Midjourney Concept Art: A 1980s Dystopia
I've enjoyed using Midjourney, a new online AI image generator, for creating images. I enjoy creating images within a particular theme. Last time I created many images within the theme of "Retro Space Travel Photos". This time the theme is "a 1980s Dystopia".
I started creating images using the following variations of the following prompt:
"a 1980s science fiction dystopia, cinematic, film grain, 1980s, movie, --testp, --ar 3:2"
I was trying to emulate some of the images I'd seen in the 1984 BBC film Threads, which depicts life in Britain following a nuclear strike by the Soviet Union, as well as 1984 itself. thought the images it created looked cool, and decided to share them below.
Images created by Midjourney of a 1980s Dystopia
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DALL-E 2 vs Midjourney
I wanted to compare DALL-E 2 vs Midjourney, as Midjourney has recently enabled users to use --test and --testp to upgrade their images and make them much more realistic. Using --test and --testp (test being a more creative improvement and testp leaning towards more photorealistic improvement) and comparing to current DALL-E 2 outputs.
So I chose a variety of prompts to give DALL-E 2 and Midjourney, chose what I considered to be the best from each one and decided on a Winner (and therefore a loser!) from each comparison.
Toronto TTC Streetcars
"a photograph of a TTC streetcar on the street in downtown Toronto, foggy, winter, tall buildings, TTC streetcar, Canada, photography, street photography, city, 8K, realistic, detailed, real world"
The Dalle streetcar image is pretty, but lacks detail. It looks like a painting despite me asking for a photograph in the prompt. The Midjourney image is much more realistic.
Winner = Midjourney
Eyes
"a human eye, macro photography, 8K, realistic, highly detailed"
Dalle's eye is more photo realistic and Midjourney's is more stylised and arty.
Winner = DALL-E 2
Cyberpunk
"a cyberpunk man standing with the skyline of a cyberpunk city in the background, 8K, octane render, unreal engine, volumetric lighting, highly detailed, cinematic, realistic"
Dalle's image is dreadful here.
Winner = Midjourney
Teddy Bears
"a studio photograph of a cute teddy bear, realistic"
Both are nice images, but Dalle's is more realisitc.
Winner = DALL-E 2
President Spongebob
"Official portrait photograph of United States President Spongebob Squarepants, sitting in the oval office, smiling at the camera and wearing a suit with blue tie, professional photography"
Midjourney's image is nice, but completely misses the Spongebob component of the prompt.
Winner = DALL-E 2
Underworld
"A journey to the underworld"
Dalle's image is very literal (a man exploring a cave) while Midjourney's is realistic but still outworldly and intriguing.
Winner = Midjourney
1980s apartment
"stylish apartment from 1980s Miami, furnishings in 80s style, pink and blue colour scheme, magazine photography, 1980s"
Both capture the atmosphere but Midjourney's is far more realistic.
Winner = Midjourney
Bibimbap
"food photography of bibimbap"
Both are great but Dalle's image is more accurate in terms of the ingredients in an actual bowl of Bibimbap.
Winner = DALL-E 2
Brutalist
"A man walking through the spacious hall of a cavernous brutalist building, concrete, imposing, brutalist architecture, 8K, realistic, moody"
Midjourney's is more realistic and atmospheric.
Winner = Midjourney
Woman smiling
"a close up portrait photograph of a young woman with red hair and freckles laughing and looking directly into the camera, portrait photography, studio lighting, detailed, 8K"
This is a good prompt to show the differences between Midjourney and DALL-E 2. Dalle's image is more realistic, while Midjourney's is too but in different ways. Tough choice but going to go with Dalle purely because if you squint your eyes it looks more realistic.
Winner = DALL-E 2
Velociraptor eating pizza
"a Lomography photograph of a velociraptor eating pizza in New York City"
Dalle captures the lomography aspect of the prompt correctly, while not getting the velociraptor part correct. Instead it's clearly an iguana eating pizza. Midjourney gets it more right but lacks the lomography aspect. It looks more like an illustration than a photo.
Winner = DALL-E 2
Corgi
"a photo realistic photograph of a corgi, 8K"
In this case both are lovely images, but Midjourney's leans more towards a painting of a corgi than a photo of one.
Winner = DALL-E 2
Blackbird
"Blackbird SR-71 flying above the clouds, photograph, film grain, 1970s, view above, high quality, realistic"
Midjourney is the clear winner here.
Winner = Midjourney
Fynbos
"a photograph of fynbos flowers in South Africa"
"Fynbos", literally 'fine bush' in Afrikaans, is the name for the unique flora of the Western Cape in South Africa. Both DALL-E 2 and Midjourney images are great. But going to give the win to Midjourney as it's slightly more photo realistic.
Winner = Midjourney
Final Results of DALL-E 2 vs Midjourney
So in this epic contest the final results are
- DALL-E = 7 wins
- Midjourney = 7 wins
A tie! Who would've suspected?
These tools are both great and I would encourage you to check them out on your own!
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Retro Space Travel Photos from Midjourney
I tried creating some new Midjourney images using their recently released Test options and loved this retro space travel aesthetic that I found.
To create them I simply used the prompt "a 1970s spaceship, film grain, 1970s, retro futurism, cinematic, science fiction".
Adding in additional bits of information such as "crew", "robot", "cockpit" and more created some really nice pictures. I thought I'd try putting them all together into a video to see what it would be like. You can watch it below.
Since all the images are generated by Artificial Intelligence I figured it would make sense to use music generated by AI and used AIVA, which describes itself as "The Artificial Intelligence composing emotional soundtrack music."
Retro Space Travel Photos
Below are some of the Retro Space Travel photos I created, I hope you enjoy!
