Ep. 53: Cracking Midjourney’s Style Explorer + Freepik’s Rise + Higgsfield Prompt Hack

0:00:00Cold open, Halloween vibes, aging gracefully (or not)

Play from 0:00:01 8:88:88 0:00:01 What's up everybody Midjourney Fast Hours podcast episode 53. I decided to bring Roy Flynn back for this one. I decided to bring myself back for this one. I don't know. We're 53 episodes in. We're rocking and rolling now. We're going to talk about Midjourney today. We've got office hours notes, a lot of interesting real big updates coming down the pipeline. Then I think we're going to kind of get into style explore a little bit further, kind of go into some of the other things that Midjourney is doing for the rest of the year before we get into sort of the big picture and landscape of everything else that's happening as well.

Play from 0:00:33 8:88:88 0:00:33 How does that sound, Rory? was pretty good, know, another week, another like ton of drops and a ton of things to keep up with. And if you can't tell, I got bags under my eyes and my hair is getting grayer. It's just, hey, this is the life we live now. can't tell with this angle, think whatever angle you're sitting at... oh getting real gray. My mom told me I looked like Pepe Lepieux the other day.

Play from 0:00:58 8:88:88 0:00:58 I got a white streak down my hair. I was like, thanks, Mom. How does that make, I had to throw it back. I'm like, how does that make you feel though? I know, right? My mom's done that before too. I'm like, are you poking the bear for right now? Yeah, like I get it. Like, you know, I was like, yeah, every once in a while, my mom will, you know, feel it. Got to keep my mom on up. My mom is definitely like, likes to knock me down a peg. So like, that's that's cool. But then I, you know, she doesn't know that she taught me that too.

Play from 0:01:25 8:88:88 0:01:25 whenever she's like feeling herself or whatever, I'm like, I have great chest hair. What do you think about that? It's like, like, yeah, how do you feel? like, have you seen my chest hair? Because it's pretty good too. my age again? You know, start throwing out Blink 182 lyrics on that. But it's it's what parents are good for. You know, kind of keep keep everyone on down a peg. Make sure that no one gets egos get too high.

Play from 0:01:50 8:88:88 0:01:50 Don't feel themself a little bit too much. But yeah, dude, it's you know what I also love this time of year. It's like, I think underrated if we're going, you know, with our classic pop culture talk. I love Halloween television. like to me, I'm a big fan about, love Hocus Pocus. We'll watch it least once a year.

Play from 0:02:16 8:88:88 0:02:16 Transylvania on the animated side. One of my favorites. I also go with any of the classic like 80s horror movies. Done, easy. And then Friday the 13th, Freddy Krueger. Yeah, anything that's, yeah, Halloween. I'll I'll go, I'll watch some scream. I'll also watch scary movie probably during this time too. Yeah. Like any of, yes.

0:02:32Scream, Stranger Things, Blade nostalgia

Play from 0:02:42 8:88:88 0:02:42 yeah. That was a, that was a, we all, know, then everyone had, it was like, that was like everyone's Halloween costume when we were like, I don't know, nine, 10. It, yeah, I had that, boy, it had its time for sure. Yeah, I mean, I'm and then, you know, of course, because I'm a I'm a stranger things nerd. I was I was so first season of Stranger Things on door around Halloween. feels like appropriate. Yeah. Yeah, I like I like that show a lot for the the Halloween vibes.

Play from 0:03:11 8:88:88 0:03:11 underrated actor, going back to Scream, Matthew Lillard. Yeah. Was also, was also, what's his name? Shaggy in the Scooby Doo movies. I thought that was a perfect fit at the time. Ooh. see those. But you know, they're coming out with a scream next year. Scream seven. I didn't even know there were other screams outside of three. I didn't even know they even went for dipping back in.

Play from 0:03:38 8:88:88 0:03:38 I mean, I guess everything's 2000s again, right? Like we're all like seeing like the new trend. I mean, at least for until sort of AI wiggles its way into the film process and they start saving costs again, because I think the whole reason they're doing that, at least from like the things that I've watched is basically less creative risk and less financial risk because for a while they were banking on all these DVD sales.

