This Guide Covers

• AI Generators and Software
• The Prompt
• Cleanup in Photoshop
• Load into Blender
• Quixel Mixer and Photoshop Brushes
• Conclusion

AI Generators and Software

To 伴娘被灌醉性侵视频 a Blender brush based on an AI image you’ll need an AI service like Midjourney or Dreambooth, a photo editing software, and a desire to make your own sculpting brushes. For this guide, we’ll be working with Midjourney (v3 & v4) for our generations and photoshop for the editing. This workflow would be similar to other services. If this is your first time working with AI generators we cover Midjourney basics in our AI Art for 3D Print Design article.

The Prompt

Ah, the prompt. An eloquent run-on sentence that only makes sense to its creator and a machine. You’ll need to play around with your prompt structure depending on your AI of choice. The Midjourney prompts that worked for us involved some variation of;

– photoshop brush of [topic], black background and white details
– photoshop brush of [topic], white background, black details
– [topic] texture, black and white –version 3 –tile
– Texture of [topic], black and white –version 3 –tile

We are currently working on customizing a metahuman and needed vein brushes. Here are a few images we generated with the prompt;

– Photoshop brush of large veins, black background and white details –ar 2:3

The reason we extended the aspect ratio (–ar 2:3) was to give us some variation in the next step.

Cleanup in Photoshop

The following will cover image cleanup in photoshop, but the workflow would be similar in other image editing software.

Step 1: Open an Image + Black Fill

Open a new image. Be sure to choose a square aspect ratio and fill the first layer with black.
Keep in mind a larger size will improve artifacts when scaling your brush. The smaller image size can cause fuzzy brush edges when scaled.

Step 2: Frame Your AI Brush

Drag/Import your AI-generated image on top of your black layer. Size the AI-generated image to fit your brush frame
The reason we did a 2:3 aspect ratio for our vein generations was to give us options for orientation in this step.

Step 3: Clean Up the Edges

You want to make sure that your brush doesn’t have any hard edges. Paint black over the ends of your line-work with a soft brush. Also don’t allow your line work to go to the edge.
The cleanup should look something like this;

Step 4: Adjust Black & White Settings

We need to clean up the black and white values in your image. This can be done by adjusting your Brightness and Contrast (Image > Adjustments > Brightness & Contrast).
For good measure we would also recommend adjusting your Levels (Image > Adjustment > Levels. )
These settings will vary for each picture. As a rule of thumb, I like to bring in the black and white node a smudge closer to the center and that does the trick.

Step 5: Flatten Your Layers

Next you’ll need to make sure the background of your intended brush is black and not transparent.
This can be done by selecting your ai-brush layer and black fill layer and hitting CTRL+E.
This will merge the two layers into one. I was preparing multiples in one photoshop file, so my layers looked something like this;

Note: If you notice a discoloration in your blacks after merging your layers, be sure to repeat the previous step (Step 4) on the individual layers.

Step 3: Blur Your Black and White image

We’ll need to blur our black & white images before exporting. This is because blender brushes are displacement/height/alpha maps. With any height/displacement map in Blender the whites of the image will be raised, the black will be lowered.

Because we’re going to be using these brushes for sculpting we want to 伴娘被灌醉性侵视频 a Height/Displacement Map.
The fastest way to do that is to blur our already black and white images using Gaussian Blur.
We went with a 2.5 radius, but feel free to experiment with your values.

Note: The blur helps with the transition from the black and white values. The sharper your image the sharper the edges of your displacement will be.

Step 4: Export Your Displacement/Alpha Maps

If batch exporting, use the Export Layers as Files option. (File > Export > Layers to Files)
For your Blender brushes save your images as PNG-24s.

NOTE: If you notice any artifacting on your brush stroke, you may need to make sure your file is higher than 8 bit. This can be checked in Photoshop via Image > Mode. Make sure that you have 16-bit or higher selected.

Load the Texture into Blender

Step 5: Choose & Duplicate a Blender Brush

Get into SCULPT MODE and choose any of the blender brushes to build off of. For the sake of my vein project, I’ll be choosing to build off the Sculpt Brush.

