- [Aaron] I'm Aaron Rutten
and today I'll be demonstrating how
to generate amazing artwork using the power of AI
with the Vision FX plugin.
This plugin is compatible with Corel Painter, Photoshop,
and more, but today we'll be focusing on how it works
with Painter 2023.
This plugin seamlessly integrates
with your creative software to allow you
to transform your own images or create one-of-a-kind images
from a text prompt or a source image.
Unlike many of the other generative AI apps,
this plugin is installed on your local computer
so you don't have to be online to access the plugin
and your data remains private.
And best of all, it is available as a one-time purchase,
meaning that you are not locked into a subscription
to use the software,
nor do you have to pay per image generated.
Quick disclaimer, this video is sponsored by DistinctAI,
the makers of Vision FX.
As always, all opinions in this video are my own.
If you'd like to follow along with me,
you can download Vision FX at distinctplugins.io
or get it from the Store within Corel Painter.
Before we get into generating anything,
let's first go over the system requirements
for this plugin because it can be quite power hungry.
Vision FX is powered by Stable Diffusion,
which means that you will need a powerful CPU
with 64-bit support and a modern GPU or Graphics Card
with at least 8GB of RAM.
Since 2016, I had been using the Nvidia GTX 1080
which is a pretty good GPU, but unfortunately,
it's not modern enough to handle Vision FX effectively.
I don't have a precise list of which cards are supported,
but any of the RTX Nvidia GPUs should suffice
to run this plugin.
I upgraded to an RTX 4070
and the difference in the performance
of Vision FX is night and day.
This is because the newer RTX cards support AI features,
whereas the GTX was introduced before all
of these generative AI tools existed.
You certainly can use Vision FX with an older GPU,
but it will be much slower to generate images.
You'll also need Windows 10 or 11.
Mac is not currently supported.
The size of the installer is on the larger side
at a little over 4.5GB.
It may take some time to fully download.
It comes packaged as an ISO file,
so you'll need to extract it using something like 7Zip,
which is free.
After installing 7Zip, right-click on the Vision FX ISO
and choose 7Zip > Extract.
The files will uncompress into a folder
revealing the installer file.
After that, simply double-click on the installer EXE file
and follow the instructions to install the plugin.
The plugin will automatically install
into the appropriate folders for your host applications,
such as Corel Painter.
Next, launch Corel Painter
and open a test image to play with.
It can be anything you like from artwork to photographs.
I'll choose an image that all Windows 11 users
should already have.
It can be found under
C: > Windows > Web > Wallpaper > Sunrise.
I selected "img29."
The plugin will only process the currently selected layer,
so be sure to save a copy of your work
and then flatten the image by merging all of the layers.
After that, look in the Effects menu,
and at the bottom, you should see the Vision FX plugin.
Open the plugin, and in a moment,
Vision FX will be ready to use.
Your image will open in Vision FX
and you can use the UI to edit the image.
At the top of this panel is Get Inspired.
This opens a gallery of images generated by Vision FX
so you can get a feel for what it can do.
As you can see, you can generate all sorts
of genres and subjects.
You can even emulate the styles of famous artists,
like Van Gogh,
or transform your work into specific mediums,
like paint, pencil, and more.
Below that, you'll see a text box.
This is where you can enter your prompts
which define how you want to transform your image.
You can see a sample prompt which is fairly descriptive.
Being very descriptive and using powerful keywords
helps Vision FX give you more intricate results
so you'll want to aim for something like this.
However, it will still work with shorter prompts as well.
Before we tinker with any of the other properties,
let's just do a test run with the default prompt
and see what we get.
I am using a modern GPU, so I can enable "Process with GPU"
to take full advantage of my graphics card.
Unless you have a modern GPU,
enabling this may not do anything to speed up the process.
Next, click on Run,
which initiates the generative diffusion process.
Five iterations of the image will be processed one at a time
and each iteration will take anywhere from seconds
to minutes depending on your computer hardware
and the Output settings you chose.
Be patient if you are on a slower computer.
You can see the progress status overlaid
on the generated thumbnails in the bottom left.
Should you need to stop the process,
simply click on Stop, and in a moment,
the generative process will end.
You can also close the plugin window to stop it.
Once all five iterations have been generated,
you can toggle between them to preview each image.
There is a nice before-and-after slider
which makes it clear precisely how the image
has been changed.
As with all AI generated images, you shouldn't expect
the first run to give you the results you want.
It will take experimenting with various text prompts
and settings to get something you are happy with.
Each time you run this plugin,
you will get a different image.
It might look very similar, but the details will be unique.
The results are very random, which is a good thing,
because you'll have more freedom
to make one-of-a-kind images,
but it can feel a bit disappointing
if the initial images don't match your prompt exactly.
In terms of image quality,
I am using a somewhat low detail setting.
This can be increased, but it will affect the time it takes
to generate each image, so we'll come back to that
so we can progress through this tutorial more quickly.
Whichever thumbnail you have selected
determines how many more iterations you will generate
when you run the plugin again.