Play from 0:04:09 8:88:88 0:04:09 right, of these movies. It was almost like a second phase of income and revenue for these movies. And when the DVD thing went away, you know, that was a big problem. And so they stopped taking these huge, huge budgets and they started doing all these safe things, you know, things that were the sequels, the prequels, the trilogy, you know, like all that stuff, because you've already got an established, you know, fan base, so to speak, and blah, blah, blah, blah.

Play from 0:04:36 8:88:88 0:04:36 And that's That's been nice, but man, we've missed out on so many, you know, just all those comedies that, you know, we don't get anymore. um All the original sort of like movies that are just a little bit different, like 80s, 90s, you know, that they just don't make, you know. So maybe we get some of that back. Matthew Lillard, though, I don't know why I didn't I didn't come into this podcast thinking about Matthew Lillard, but that dude's that dude's great.

Play from 0:05:02 8:88:88 0:05:02 You know what other movie he's really good in is. uh Summer Catch. You remember Summer Catch? Yes, Freddie Prince Jr. He's the pitcher, Lillard's the catcher. Dude, what a great movie that is. Me too. league baseball up there because I always thought that was like a really cool sort of like environment to go watch games.

Play from 0:05:27 8:88:88 0:05:27 Jessica Beale. What happened? Where'd she go? Yeah, there was. Yeah, then. Oh, not to mention I got to watch Blade during this time of year to all the all the fun ones. Blade, my God, Blade is a great one, dude. Great. first movie. My dad took me to see that when I was like six or seven. And that first the first like two scenes, I was like, Whoa, this is like, this is like real.

Play from 0:05:53 8:88:88 0:05:53 Yes. That opening scene is epic. It's can't do that with AI right now. That's that's too good. That's too good. But not to see. I get all nostalgic for Halloween. I love Halloween. Super fun. Everything that, it all comes back. And then I go back to reality after October 31st. Are you taking [name] out for Halloween this year?

0:06:19Kids’ costumes, seasonal prompting (moody fall looks)

Play from 0:06:20 8:88:88 0:06:20 Yes, we had to go out of the city, though, go to grandma's house so that we can actually have like suburban neighborhood type Halloween. Yeah, because you guys do you guys do matching costumes for the twins or do you do different costumes? I mean, we'll let them do whatever they want, but I mean, now they just pick the same thing. So now they're both being Elsa, you know, from Frozen. They did that last year. So we're repeating already.

Play from 0:06:48 8:88:88 0:06:48 You like what you like, I guess, but. don't go with what works. Don't don't go with what works. But yeah, dude, I'm you know, this is also from a pivoting towards AI. This is also like I like generating around this time of year for some reason. It's just it's just more fun. I don't know. Yeah, but then. just put it in there. You ever notice that it's like a winter I'm doing like winter stuff and then like fall like oh it's like you know the leaves are coming off you want to have like that little bit of like a darker environment the trees are either bare or got the you know the fall leaves and it's just like okay maybe things are a little bit wet a little bit more gloomy that's just what it is up here so I sort of find myself prompting in that direction a lot of times it just feels like that's what's going on around me but I always end up with some

Play from 0:07:37 8:88:88 0:07:37 really good stuff this time of year so I like I like where my playtime on AI goes around this time. But, we get... too. Well, let's get into it, man. Let's get into the mid-journey stuff, Like office hours notes. Were you on office hours this week or no? Yes, like for a little bit of it. I always I always seem to miss like the David updates part and end up when people are asking questions in there.

0:07:43Midjourney Office Hours recap: V8 hype, maybe skipping 7.1

Play from 0:08:05 8:88:88 0:08:05 But definitely heard some things picked up on a few things. But if we go through this, I'm interested to see what I miss now. Get the live reaction. didn't catch this one, but I was just kind of putting this in before we hopped on here. I think there are some really, I mean, there's nothing like surprising, surprising new from the last time, but I think like there's some really interesting reiterations, right? So like we've all heard about VA, we were talking about like how they seem really excited about that.

Play from 0:08:32 8:88:88 0:08:32 This was interesting, right? So got everything better is the goal. Quality co-ordinators, prompt filing, resolution, aesthetics, not just one area framed as a true game changer. So um You know that sort of confirms the excitement there. We also talked last time about hey, are they going to just maybe skip 7.1 and it sounds like they're on the fence about that. So their only contingent is a if we have something worth shipping that's a big feature. Yeah, we'll do a 7.1, but we're not necessarily tied to it.

