[…]a Reddit user named “Ugleh” posted an AI-generated image of a spiral-shaped medieval village that rapidly gained attention on social media for its remarkable geometric qualities. Follow-up posts garnered even more praise, including a tweet with over 145,000 likes. Ugleh created the images using Stable Diffusion and a guidance technique called ControlNet.
[….]
In June, we covered a technique that used the AI image synthesis model Stable Diffusion and ControlNet to create QR codes that look like rich artworks, including anime-inspired art. Ugleh took the same neural network optimized for creating those QR codes (which themselves are geometric shapes) and fed simple images of spirals and checkerboard patterns into it instead.
When guided by the prompt, “Medieval village scene with busy streets and castle in the distance (masterpiece:1.4), (best quality), (detailed),” ControlNet rendered scenes where artistic elements of the images match the perceptual shapes of spirals and checkerboards. In one image, the clouds arc overhead and people stand in a gentle curve to match the spiral guidance. In another, squares of clouds, hedges, building faces, and a wagon cart make up a checkerboard-shaped scene.
The magic of ControlNet
So how does it work? We’ve covered Stable Diffusion frequently before. It’s a neural network model trained on millions of images scraped from the Internet. But the key here is ControlNet, which first appeared in a research paper titled “Adding Conditional Control to Text-to-Image Diffusion Models” by Lvmin Zhang, Anyi Rao, and Maneesh Agrawala in February 2023, and quickly became popular in the Stable Diffusion community.
Typically, a Stable Diffusion image is created using a text prompt (called text2image) or an image prompt (img2img). ControlNet introduces additional guidance that can take the form of extracted information from a source image, including pose detection, depth mapping, normal mapping, edge detection, and much more. Using ControlNet, someone generating AI artwork can much more closely replicate the shape or pose of a subject in an image.
Using ControlNet and similar prompts, it’s easy to replicate Ugleh’s work, and others have done so to amusing effect, including checkerboard anime characters, an animation, medieval village “goatse” (surprisingly safe for work), and a medieval village version of “Girl with a Pearl Earring.”
[…]
If you want to experiment with ControlNet, this site has a good tutorial. Also, Ugleh posted a step-by-step workflow, including the spiral and checkerboard template files, on Imgur.
While the artwork is remarkable, current US copyright policy suggests that the images do not meet the standards to receive copyright protection, so they may be in the public domain. While AI-generated artwork is still a contentious subject for many on ethical and legal grounds, creative enthusiasts continue to push the boundaries of what is possible for an unskilled or untrained practitioner using these new tools.
Source: Funky AI-generated spiraling medieval village captivates social media | Ars Technica
Robin Edgar
Organisational Structures | Technology and Science | Military, IT and Lifestyle consultancy | Social, Broadcast & Cross Media | Flying aircraft