For example, if I am on the final thumbnail,
then when I run the plugin,
I will only replace that one iteration.
If I happen to stop midway,
I'll continue generating images from that point on.
Before we explore what prompts can do any further,
let's go over the remaining properties of this plugin.
The Settings section is where you can choose how
to apply the text prompt to your Input
or the image you have loaded into Vision FX.
There are info buttons you can hover over
to get a sense of what each control can do,
but we'll explore these one by one.
Strength controls how much your original image
will be transformed by the text prompt.
A low value will only slightly affect your image,
whereas a higher value will make it unrecognizable.
There are 100 values, so this is a way
to both blend the effects with your original
and create randomization.
If I set this to 100 and Run the plugin,
you'll see that I get an image that looks pretty much
as the text prompt describes it:
A Van Gogh "Starry Night" painting.
Therefore, if you want to entirely generate an image
without basing on an Input image,
this is the way to do that.
We'll explore this method in more depth shortly.
If I set Strength too low, nothing will happen other
than you'll get a slightly randomized version
of your original image.
It's not identical in terms of detail,
but color and composition-wise, it's about the same.
It's not until a value of 20
that I start to see the image look more like a painting.
At 50, I get something that looks even more painterly.
The details are now all unique,
but the Input image I loaded serves as a guide
that keeps the general composition the same.
There is still land covered in trees above a lake,
but now rather than mountains in the distance,
I might get clouds.
Next is "Text Guidance Scale"
which controls how strictly the plugin follows
the text prompt.
Right now it is set fairly low, so the changes I've made
to the image have been more subtle.
But now if I crank up the scale to 25 and run it again,
my results are going to look like a painting
without any photographic elements.
Again, this can be used to blend your Input with your Output
or to randomize your results.
The next property is "Starting Seed",
but let's come back to that.
Let's look at Steps.
Steps control how much the image is processed
or "diffused" before it is complete.
In other words, this is the quality setting of the image.
A low value will create sloppy results with low detail,
but the images will generate faster.
This can be useful to experiment
with ideas before attempting
to generate a more detailed image.
Setting this value higher produces the best quality results
with sharper details,
but it also takes much longer per image,
especially so if the other properties
are at high values as well.
Although the downside is that you'll have to wait longer,
all of this is being processed on your computer
rather than in the Cloud, so there are advantages to that.
Let's return to Starting Seed.
You'll need to Reset the plugin to access this.
This is a 10 digit number,
which has kind of a technical explanation,
but I will attempt to summarize.
Let's start by entering 10 ones.
The quantity of digits in this number implies
that there can be a very large combination of seeds
to choose from.
I'll enter "drawing of a man wearing a gray hood, dramatic,
portrait, detailed, photorealistic".
The commas help to separate different descriptive terms.
Then I will set Strength to 100, Text Guidance Scale to 25,
Steps to 75, and run the plugin.
As you can see, I get 5 different versions
of this character.
When I click on each of them,
the Selected Seed increases by one.
They each look unique but they share a lot of similarities,
like hair color for example.
So what does a Seed do?
Generated images start as random noise
and grow into complex images.
Each seed is a unique noise image
which serves as a starting point for anything I generate.
If you want to generate roughly the same details in an image
while experimenting with the other properties,
the seed will sort of preserve those details.
To give you a gardening analogy,
a seed for a plant will always grow a plant, not an animal.
Therefore if I start with a plant seed,
I'll always get a plant.
But the type of plant and the details of its shape, color,
leaves, flowers, et cetera,
may be determined by other properties.
I'll copy that text prompt, reset the plugin,
use the same text prompt and settings,
and then use a different seed.
I can randomize the seed with this button,
but let's use three 10 times
so that we are seeing similar results.
I'll run the plugin again and as you can see,
I get a character who has all of the traits
I specified in my text prompt,
but with a different theme overall.
This time these guys don't look as much
like the previous versions since the seed value changed.
Again, "Selected Seed" increases by one for each iteration.
You can use this number to save a Seed value you want
to reuse again to get roughly the same results.
Here's a pro-tip, use the Windows Screen Snipping Tool
to capture the seed along with your prompt and settings.
Let's reset the plugin, enter 10 ones,
and use the same settings and prompt.
Now I get five iterations that were close
to the ones I generated with that same seed earlier.
I can tweak the other settings
without losing the basic features of that seed.
If you happen to have a collection of iterations
with different properties or text prompts,
different options will be selected
when you click on each thumbnail.
Because other factors add to the randomization,
using the same Seed won't give you exact duplicates.
Therefore, if you want to keep an image you generated,
be sure to click on the save button.
You can only save one image at a time, though.
Once you click on Save, the plugin will automatically close
and the image will be updated in Corel Painter
or whichever compatible application you are using.
You can then work on the image
or just save it as any format you like.
If you don't want to degrade the quality of the image,
I recommend using PNG over JPEG
since JPEG will add compression.
It's also worth mentioning
that if your preferred art program is not supported,
you can always import your saved image into it
from one that is.