Play from 0:09:00 8:88:88 0:09:00 We don't even know if we're going to do it. So that's what they're talking about there. If it's if it's not substantial enough, they're going to skip it. Go straight to V8. you remember them saying anything like is like, you know, framed as a true game changer for version seven? Do you remember anything like that? No, right? So this this might be real. mode, I can't remember how they were talking about the draft mode because that was such a sort of like a new way to prompt in a sense, right?

0:09:14Draft Mode real talk; permutations (exp, chaos) habits

Play from 0:09:28 8:88:88 0:09:28 Like you could use voice, you could iterate very quickly. I don't know how many people are actually using that. And I don't even know that that's a bad feature in any way. It's just like, I don't know, are you using that? Are you using like the draft or the voice mode in any way? I'm not really using it. would use draft way more consistently if I could use permutations in it. That's like the one thing that I don't find to be useful.

Play from 0:09:54 8:88:88 0:09:54 mean, I do use. yeah, so you can't use permutations in there. That would make sense. So that's probably why I've never been consistently using that. yellow, green. I'm doing it right now to see if that's changed. Oh, you can. All right, well, I take that back because I feel like you used to not be able to use permutations or was it run or is it repeat that I can't use R5?

Play from 0:10:20 8:88:88 0:10:20 No, you can now. All right. No, both those work. So I just haven't I stopped using it because of that. But. anybody here is using draft mode, would love to hear what you're using it for, how often you're using it. Like if you really feel like how much beneficial value is there, I'm genuinely curious because I have not really adopted that feature into anything that I'm doing.

Play from 0:10:46 8:88:88 0:10:46 I would say uh in large part, um man, I'm pretty much using Well, I use permutations basically on everything I prompt. And the most common permutations I'm using are EXP and maybe Chaos, you know, here and there. ah That's it. That's really it. Yeah, I've kept chaos pretty much stagnant at five to seven range for the longest time.

Play from 0:11:17 8:88:88 0:11:17 I don't know if I just haven't changed it a lot that much. The I do the permutations now along with just style codes so I can just like, you know, I'm going through like the go to the style explorer and just hitting like copy, paste, copy, paste, copy, know, or add style code, add style code, comma, and just run everything all at once. But I know you can do the try this, but the one thing One thing that I find, I don't know if you've done this with the style explorer when you're when you're doing it, it's like you just scrolling through and you hit try, you know, you try this style and it automatically does whatever the first prompt is.

0:11:38“Try style” quirks and SRF stacking behavior

Play from 0:11:51 8:88:88 0:11:51 But if it has a style code already attached to it, it like it attaches it. So it's two style codes. You don't really get to just use it. You know what I mean? Kind of got to kind of to have like blank, you know, blank prompt without an SRF code and then just hit try. It's Perfect for Halloween. I'll load this one up so we have that if we see anything worth trying here. Yeah, man, that's interesting.

Play from 0:12:20 8:88:88 0:12:20 It's like, see, if you hit try style for you, if you go to your create page, does it is it stacking? Those with the OK, why is did you have a style code on the original one with them? Why the hell is it not? Why is it doing that for me then? So annoying, like you're only having it's just flipping the style code for you. Do what I'm saying. What do you mean?

Play from 0:12:46 8:88:88 0:12:46 I'm not sure. So basically all I did was like, I cleared this out. So this one now has everything in there, right? But when I hit the first one, guess it was long enough since I created my last prompt or whatever. didn't bring the last thing I had in here. So I just typed that in real quick. And then. Hold on, am I being, is this just being crazy?

Play from 0:13:14 8:88:88 0:13:14 Let me use this prompt, hold on. I gotta see if this is just something that was happening as a glitch or if this happens all the time. No. I'll do this, right? I have an SRef code attached to my image to begin with. Now I'm just gonna go to the Style Explorer and then I'm gonna hit Try Style. Let's see.

Play from 0:13:41 8:88:88 0:13:41 Well now okay, I don't know why I was doing this yesterday then it was just like if I had a style code attached It was just like automatically adding it which would take a second one So it'd be like a blend of the two instead of the one that I was trying who knows Sometimes sometimes we're just good. Just get a little glitchy now regardless style Explorer super fun you wanna, while we're with Style Explorer, do you wanna go into that a little bit?