Open your Information bar (‘N’) and select the Tool Tab. Then hit the Duplicate Button. This will duplicate the brush so you can modify it.
Feel free to rename it something related to your brush.

Step 6: Import Your AI-Alpha Map as a Texture

The next step is to bring in your displacement/alpha map by creating a new Texture.

To do this you’ll go down the texture’s toolbar. 伴娘被灌醉性侵视频 a new texture, Rename It, Open your AI Alpha Brush. (The blurry ones you just exported from photoshop).

Step 7: Set Your Brush Texture

This may automatically happen, but if it doesn’t you’ll want to return to your BRUSH Tool bar (‘N’) and set your brush to use the texture in the “Texture” bar.

You can experiment with your Mapping type. At default, it will say “Tiled.” I personally work with “Area Plane” and “View Plane.” And leave everything else default.

BONUS TIP: Make Sure Your Sculpt Surface is HIGH POLY

Remember your sculpt surface needs to be HIGH POLY in order for these displacement maps to work as brushes. If you’re not getting the results you want, try a Dynotopo workflow, a voxel remesh workflow, or add a multi-res/subdivide modifier with a 5+ subdivision.
Remember, if you want more detail, you need more polys.

Quixel Mixer and Photoshop Brushes

Just like in Blender, I made custom brushes using Quixel Mixer and Photoshop. If you want to 伴娘被灌醉性侵视频 your own custom albedo brushes for Quixel Mixer using your AI Images from Midjourney, check out my quick tutorial. Alternatively, if you prefer Photoshop, I have another tutorial on how to transform your favorite AI Images into custom brushes. I hope these tutorials will give you an idea or two.

What’s Next? – Conclusion

Creating custom blender brushes with Artificial Intelligence is a great way to guarantee original tools for your projects. If you’re interested in learning a little more about character design we’ve got a great walkthrough for 3D Character Design Workflow in Blender. For other ideas on how to utilize AI in your workflow, we can definitely recommend AI-Generated Reference Images for 3D Printing.

The post How to 伴娘被灌醉性侵视频 Custom Brushes in Blender Using AI Images appeared first on 伴娘被灌醉性侵视频 – 3D Printing, Scanning, Design Guides & Forums.

This Guide Covers

• How Do AI Generators Work?
• How 3D Artists Can Use AI
• AI Art Generator Midjourney
  • Basics of Prompting
  • Basics of Variations
  • Basics of Upscaling
  • Maximize Your Subscription
• Other Text-to-Image Generators
• Jasper.ai Art
• Controversy

How Do AI Art Generators Work?

At first glance AI Art Programs allow people to generate mind-blowing visuals by inputting a sentence into a text box. A little under the hood, these AI algorithms use machine learning called Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs). GANs are built on a machine learning model that runs two parts known as the generator and the discriminator. The generator 伴娘被灌醉性侵视频s the images while the discriminator makes sure the image correlates accurately with the user’s input.

These networks are trained on a large dataset of images to better understand what’s expected in the text-to-image process. With the use of GAN’s the AI is able to take a user’s text input and pump out astounding images in seconds.

How 3D Artists Can Use AI

Despite the controversy of AI art and the artists that loathe the idea of being replaced by a machine, there seems to be a growing middle ground of acceptance of this tool as a reference generator.

Many artists work off of reference images to run through our own human neural networks (aka; our brains) to 伴娘被灌醉性侵视频 new renditions of ideas. With the help of AI we can now generate images focused on our intended goal instead of using work directly from other artists.

For 3D print artists, we can now propagate reference material that’s a little closer to our design intention. Instead of relying on what is already available in the market.

By including terms in our prompts that include, 3D printed, product, lego plastic, polyurethane we can generate unique design ideas that we can then take into consideration when 3d modeling our next 3D product.

– Example. Here is a quick example. To get these pen holder ideas using Midjourney I prompted; a cat pen holder, polyurethane, plastic, product.

