During a late summer visit with my family in 2022, we found ourselves in the kitchen engaging in our typical arguments about the state of the world when my brother brought up the topic of artificial intelligence (AI), something he had been discussing in our family WhatsApp group for months. While I found it interesting, I assumed it was a highly technical and time-consuming process, so I didn’t think much about it. But then he pulled out his phone, opened an app, typed in a few words, and created a stunningly intricate, imaginative image in a matter of seconds. I was amazed and excited, but also worried about how this could affect my job as a 3D creative in the events industry. Intrigued by what I had seen, I decided to explore AI’s potential in my role as a 3D creative and discovered some mind-blowing possibilities.
Prompt: When worlds collide and create something unimaginable, the sky erupting with colour, bubbles
Easy to use online Ai platforms are now everywhere, with new additions in every sector popping up daily. Some of these have rather scary implications, such as David Guetta perfectly synthesising the voice and lyrics of artist Eminem in his recent performance, and some are simply useful like Chat GPT, an amazing and almost lifelike chatbot to answer any question you may have. The Ai that interests me the most however, is what inspired me in the first place, image generation, and more specifically Mid-Journey Ai.
So with that said, my aim here is to explain how we at “We Are Collider” have started introducing image based Ai in our initial creative exploration of briefs.
My introduction of Mid journey to the wider We Are Collider team was in the form of a “how to use” presentation. A presentation that was met with silence and confused faces. I thought I had messed up! but as it turned out everyone was just baffled by what I was showing them and in the following weeks i started to see new images popping up in our discord server from the team indicating that they had started to experiment with the tool.
A few months have passed since then, and I am confident that Mid journey is well on its way to becoming an essential part of our initial creative exploration phase. It has enabled our creative team to significantly reduce the time and effort required to test various design ideas that would previously have taken hours of work. Enabling us to receive feedback from colleagues and clients early on in the design process.
By working in this way, the creative team and I have been able to make necessary adjustments and improve proposals way before 3D or sketch artists even need to become involved.
Mid journey has proven to be highly effective in this visually portraying of initial creative concepts, but more importantly to me, the tool has the unexpected and uncanny ability to generate images that can inspire new and innovative creative directions. A simple text prompt can send you off on ten new tangents, spiralling down avenues of thought that you hadn’t even begun to explore. I have already seen this transform and push the design direction of an active brief into something completely new and objectively more interesting.
Example of an abstract prompt changing results. Prompt: when worlds collide and create something unimaginable, the sky erupting with colour + “one additional changed word”
Although still early in our implementation, I feel strongly that the introduction of AI image generation as a tool is set to revolutionise the design process not only at We Are Collider but across the industry. It will enable creatives to be more efficient and ambitious in their approach, resulting in even better design outcomes for clients.
But is there a flipside? Is Ai set to take my job??
In its current state, no. I see it very much as a tool to aid in creativity that needs a human driver, and It is currently far from taking 3D from a conceptual stage to final production. However, it is clear to see that it could easily be taking work away from sketch artists and those involved early in the creative stages. The future is another matter entirely, at the rate we have seen this technology evolve, who knows what we will see Ai being able to achieve in a few years…
It does pose the question.. Is it ethical or right to use Ai tools if we are knowingly putting someone out of work?
Prompt: A creative office, self aware computers are creating assets, neural network, a man looks sad outside the window
Unsurprisingly, the expanding capabilities of Ai, like the ability to generate images, text, music and even realistic human voices have raised questions about the role of human creativity in the artistic process, and there is a lot of contention within creative industries around its use.
Is it a Tool, is it cheating, is it allowing anyone to type in a string of words and instantly become a “creative” without any other training or experience?
The answer could be yes to all of them.. But ultimately in my opinion, the answer depends on how and why it is used. To use me as an example, I am a 3D creative with dyslexia, not a copywriter… was i wrong to ask Chat GPT to take my long and misspelt sentences and rewrite parts of this blog in a more concise and easy to read form?
I don’t think so, they are still my opinions and words, but i will leave it for you to decide.
Kit Kaye, Senior 3D Designer
