Alien Civilization

An alien by Mr. Wombo.

 At the end of my previous blog post I linked to online discussions of the soon-to-be released Civilization 7 game. I used some of the illustrations of Civilization game scenes as reference images with Google's Whisk and tried to get Whisk to alter the style of the buildings so as to depict alien civilizations on distant exoplanets. Most of the aliens in my science fiction stories (set in what I call the Exodemic Fictional Universe) are not too different in bodily form from we humans since like us, they are related to the Hua.

Alien First Contact.

In this blog post, I'll also be showing images such as the one to the right that were generated by WOMBO Dream.

For the image to the left, I started with a central part of Figure 3 (below) that contained both a human and a humanoid alien. Mr. Wombo often wanted to convert the human woman into an alien.

In the image to the left, the alien ended up with green skin and the legs of the human woman were tinted with purple..... possibly she's an alien-human hybrid.

Figure 1. Pyramid village storyboard version 1 with all three human "subjects".

Aliens by Mr. Wombo.

 I provide Whisk with four "subject" images including one of a humanoid alien with blue skin, but initially Whisk excluded the alien from the storyboard (Figure 1).

aircraft by Wombo.

I modified the text description of the storyboard so as to explicitly include the blue alien "subject" and then Whisk inserted two blue aliens into the next storyboard that it generated (Figure 2). I was impressed that Whisk included what looked like some aircraft close to the pyramid, near the top center of Figure 2.

Figure 2. Pyramid village storyboard version 2 with two humans and two blue aliens.

Generated by Mr. Wombo.

Next, I modified the storyboard text description so as to specify a "futuristic alien town". I was pleased with the types of buildings that Whisk generated for Figure 3, below. I don't know how Whisk "decides" to sometimes show aliens dressed in clothes and in other cases the aliens appear to be naked (as in Figure 3). When I used the center of Figure 3 as a reference image, Mr. Wombo generated the image that is shown to the right. I'm always surprised when for no obvious reason an AI flips a humanoid figure front-to-back.

Figure 3. Pyramid village storyboard version 3 with all three human "subjects" and a blue alien.

Generated by Mr. Wombo.

In the "subject" image that I had uploaded with the blue alien, she was holding a globe, but Whisk ignored that aspect of the image when generating Figure 3. When I made that feature of the "subject" explicit in the storyboard description, Whisk generated the image shown in Figure 4.

 First Contact. I liked the fact that Whisk included in Figure 4 the feature of the redheaded woman holding up some kind of hand-held device. I can imagine trying to communicate with an alien at First Contact and using a holographic image of Earth to show the alien where humans come from.

Figure 4. Pyramid village storyboard version 4 with a female alien.

Generated by Mr. Wombo.

 I tried to get Whisk to add an interesting type of street to the space between the buildings in the alien village by using text prompts such as: "streets with a highly reflective metallic surface".

One of the "streets" that was generated by Whisk is shown below in Figure 5. I was actually hoping that Whisk would generate a more seamless surface for the alien street such as what WOMBO Dream generated in the image that is shown to the right. As usual, by mentioning "exoplanet" in my text prompt, Mr. Wombo found it necessary to place a planet in the sky. Sadly, Mr. Wombo missed the opportunity to place an interesting object in the hand of the redhead, even though there was one in the reference image and her hand is positioned as if it were holding an object.

Figure 5. Pyramid village storyboard version 5 with a metallic road.

Generated by Mr. Wombo.

An annoying "feature" of Whisk is that after getting close to a satisfactory "storyboard" (like the one in Figure 4) you then ask Whisk to make one additional change and Whisk will instantly forget all about features that have already been added to the scene. For example, the blue alien was eliminated from Figure 5 and the buildings were reverted back to the style in Figure 1.

For Figure 6, I tried hard to get a street, the blue alien and alien-style buildings all in a single image, but then Whisk seemingly "forgot" the meaning of the word "street", producing various strange objects including what looks like a reflecting pool in Figure 6.

For the image to the right, I used part of Figure 6 as a reference image for WOMBO Dream. Mr. Wombo seemingly transformed the setting to a location on Earth, so it is easy for me to imagine that after meeting the aliens of some distant exoplanet, one of the aliens was taken back to Earth.

Figure 6. Pyramid village storyboard version 6 with humans, the alien and a reflecting pool.

Figure 7. Robots and aliens storyboard 1.

robots "subject" image

To generate the image that is shown in Figure 7, I provided Whisk with the "subject" image shown to the right.

cropped alien "subject"

Another image that was similar to the image shown to the left was also provided to Whisk as another "subject" image, this one representing an alien.

The "scene" image was another "ancient city" image from the Civilization 7 blog.