0:14:04Deep dive: Style Explorer (search by tokens, textures, cameras)

Play from 0:14:11 8:88:88 0:14:11 Cause we were talking, we've talked a few times about, right? Like first you had the ability to do the smart search thing. We've talked about that a bunch, right? Where it's like, okay, let me create a style. You know, can go in here. Not only do you have sort of like images, but you have like style. So there's one way to explore. You've also got obviously what's here. you know, by looking at random, hot, or top day, or styles that you've liked, so you've got that.

Play from 0:14:38 8:88:88 0:14:38 We did talk about the search bar a little bit in terms of like more basic uh queries that you can type in here, right? So if you've got a certain color, right, you can pop that in. uh If you've got a certain style, you know, like you can pop that in. But uh I think you were going a little bit deeper on that, you know? uh So... Tell me a little bit more about what you were doing lately with that.

Play from 0:15:03 8:88:88 0:15:03 I'm curious. was using like token approach, like in that sense. like, yeah, naturally instead of just doing like the category of like, I can do it, yeah. share your screen? Yeah, I'll let you take over here. Yeah, I think this is interesting too because uh that deeper token approach wasn't available at least at first. And now what you're saying is like, we can get very, very specific now.

Play from 0:15:34 8:88:88 0:15:34 And so I think you were playing around with the idea that, look, if I've got a certain token in mind, I can actually filter through that. Yeah, so like with this, I just type in photography. Pretty much brings up the same whatever you'd expect. But then there's sometimes I'm doing things like precision photography, and I'm getting way cooler stuff. This is obviously, you're getting some really cool type looks.

Play from 0:16:00 8:88:88 0:16:00 I photography, precision, cinema. There's like, there's. So this is interesting. This one didn't come up the same way that it was yesterday. like regardless, I've been doing things like, you know, like precision or. could type in Polaroid or, know, actually I was doing something a little bit like this the other day, because I was looking for sticker styles.

Play from 0:16:26 8:88:88 0:16:26 So I was just using like 3D sticker or sticker and pulling up sticker styles there. It's pretty good. Why I was doing a lot of textures, so was like, you know, know, grainy, deep texture. And it would bring this up. This is going to load for me while we're on the. So like you can. mean that's pretty specific, you know? Yeah, so there was, you know, I was doing things like that.

Play from 0:16:54 8:88:88 0:16:54 I was doing like shift, like shift focus, things like that, where I was like a little bit like more beyond than just color, because then I would also put in things like, you know, like vivid or, you know, hazy or things like that. So let's see, like vivid and then sharp. Right. Like doing.

Play from 0:17:19 8:88:88 0:17:19 doing things like that where you get like some some really interesting sort of bull almost like you're trying to figure out like blends if that makes sense. So like like that precision contrast right like that I was doing things like that with tokens and I was actually finding some really cool ones that I hadn't come across before. um So like it's awesome getting like the math stuff right like this is it's cool but then you know I might find something like this which is like what I'm looking for.

Play from 0:17:50 8:88:88 0:17:50 or you know, like, right? that's the interesting thing is the specificity with the search tool wasn't there. Now you got it. So there's like, you know, like soft, like soft, rippled texture. But you can get, you can get like pretty specific, almost like you're researching for tokens, which I was like sick.

0:18:00Token combos for discovery

Play from 0:18:18 8:88:88 0:18:18 I really like this. Cause then you can even go into like, you know, like 3d or more. like, yeah, like this, like that's almost like kind of what I'm looking for, like right off the bat. You know what mean? Like that's this is cool or something like this. Like so I was just it's like a different way to approach it. I got I put full prompts in here before and it's like, OK, that's cool that that can kind of work.

Play from 0:18:44 8:88:88 0:18:44 But just trying to find like different ways to search in here. And I mean like, you know, sometimes I type in like music and you might get something cool. Yeah, I know you like album cover, right? Like. like album cover instead of it just being like photography, cinematic colors like this one, you know, I might not ever search for something like that. So it's like the same.

Play from 0:19:10 8:88:88 0:19:10 It's like the same style like token approach. Right. Like this is cool. Like I don't even know what to do to search for in that. I might try that one. That's kind of um Right. Like like these are or like it's supposed to be the one I do on like mixed media. poster, something like that. um So it's just something that I don't know. I'm sure a lot of people have looked at this and been like, yeah, let me just do that.

