So I was working on come concepts for the Priest of Mielikki in my “Winter’s Warriors” playthrough of IWD2, and I ran into an issue I’ve had a few times now. How to get the AI to render transitions and transformations. Things like Druids changing shape, lycanthropes, wizards shape-changing, etc. So here’s a few tips and tricks I’ve figured out.

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Shapechanging

So when trying to get a render of Elara changing into an animal, the obvious starting place for me was just stating it straight-out:

“fantasy painting;cherokee woman magically turning into a bear:(cherokee elf woman,middle-aged,dark pony tail,green eyes,leather armor,green cloak,face tattoos);in the snow“

That clearly did *not* work very well. There’s one image vaguely reminiscent of a transformation, but most just look like she’s got a new friend. I tried “transforming” instead, but got similar results. A bunch of pictures of her *with* a bear, and one that looks like a bad halloween costume:

“fantasy painting;cherokee woman transforming into a bear:(cherokee elf woman,middle-aged,dark pony tail,green eyes,leather armor,green cloak,face tattoos);in the snow”

OK. How about a bit more explicit?

“fantasy painting;cherokee woman growing and stretching into a bear:(cherokee elf woman,middle-aged,dark pony tail,green eyes,leather armor,green cloak,face tattoos);in the snow”

Words like “shape-shifting”, “morphing”, and “shape-changing” didn’t fare much better. So I tried a different approach:

“fantasy painting;cherokee woman growing claws,fur,and a long snout:(cherokee elf woman,middle-aged,dark pony tail,green eyes,leather armor,green cloak,face tattoos);in the snow”

Hmm… Different. Maybe better. But still not really what I want. So at this point I pulled back to the basics. When I’m trying to figure out something new like this, and it just isn’t working, I simplify to the bare bones. Get it working like that, and then add back the details.

So I figure it probably knows what a werewolf is, so lets start with that:

“fantasy painting;cherokee woman becoming werewolf;in the snow“

Some interesting ideas there, but only one looks even vaguely like what I want. And one is just her now having a werewolf friend.

“fantasy painting;cherokee woman becoming wolf;in the snow”

Clearly its not my details causing the problem. It just doesn’t fundamentally get the basic idea. Time to step back. What if instead of trying to make it figure out what I want, I get a bit more explicit?

“fantasy painting;cherokee woman growing fur,arching her back,face elongating into snout;in the snow”

Kind funky, but this has some potential…. Lets make it Elara again:

“fantasy painting;cherokee woman on all fours,growing fur,arching her back,face elongating into snout;(cherokee elf woman,middle-aged,dark pony tail,green eyes,leather armor,green cloak,face tattoos);in the snow”

Now we’re getting somewhere!

“fantasy painting;cherokee woman on all fours,growing fur,arching her back,face elongating into snout,sprouting tail;(cherokee elf woman,middle-aged,dark pony tail,green eyes,leather armor,green cloak,face tattoos);in the snow”

Um….No… Lets forget about the tail…

“fantasy painting;cherokee woman on all fours,growing fur,arching her back,face elongating into snout,growing fangs;(cherokee elf woman,middle-aged,dark pony tail,green eyes,leather armor,green cloak,face tattoos);in the snow”

Nah. That’s not quite right either. What if we try to make it more active?

“fantasy painting;cherokee woman on all fours,growing fur,arching her back,face elongating into snout;(cherokee elf woman,middle-aged,dark pony tail,yellow eyes,leather armor,green cloak,face tattoos);in the snow;action scene;blurred motion“

That’s getting more interesting….

“fantasy painting;cherokee woman on all fours,blurred form,growing fur,arching her back,face elongating into snout;(cherokee elf woman,middle-aged,dark pony tail,yellow eyes,leather armor,green cloak,face tattoos);in the snow;action scene;blurred motion”

“fantasy painting;cherokee woman on all fours,blurred,transforming,growing fur,arching her back,face elongating into snout;(cherokee elf woman,middle-aged,dark pony tail,yellow eyes,leather armor,green cloak,face tattoos);in the snow;action scene;blurred motion“

What if we try a photography technique?

“fantasy painting;blurred double-exposure;cherokee woman on all fours,growing fur,arching her back,face elongating into snout;(cherokee elf woman,middle-aged,dark pony tail,yellow eyes,leather armor,green cloak,face tattoos);in the snow;action scene;blurred motion“

The one thing we’re not controlling right now is which animal it is. So how about doing it globally?

fantasy painting;blurred double-exposure;cherokee woman on all fours,growing fur,arching her back,face elongating into snout;wolf motif;(cherokee elf woman,middle-aged,dark pony tail,yellow eyes,leather armor,green cloak,face tattoos);in the snow;action scene;blurred motion

And now that we’ve got the basics, we can do things like these:

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