April - June 2022
The GemGen tool and a sample of its outputs.
The Brief
Create a working p5.js (JavaScript) prototype of a generative creative tool for a digital company to use in their design process.
I chose to create a gemstone generator for a fantasy game developer to use in the concept design process.
The Process
Once I had decided I wanted to make a tool for use in concept art I researched generative creative tools such as Nvidia's GuaGAN which uses uses AI to generate impressively realistic images from simple line drawings. This type of generative adversarial network technology has been applied in concept art contexts such as Kyle Huang's MonsterGAN, which generates abstract forms reminiscent of monsters that can be developed by artists into monster designs. As demonstrated by Huang, photo-realistic GAN outputs are not necessary in the concept art field and ambiguity can even be an asset. I decided to apply this in my own tool.
Once the code was written the tool was sent to several people for testing who provided feedback that was used to improve the design.
The Design
GemGen is a tool that randomly generates gemstones for concept artists to use as starting points in their gem designs. The ability to quickly create a diverse range of concepts is critical for concept artists, and this tool helps to spur creativity and cut working times. The user manipulates the parameters for the gems using the menu and then can instantly generate up to 20 gem-like forms. By default the parameters are approximate to allow a variety of concepts to be generated (a concept artist is more likely to want a purple gem with many sides rather than a gem of colour #B74BC7 with exactly 11 sides), however the user can choose to apply values exactly or have them randomised.
Access the tool here:
Gem generated by GemGen, then refined in Photoshop.
Sample of GemGen outputs using a variety of settings.