Resources
I will continue to update and add to this page as the semester progresses. Check back for new links.
Readings (pdf):
- Ed Yong – An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us (intro) (2022)
- Jakob von Uexküll – A Stroll Through the Worlds of Animals and Men (1934)
Software (Required):
Blender version 4.2.1
Download here for Windows
Unreal Engine version 5.3.2
Software (Optional):
Miscellaneous Blender Add-ons
- G Scatter - plant ground cover
- A.N.T. - terrain generation
- Cell Fracture - procedural breaking
- Piperator - make pipes on meshes
- Biome Reader - auto generate plants/landscapes
- Nebula Generator - space scenes
- Molecular - particle systems w/ interaction
- World Machine - standalone software for landscape simulations that can be imported into Blender
- ChatGPT addon - GPT plugin (we will install together later in course)
- AI Render addon - github documentation
AI Tools / Resources:
Conversational AI / GPT’s - ChatGPT - suggest ChatGPT 4.0 (requires account)
- Anthropic Claude - newest version
- Google Gemini
- More advnaced generation OpenAI Playground
- Guide for Prompt Engineering
- Guide for Prompt Engineering from OpenAI directly
Generative Image
- ChatGPT - suggest ChatGPT 4.0 (requires account)
- Midjourney - use via Discord or WebUI
- Midjouney prompting guide (very basic)
- Dall-e 3
- Microsoft Bing AI
- Dream Studio by Stablility.ai
- Adobe Firefly - best if you have a reference photo
- UI for running Stable Diffusion
- Classic Automatic 1111 Stability on Github and Install guide (older tool now, but fun to play with if you’re proficient in the simple UI image generations)
- For advnaced image (and video) generation - ComfyUI - SOTA tool as of Sept 2024
- For ComfyUI manager you’ll need: https://git-scm.com/download/win and https://github.com/ltdrdata/ComfyUI-Manager?tab=readme-ov-file
- oldie but goodie - TensorFlow Deep Dream collab notebook
- Runway.ml - branching out, many tools now
Checkpoints/Models/Workflows
- https://civitai.com/
- https://civitai.com/models/62437/v1-5-pruned-emaonly (good version of SD 1.5)
- https://comfyanonymous.github.io/ComfyUI_examples/lora/ LORA examples for ComfyUI
Generative 3D
- Polycam - AI / Lidar 3d scanning app
-
Masterpiece X - text to 3d tool
-
Luma Genie - text to 3d tool (beta)
- Meshy.ai - text and image to 3d
General References
- Cultural Automation through Machine Learning - Dr. Parag K. Mital UCLA Course
-
Conceptual background and tools for image generation specifically - up to 2023/early 2024 Parag Mital pdf
Sound:
- Epidemic Sound (free trial 7 days) - royalty free sound and foley
- AudioGen - text to audio AI
- AudioGen 2
- Stable Audio - AI sound
- Riffusion - AI sings what you type
- Adobe’s Voice Cleaner - AI
- ElevenLabs - AI voiceover
Digital Assets:
- Quixel / Bridge / Megascans - 3d library with plugin for Maya including plants
- Textures.com - textures library
- Turbosquid - free 3d models
- Free 3d - free 3d models
- PolyHaven - HDRI’s, textures, some models
- SketchUp 3d Warehouse - built for Sketchup, most can be repurposed
- Ultimaker’s Thingiverse - geard towards 3d printable models, but many available
- MyMiniFactory - also geared towards 3d printing
- BlendSwap - Blender model share community
- SketchFab - general 3d library, some free and some paid
- Kitbash 3d - expensive, pro-quality kitbashable models
- Artstation Marketplace - lots of assets of varying quality