Stable Diffusion - Animation

Greetings Fellow Aspra Corp Employees!

Happy Tuesday! I hope your adventuring has been going well for you. As you may have come to find out (or, unfortunately, are going to find out), I have a tendency to get in the weeds on things. The last week and a half or so, I've been brushing back up on my Stable Diffusion / AI Art Generation. It is simply amazing to me at the speed that this technology moves.

(If you are interested in AI Generation, how it affects ACSM:CM, or just reading in general, continue on; otherwise, if you're wondering how this affects everything, skip to the bottom!)

While I know most folks are still on the fence (or have made their decision about AI Art in general), I try to be conscientious of my use of the material; only fantasy generation of concepts (big, busty hucow women) that you typically wouldn't find in your day to day life (if you have found some, I am sure the rest of the group would ask you to share). 

Stable Diffusion has been a boon to me (and I've found myself jumping between three major players: Automatic1111, Vladmandic's Automatic Fork and ComfyUI), as it's allowed someone who has the worst of two worlds (a deep need to control the scene/players/image but also not a drop of artistic talent) the chance to include art to supplement my writing. Because as much fun as it is to write all sorts of kinky stuff, an image can sell it!

What I haven't been doing is keeping up with the times, and boy, the times are a-changing. Anyone who has tinkered with or even keeps a toe in the AI waters knows things move quick, but I am truly amazed at some of the things coming out, and wanted to take a moment to share some of those!

While Stable Diffusion XL has been a big talking point for some months now, I am finally seeing some stability with it's tertiary manipulations; more specifically, ControlNet.  As you read above, I am a stickler for a scene looking correct, story-appropriate and in keeping with key players/equipment/locations. AI struggles with maintaining a balance sometimes, and ControlNet lets me willfully administer my adjustments to it. 

So while I have been very excited about that, what has been more profound is the animation and motion coming out of AI Art. I think it's pretty self-evident that the ability to create TG Animations with the proper workflow is an exciting proposition. In the same breath, I would also be the FIRST to admit the original animation systems of Stable Diffusion were a janky, confusing mess, with one of the hottest topics focused on Temporal Stability as well as Temporal Cohesion. 

So, to see some of the latest and greatest rolling out of the great churning generation machine, looks night and day. For instance, for the TF/TG community, some of the works coming out are INCREDIBLE; take for example this TF into a Giraffe (NSFW WARNING). It's amazing in comparison to the animations that were coming out just a couple months ago!

I've started work with AnimatedDiff, a very promising T2I and I2I motion generator. There are plenty of guides on using it in Comfy or Stable Diffusion, and if the technology and processes have progressed to this point in just a few months, I am truly excited to see where  things will be in a few months from now!

I encourage anyone looking to jump into Stable Diffusion to do so; the constant iteration on the processes and systems is making it easy to pick up, but the massive number of opportunities making it hard to be a master of all!

Lastly, the update on progress for Release V.0.2.0. I will admit, I jumped a little off the rails when I jumped back into Stable Diffusion, but if I am going to continue to develop art (and maybe video!) alongside the game, I need to continue to stay abreast of new opportunities and improvements. 

However, coupled with this excursion, is the fact that V.0.2.0 is a Systems Update much like V.0.1.9. V.0.1.9 had the benefit of catching all the long hanging systems fruit; things that didn't need much to get put in place, or just needed updates. V.0.2.0 has me digging into the weeds and affecting long term planning. 

I'm at a crossroads, and I will go one of two ways; either release V.0.2.0 as-is in a week or two and make V.0.2.1 a systems update to finish the remainder off, or push V.0.2.0 back a few additional weeks to get these things done. 

I'm open to your thoughts, gentle players; feel free to let me know what you would prefer, elsewise I'll toss out a decision in the next week or two!

Thanks for reading, and for playing!