Figure 8. Reference.

 By asking for a city under a glass dome, I was able to get Whisk-generated images such as the one shown in Figure 8. I used the Whisk-generated storyboard image that is shown in Figure 8 as a new "style" image and then Whisk generated the new storyboard shown below in Figure 9.

Figure 9. Robots and aliens storyboard 2.

Generated by Mr. Wombo.

new "subject"

For Figure 9, I used the "subject" image that is shown to the left. I wanted this new subject to be depicted as a "supervisor" for a team of robots, but I also wanted the aliens with purple skin to be included in any new storyboards made by Whisk. 

I also tried to get the robots to be depicted in a less mechanical style than the ones in Figure 9. Instead, Whisk became particularly annoying and made my new human "subject" adopt a robot-like appearance.

Figure 9. Robots storyboard version 3. I had Mr. Wombo turn the supervisor into an alien.

Figure 10.

Eventually, I was able to get Whisk to generate the image that is shown in Figure 10. In my imagination, this could be a scene in an alien school where a team of teaching robots carry out the instruction for alien children. Here is the text prompt that was used for Figure 11: "A photorealistic rendering of a science fiction encounter on an alien exoplanet. Warm earth-toned style reminiscent of science fiction concept art depicts humanoid alien figures within a meticulously detailed futuristic alien town nestled within a synthetic glass dome, that holds out the toxic atmosphere of the planet. 

Alien with a tail.

 A young humanoid alien woman with purple skin, pointed ears, long white hair, wearing a green and gold bodysuit, stands amidst the beautiful sparkling buildings. Two fair-skinned elf-like humanoid aliens, an adult woman with long white braids and a purple hooded cloak, and a young child in a green hood, stand near a highly decorated wall inscribed with alien writing. A humanoid alien woman dressed in gold metal foil supervises seven humanoid robots. The humanoid alien woman dressed in gold metal foil is exhorting the robots to capture the child. The robots have sleek green bodies and gold accents and they stand in front of the town's central Palace. The town is densely packed with two-story buildings, a central Palace-like structure, and beyond the protective outer glass wall are rolling hills, lush greenery, and hints of a distant body of water. The overall aesthetic is adventurous and slightly nostalgic, with photorealistic detail in the alien humanoid figures. The robots are beautiful. A lake with a highly reflective surface reflects the image of the alien palace. All of the buildings are depicted photorealistically in a futuristic alien style."

Figure 11. Robots storyboard version 4. I wonder what the stick is that she's holding.

Robots on water.

The image shown in Figure 11 was amusing in that Whisk seemed to generate some robot children. Also, for this image Whisk really got serious about putting the alien palace inside a glass bubble. Rather than include in the scene the golden robot supervisor, Whisk placed golden highlights on the green robots. 

The very limited documentation for Whisk says nothing about a limit for the length of text prompts that are used in Whisk, but long prompts seem to lead to much confusion for the AI. For example, Whisk decided to make some robots stand on the surface of the lake as shown in the image to the right.

Figure 12. Robots storyboard version 5. Two golden supervisors.

Golden cyborg

Green cyborg

For the image shown in Figure 12, I systematically replaced every Whisk-generated head and face with a new face/head that was generated by WOMBO Dream. I tried to give each robot a more humanoid head and face than what was in the original Whisk-generated image.

For the image shown in Figure 13, I finally was able to get Whisk to place into the storyboard the kind of human subject dressed in golden clothing that I had originally wanted.

Figure 13. Robots storyboard version 6. A human supervisor of robots and a human child.

Generated by Mr. Wombo.

Using the "storyboard" image that is in Figure 13 as a new "scene" image for Whisk along with a new "subject" image of a man, Whisk generated the storyboard that is shown in Figure 14. Again, Whisk made an image with some robots that were walking on water. I manually put a wooden dock under their feet. 

Also, I again used Mr. Wombo to modify most of the heads in Figure 14. Also, the aircraft in Figure 14 was pasted into this image from another Whisk-generated storyboard.

Figure 14. Robots storyboard version 7. Humans, aliens and robots on an exoplanet.

bald children

I have no idea why Whisk ended up with all those flowers at the bottom of Figure 14. There was nothing in my text prompt about flowers. As usual for whenever "exoplanet" is in a text prompt, Whisk placed a planet in the background without being instructed to do so.

 Bad Behavior. As shown in the image to the right, Whisk once make two bald children for one of the storyboard images. I was a bit annoyed that Whisk generated Figure 14 with all of the humans, aliens and robots spaced out so regularly in raw across the image. I wonder why the alien child in Figure 14 is kept on a leash.

Next: General Sam meets Jax.

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