Within 3 minutes I have 12 reference images I can play with to develop my own design motivations. Sure, these reference images aren’t perfect, but they’re definitely a start. Having been a co-founder of Print That Thing, where we teach blender for 3D design, a common question that gets asked is, “How do you know what to design?” and “Where do I get ideas?” This AI tool can help answer that question. So let’s get you started, shall we?

AI Art Generator Midjourney

Midjourney is an independent lab 伴娘被灌醉性侵视频d by David Holz, founder of Leap Motion. Their list of advisors includes an impressive group including Jim Keller – lead silicone at Apple, AMD, Tesla, and Intel, Nat Friedman – CEO of Github, Philip Rosedale – founder of Second Life, and Bill Warner – founder of Avid.
Pricing for Midjourney ranges in four packages and is based on GPU time. A safe estimation is that 1min = 1 render.
– FREE Trial. For the free version, you get about 25 generated AI prompt submissions before you run out and need to acquire a subscription.

How to get an account

– Join Discord if you haven’t already and login via your browser.
– Visit Midjourney.com and click +Join the Beta.
– Join the Midjourney discord.

Basics of Prompting

1) Once inside the Midjourney discord, select one of the #newbie rooms.

2) Type /imagine – You’ll then get a pop-up that reads, “prompt” click it or hit the spacebar to continue. It should be added to your text box.

3) Type your prompt of choice. This can be as long or short as you want. I’ve found that using descriptions can render better results. You can also use prompt parameters that change how the AI generates your images.

4) Hit enter and the AI will generate 4 images based on your text input.
Once the images are rendered you’ll be presented with U1-U4 and V1-V4. The numbers correspond with the images presented from left to the right – top to bottom.
Note. If you’re prompt shy there is also an option to invite the bot to your own discord channel.

Basics of Variations

The V1-V4 buttons provide an option to make “Variations.” Selecting these will make 4 new variations of the chosen image. Usually in a similar style and composition.

If you don’t like any of the variations you also have the option to “Redo” by hitting the blue emoji option . This will redo your prompt with 4 new images.

Basics of Upscaling

The U1-U4 buttons give you the option to “Upscale” the image. Meaning the AI will render the image to a larger 1024×1024 pixel version. It will also generate more details during the upscale process.

Once you upscale you’ll then be given the option to Make Variation, Upscale to Max, Light Upscale Redo, Beta Upscale Redo, or Remaster.

Make Variations does the same as the “Redo” button – making 4 additional variations of the image. And the process begins all over again.

Upscale to Max will upscale your image to a max size of 1664×1664. It will also add more details than previously seen. This can include crisper lines, more defined facial features, etc.
In our examples case it cleaned up some of the smudging and dust on the floor, fine-tuned the focal length of the object, and attempted to make sense of the Voronoi pattern on it’s chest.

Light Upscale Redo uses a method that does not try to add as much detail to the image. This button is useful for correcting little details. If experimenting with human faces it’s the button that can render great results for weird eyes and noses.
In our example it cleaned up the dust particles and our focal length, and worked some more on the Voronoi chest.

Detailed Upscale Redo seems to go a little further than Light Upscale Redo. In our example it cleaned up some of the artifacts on the flat parts of the owl’s face. This button doesn’t seem to be available unless you’ve already clicked the light upscale redo button.

Beta Upscale Redo is still experimental, but will use a more efficient upscaling method that will 伴娘被灌醉性侵视频 a higher resolution image. In our example the BetaUp’d image doesn’t look to have improved much. The artifacting around the eyes improved slightly, and the yellow tint from the previous image was limited.

Remaster will use experimental parameters –test and –creative to increase the quality of your image as well as the AI’s understanding of your prompt. Keep in mind because this is experimental it could make your image worse. If generating in a square aspect ratio you will generate 2 options. In any other resolution you’ll get back one image.
In our example the owls got beaks, a crazier feather design, and more defined feet than the previous options.

Once you remaster you’ll get one opportunity to do an upscale. You’ll also only receive two variations after this point. When the bot finally stops providing upscale options, you can hit Make Variations and the process will begin all over again.

