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NVIDIA's Latest AI Software Turns Rough Doodles Into Realistic Landscapes (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: AI is going to be huge for artists, and the latest demonstration comes from Nvidia, which has built prototype software that turns doodles into realistic landscapes. Using a type of AI model known as a generative adversarial network (GAN), the software gives users what Nvidia is calling a "smart paint brush." This means someone can make a very basic outline of a scene (drawing, say, a tree on a hill) before filling in their rough sketch with natural textures like grass, clouds, forests, or rocks. The results are not quite photorealistic, but they're impressive all the same. The software generates AI landscapes instantly, and it's surprisingly intuitive. For example, when a user draws a tree and then a pool of water underneath it, the model adds the tree's reflection to the pool. Nvidia didn't say if it has any plans to turn the software into an actual product, but it suggests that tools like this could help "everyone from architects and urban planners to landscape designers and game developers" in the future. The company has published a video showing off the imagery it handles particularly well.
It's not going to be huge for artists, it's going to eliminate them. With this technology suddenly everyone will be an "artist".
It's not just filling it with a texture. It's generating a complex shape from the concept of a tree. Draw and fill a hundred trees and every one will be different, and the branches of the tree will grow to match the shape of the tree you drew. And it will also blend it into the picture and take into account lighting, shadows and reflections. That's a lot more impressive than a texture fill.