It's also possible to save an image
and feed it back into Vision FX for multiple passes.
I'll use the same text prompt
but this time, I'll set the Strength to 50
and leave the "Text Guidance Scale" at the default.
Now you can see that I get iterations that are very similar,
but some may look slightly better
or closer to your vision of what you want.
I can then save that and continue adding passes
to further refine it.
I can even change the text prompt to add in something new
or different.
I'll change the prompt
to "digital painting of a man wearing sunglasses,"
increase "Text Guidance Scale," and run the plugin again.
Now you can see, I get basically the same character,
same pose, same color scheme, but with sunglasses.
As you are working, you might see a NSFW icon over one
or more iterations.
This happens from time to time, even on harmless images
and prompts, so just be aware that it's normal.
Adjusting the Strength will allow me to keep more
or less of my original image.
That's all for the properties.
Now let's discuss how one might want
to use these generated images.
First, let's see how Vision FX performs
with a variety of genres.
Let's start with the most challenging genre
and that is portraits of people.
I'll load a photo of myself as the Input image.
The background has been removed,
which will help conserve detail for the main character.
I'll enter "realistic, portrait of Vince Vaughn,
acrylic paint, palette knife strokes."
I know that sounds a little strange to add celebrity names,
but that's the most effective way to guide Vision FX
to create a likeness.
So as irritating as it is when people compare you
to celebrities you look like,
or at least they think you look like,
you can finally put that to some good use.
Without this guidance,
you get faces that tend to be more distorted.
I'll also use a lower Strength and Text Guidance Scale
so I preserve more of my own details.
I'll start with lower Steps so I can find a combination
of settings that works.
Then I'll increase the detail
when I know I am on the right track.
I'll run this and we are presented
with several wannabe Aaron Ruttens.
None of them look exactly like me,
which could be the effect you want.
It's not impossible to get a likeness that looks like you,
but it does take a lot of luck and effort.
What worked well for me is slowly changing the values
to gradually sculpt the likeness.
I'll save this and use Corel Painter to mix this
with the original image of myself.
And now I get a blend
that looks more like a painted self portrait.
While generating a self portrait is challenging,
it's quite easy to generate unique faces that do not exist.
This can work well for character creation.
I'll create some other faces using celebrity likenesses.
Another thing to be aware of is that,
unless it is trained specifically for faces,
most AI image generators struggle with correct anatomy.
If you are running into issues generating people,
what I would aim for is getting parts of what you like
and then manually correct any mistakes in Photoshop
or merge multiple generated images together.
For example, maybe I like the eyes and nose in one image.
I can save that image, render some more iterations,
then splice two or more images together
in my art application using a Layer Mask.
Let's try another genre of art.
I'll use this portrait of myself as the pose
for an anime style character.
For the prompt, I'll use "in an anime style,
detailed, portrait, watercolor painting, cartoon,
cel shading, manga, comic art, vibrant color".
It's going to take a lot of Strength
to get it to take on an anime style,
so I'll use about 60.
As you can see, it's sort of a mixture
of anime and photography.
I can try to describe myself in the text prompt,
which may give me a more accurate caricature.
And of course, if I don't need this
to resemble my Input image, I can set the Strength to 100
and just generate anime characters as much as I like.
How about wildlife? How does Vision FX handle that subject?
Let's try "photograph of a tiger in tall grass."
I'd say it does an okay job,
but be sure to check the anatomy of animals
because like people, they can be subject to inaccuracies.
I'll feed the Output back into the Input
and use the same prompt to further refine the tiger.
Next, I'll feed it back in again
and this time I'll define the style
with "tiger drawn in colored pencil, vibrant colors,
drawn in a sketchbook".
I'll also increase the Strength to 70 for a stronger effect.
Now you can see how I generated the tiger,
then made art out of it.
Architecture is another popular subject.
Let's see how Vision FX handles that.
Let's go with "ruins of a space colony,
medieval architecture, stone, blocks, starry void,
aerial view, concept art, detailed."
This gives me some interesting results
that I can easily refine in Vision FX.
Throughout this demonstration,
you've seen that there are many ways
to use these generated images.
If the image you generate is satisfactory,
you certainly can use it as is.
But many artists will want to at least put their own touch
on the image to make it their own.
You can combine generated images together
to create composites,
you can use Photo Painting or Cloning
to make the image look more painterly,
or you can use the generated image as inspiration
or as a reference to make a painting from scratch.
I prefer to use generated images as reference,
but there isn't a wrong way to use this software,
aside from being dishonest
and claiming that you hand-painted something
that you really generated.
Depending on how much AI contributed to your work,
it might be good to give credit
to the Vision AI app wherever it is appropriate.
That covers the basics of getting started with Vision FX,
but there's a lot to learn about choosing effective prompts,
refining generated images, generating specific subjects,
and image generation best practices.
Hopefully this video got you started
and you can learn more as you go along.
If you want to purchase Vision FX,
there's a link in the description of this video
or go to distinctplugins.io.
Thanks for watching and I'll see you next time.