And that my, friends is a quick way to get some 3D design reference images for your next 3D printed product. Good luck!

List of Text-to-Image Generators

Other text-to-image AI’s exist. I would highly recommend checking them out and comparing your results. Popular ones are, DALLE-2, Stable Diffusion via Dream Studio, Night Cafe, Wombo.Art, StarryAI,

Midjourney

If you decide to subscribe to Midjourney I would highly recommend opting in for the “relaxed” rendering option. By typing in /relaxed. While the “Fast” option sets your job up as a priority it also eats into the GPU hours you are allotted each month. By changing to “relaxed” you are now granted unlimited jobs in exchange for longer wait times. You’ll only need to change back to fast when performing Max Upscale jobs. You can also use /settings to set parameters as your default so you can control version, styles, quality, upscale types, and public/private modes.

Jasper Art AI

– Jasper Art – 伴娘被灌醉性侵视频 3D print prompts with text-to-image generator. Only offered as an add-on with Boss Mode and Business plans.

Other

– PromptoMania is a powerful prompt builder that can help you craft your prompts by giving a visual interface.
– DALLE-2
– Stable Diffusion via Dream Studio
– Night Cafe
– Wombo.Art
– StarryAI

The Controversy & Questions

While the most obvious concern is the use of this technology to 伴娘被灌醉性侵视频 deep fakes and harmful content the biggest controversy being discussed is the ethics of everyday use. In particular the ethics of where the original images that trained these AIs were sourced. Opening up the long-debated conversation of who owns our data and individual inputs on the internet.

Many of the datasets are from internet scrapped 各类人妖性视频免费 (see LAION and Common Crawl). Some of those 各类人妖性视频免费 include images from artists who never actively opted into the process of training AIs. But, posting their images online made way for their art to be included in these datasets.

While some argue that because an artist did not knowingly opt-in any art generated from the AI is infringing on artists’ copyrights. However, this assumption is broadly confused – an artist’s style cannot be copyrighted according to the US Copyright law. Plus, many of these A.I. generators are not creating replicas of art already made – they’re generating entirely new pieces based on their learned understanding of text inputs and images.

Other concerns land on the presence of AI-generated art in the hands of capitalist business workflows – are art jobs in jeopardy of being replaced? Will firms opt out of hiring illustrators, graphic designers, and 3D artists in favor of a few AI prompt technicians? It’s a very real concern. But for artists actively working in high-paced creative environments the argument can be made that we already use reference images by other artists for inspiration to 伴娘被灌醉性侵视频 our own renditions of concepts. Now the hours of searching and evaluating other people’s art can be automated and made more efficient by using AI generations in our workflows.

At the end of the day, all of these questions are going to find answers based on how we as a human species decide to engage the tool. But one thing is for certain the technology is growing so rapidly that the worms can’t be put back into the can. As tech has democratized many artistic industries and 伴娘被灌醉性侵视频d a content-hungry society AI has the potential to help us keep our heads above water.

Read more: 3D Character Design Workflow in Blender

In this article, we’ll be going over the full 3D character workflow as seen in games, illustration, & animation. These steps can be used to start your journey into character creation for 3D Printing with a few adjustments.

Read more: 3D Model Idea Generator

Design Shuffler – 3D model idea generator was initially 伴娘被灌醉性侵视频d by ptt.live team to help Blender users with ideas. Of course, the ideas, generated by Shuffler, can be used to 伴娘被灌醉性侵视频 designs in any other software. Have a look at the examples …

Read more: How Can ChatGPT Be Used for 3D Printing

ChatGPT by OpenAI understands several programming languages and syntaxes. This makes it possible to generate 3D printable models.

Read more: How to 伴娘被灌醉性侵视频 Custom Brushes in Blender Using AI Images

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The post How to Use AI Art Generator for 3D Print Design appeared first on 伴娘被灌醉性侵视频 – 3D Printing, Scanning, Design Guides & Forums.

