to the brunette in Figure 17, but it looks like there are two left elbows.

Figure 18. arm from nowhere

At this point, I began using a reference image and I began trying to find out if it is possible for Mr. Wombo to correctly show the arms of two close dancers. The image shown to the right illustrates one of the problems that Mr. Wombo can have in rendering this scene. I'll call this the "arm from nowhere". There is no visible connection from her left shoulder to the left forearm.

solution: only show one arm

I was fairly happy with the image shown to the left in which Mr. Wombo totally abandoned the attempt to show both arms.

Figure 19. we all have arms

The image shown to the right (Figure 19) was about the best I could get from Mr. Wombo for this challenging arm configuration. 

I'm not happy with the way her hand juts off at a right angle, but this could be fixed in Photoshop.

Figure 20. dancing back-to-back?

Before departing from this dance party, I must mention that Mr. Wombo produced Figure 20. 

Back-to-back Wombo style

 Wombo Confusion. When I asked Mr. Wombo to make an image with two women dancing back-to-back and with no reference image, he crafted the image shown to the right. This image brings brings new meaning to "side boob" and one of her feet is missing.

I asked Mr. Wombo to make one of these dancers have blond hair and I got the image shown in Figure 21.

Figure 21. do the twist

 Do the Twist. The dancer in green seems to be totally twisted. 

artificial anatomy

Maybe green is not Mr. Wombo's color. The image to the right might just be showing us a particularly nimble dancer.

Figure 22. AI-generated

I was able to get Mr. Wombo to generate one image that was not too bad (Figure 22). I can imagine that these two are Tyhry and Marda, the two mind clones, who are going off to Alastor Cluster on an adventure. Maybe this pose is one of the ways that mind clones can best synchronize their telepathic mind patterns.

One of the interesting aspects of collaborating with Mr. Wombo to create illustrations for science fiction stories are the bizarre surprises that show up in AI-generated images. Some of these are amusing and some lead to new useful ideas for illustrations, but most are simply annoying.

I'm starting to wonder if the limitations of this kind of software are intrinsic to the technique and can never be fixed.

Next: inpainting with AI-image generators

Mr. Wombo doing Wombo things. Click image to enlarge.