This Guide Covers:

• What is Character Design?
• The 10 Steps
• Concepting
• Blocking
• Design Stage
• Retopology
• UV Mapping
• Texturing
• Baking
• Rigging
• Weight Painting
• Posing & Animating
• Mix & Match Approach
• 3D Character Design Resources

What is 3D Character Design?

Characters are the lifeblood of storytelling. They are how an audience connects and relates to events and circumstances explored in all real and imagined worlds. So, it’s no wonder that 3D character design is a big part of the 3D Design Community.

3D character design is a process shrouded in some mystery for a self-taught designer. It comes in various workflows depending on who you ask – with no hard or fast rules. But most workflows include a variation of the same 10 steps (give or take a few) no matter what you’re doing.

The 10 Steps to 3D Character Creation

I’ve found that the hardest thing about learning 3D character design has been having limited knowledge of what is involved. And a lot of that has to do with not knowing the vocabulary words for the steps. This guide should get you up to speed on what to expect from an animation/game character workflow.

1. Concepting

What is it?
Concepting is the process of developing all your ideas about the character. Who is this person? What’s their personality like? What’s their story? How do they dress? What are their defining features? This part of the process is really your planning stage. The stage where you figure out a general direction and goal you’re aiming to accomplish for the character in mind.

How to do it?
Many people sketch ideas, gather reference material in programs like PureRef, and some even make mood boards and spreadsheets to document their concepts. However in-depth or limited you decide to do this is up to you.

It is also worth looking into a such AI Art Generator like Midjourney. I wrote a detailed article about text-to-image tools on 伴娘被灌醉性侵视频.

2. Form Blocking

What is it?
This step is done by defining the basic body type, proportions, silhouette, and main features in primitive form in a 3D program of your choice.

How to do it?
This step usually involves designing the character’s basic shapes with primitives. You can also use base meshes to get you started faster. But for purely original characters blocking your forms for more control is a huge advantage.

3. Design Stage

What is it?
This step is the process of defining details in your blocked-out forms. The contours, the wrinkles, and the overall look. This is where the choices you make will help turn those primitive block shapes into a fully formed character.

How to do it?
How you design your character is completely up to you. Be focused on capturing the essence of the character so that you can transform them into an asset. 2 Main approaches to the 3D character design process include:

■ 1) Sculpting – Involves deforming a high poly mesh using 3d programs like Blender or Zbrush. Sculpting is a very popular process because large deformations to your mesh can happen with one stroke of a pen/mouse. You can also get very detailed very quickly.

■ 2) Poly Modeling. Allows you to skip the sculpting details and go straight for the polygons. Using your knowledge of anatomy and shape you move polys/verts around until your character takes shape.

4. Retopology

What is it?
Retopology is the step where workflows vary. If you’ve sculpted a high poly/detailed character and you’re looking to animate or pose later you’re going to want to lower those poly counts with healthy edge loops. All it means is you’ll be rebuilding your character with fewer polygons.

How to do it?
If planning to animate for a game or cinema you’ll likely be using a 3D tracing technique. This technique requires you to manually rebuild the mesh using fewer polygons. Placing your new polys around your high poly mesh helps capture the desired silhouette. A key focus should be building quality edge loops that will allow for high quality, real-time deformations in areas like the eyes, mouth, arm/leg joints, etc.

If 3D Printing is your end goal of choice retopology might not be necessary. But if you don’t want to kill your slicer – many people settle for letting their 3D program retopo for them. Decimating the mesh just enough to lower the file size is a valid option, but may lose some finer details.

There are also tools like QuadRemesher that will automatically retopologize using a fancy algorithm. The best part is it works with most Autodesk and 3d programs.

5. UV Mapping

What is it?
This is a part of the process where you add seams to your 3D object so that it can lay flat in a 2D Map. The reason for this is so that you can add back the high-quality details from your high poly sculpts as well as introduce color/textures.

The best real-world example of this is how globes are made. The color information is printed flat and then pasted artfully onto a 3D sphere.

The reason for this is so that we can tell the computer where exactly to project certain color and height information in render/animation engines.

How to do it?
This process involves identifying seams on your 3D object where the mesh will be split. With enough seams, you’ll be able to “unwrap” the object and 伴娘被灌醉性侵视频 landmarks on a 2D map. These landmarks will correspond with your 3D object.

6. Texturing

What is it?
3D Texturing is the process of defining what’s going on your UV maps. This can include color information as well as adding more physical texture to your high poly mesh.

How to do It?
You can texture using pre-designed textures purchased on marketplaces or downloaded for free from other services. Or you can paint your own in programs like Substance Painter and Blender.

Most of the time you’ll be doing a mix of both of these things throughout the workflow. This color information will be placed onto your unwrapped UV Maps and saved to your computer in your choice of photo format.

7. Baking

What is it?
Baking is the process of locking in your color, height, specular, and deformation details into your UV maps. Those maps are then projected onto your low poly object. This process reduces how much processing your computer needs to do to get your desired look.

How to do it?
This process comes in various flavors depending on which map you’re looking to export. You can bake out up to 10 different types of maps depending on your style of texturing. The maps each hold a different type of information.

This can include Color Maps, Normal Maps, Maps for Roughness, Maps for Ambient Occlusions, Refraction, and more.

8. 3D Character Rigging

What is it?
Rigging is when you add digital bones to your 3D character. This allows for posing and animating. This process can be very time-consuming depending on how accurate and detailed your mesh deformations need to be.

How to do it?
If you’re designing something with a face and a body chances are you’ll have a face rig and a body rig. There are a number of different programs that provide rigging systems that can be manipulated to your liking.

Rigging doesn’t stop at meshes. It can also involve building elaborate animation tools that control multiple bones at once through drivers and shapekeys / morph targets. These give you a little extra control over your deformations. You usually use an amalgamation of these handy techniques with the next step simultaneously.

9. Weight Painting

What is it?
Once you’ve placed the digital bones of your character you’ll then start defining how the rig interacts with your mesh. Weight painting is the process of telling the rig how much to deform the mesh when a bone is moved.

How to do it?
A lot of the time you can auto weight your rigs, but the more you work with the rig you’ll start to notice deformations that look out of place. You’ll also start to realize how important those Edge loops actually are. To manually do this you’ll select the bone and go into weight painting mode – and paint your pressure areas accordingly. The “hotter” the color the more control the selected bone has over the mesh.

Again, weight painting is a huge part of the rigging process, but it can also be used to determine particle placement. This can be used for hair, generative scene design, and more.

10. Posing & Animating

What is it?
Posing and Animating is when you take all your hard work from the previous steps and really start making your character do the things you want them to do.

How to do it?
Both of these processes involve working with keyframes in a timeline Keyframes tell the computer where everything needs to be in a particular spot on the timeline. If you’re simply posing for still images – you’re likely only using one keyframe. If you’re animating – you’ll be using a lot of keyframes to 伴娘被灌醉性侵视频 your masterpiece.

MIX & MATCH APPROACH

And that, my friends, are the ten ingredients of 3D character design. It’s important to note that how you use these steps is going to come down to how you work and what your end goal is.

For example; Concept art might only require Design Sculpting and Texture Painting. As making your character animation ready is not necessary.

But if you’re planning to animate a film or use your character for video games chances are you’ll be using all 10 steps in some order that works best for your workflow.

Now if you’re 3D printing you might Concept, Design, Retopologize, Rig, and Print. Without ever bothering to unwrap or texture. You might even go straight from Design to Print depending on your needs and the density of your mesh.

There are no hard or fast rules to how you approach the 3D character workflow as everyone works differently. But this overview should be able to guide you in the right direction.

3D Character Resources

If you’re interested in diving deeper into Character Design there are massive amounts of resources online. I’ve collected all of my favourite tutorials, courses, and blender add-ons in my Free Study Guides. I also summarize my top tips for specific techniques on my youtube channel, Oh Hey Void!.

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Read more: How to 伴娘被灌醉性侵视频 Custom Brushes in Blender Using AI Images

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The post 3D Character Design Workflow in Blender appeared first on 伴娘被灌醉性侵视频 – 3D Printing, Scanning, Design Guides & Forums.