Play from 0:19:37 8:88:88 0:19:37 I don't know if I was thinking about it this deep of how good this search would actually be and where you could find this stuff. But it's cool. is, I mean, this is the other power of Midjourney is just the curation across the board of those key things, right? Of styles, of images, of videos now. uh And then just search across the board, right?

Play from 0:20:03 8:88:88 0:20:03 Like, I mean, this is an inspiration place as much as it is a place to create in all these different ways. And so I think like to Midjourney's credit, like things like this are able to keep you in tool and on task for whatever you're trying to do. hop around, which I've always enjoyed about that, right? Like the style reference piece, mean, the fact that you have all these at your fingertips, that seems to not be the case anywhere else.

Play from 0:20:30 8:88:88 0:20:30 So you don't really have all access to all these different styles on demand just by through a simple search, right? So mean, if you've got projects or certain looks that you're going for, anything, whether it's professionally or personally, I mean, it's all right here. This is like everyone's presets. Yeah, like this is this is like everyone else who has presets. This is just there's a billion presets, a billion maybe.

0:20:46Treating styles as presets; niche searches

Play from 0:20:57 8:88:88 0:20:57 But I was again like Y2K like that's bringing up stuff that looks just like that. You like this is. This is cool like I want to try all this stuff. Like 3D, like type in 3D clay or like there's like all those stitch, you know, stitch would be probably a good one. Like 3D take out fish on. Like 3D clay, yep, this could be, you know, 3D site, 3D mud.

Play from 0:21:27 8:88:88 0:21:27 Let's see if that brings anything up. Like, all right, so. 3D mud soon, I mean, this is like I wasn't going. Draft, drafting, type in drafting, you get all the technical drafting styles. I mean, yeah, it's sick. drafting, like RISOGRAPH, 3D uh interface.

Play from 0:21:56 8:88:88 0:21:56 Let's just see how this kind of stuff works. Because to me, it's like, all right, cool. You can start to have, it's almost like you're looking for a specific one style, but then you can also blend it with a contrasting idea. future photography. interface, right? Like we can do that. I mean, and if you're like a small or an emerging brand even like this, I mean, this could be a great way to source, you know, your style, your unique style, you know, like you could combine multiple styles together and create something that's completely unique.

Play from 0:22:36 8:88:88 0:22:36 You could take one style in here with varying weights, you know, and find something that's unique. em You know, like this is just a breeding ground for those larger profiles or even just campaign specific things too. I mean, if you've got a particular campaign that you're doing that's short term, this would be great for I want to save this one. I like this future photography interface. This is a good find here.

Play from 0:23:03 8:88:88 0:23:03 So yeah, mixing and blending styles, things that might not make sense. I've also tried creature and horror and film. that you can do, you can get to a certain point like this isn't doing, this isn't doing that much film, but then, you know, creature horror, sci-fi pulp.

Play from 0:23:30 8:88:88 0:23:30 that'd be a great one. If you're gonna do something for Halloween, you could type in, you could use that. You could type in Halloween, you could type in, I mean, yeah. a good one. Like this is this is sort of what I'm looking for, right? Like this is. It's so interesting how far you can go. And. Like. Tech. Isometric. Biology.

Play from 0:23:57 8:88:88 0:23:57 It's like I'm prompting, but I'm looking for styles at the same time. You know. It's it's cool. I like I like a lot of this stuff and this is. Again, if people have already been doing this and this is like, you you guys are like, yeah, whatever, dude, we've been doing this forever. I just, don't know why I haven't thought about it that way before. So, sorry. man. mean, I don't think anybody, I mean, I think people maybe been using the search maybe, but I think the fact that you're now thinking about this from like a token perspective is a little bit of a novel way to think about it coupled with the fact that this wasn't, you couldn't do that two or three weeks ago, I don't think.

Play from 0:24:34 8:88:88 0:24:34 I think they've been kind of slowly dropping more styles and then uh expanding the ability to connect like these searches or these queries to the appropriate style. this is definitely a credit to Midgern. I think this is like one of those things that I don't know how big of a lift it was for them, but like this is a big, you know, little, this is a big little addition from a UX perspective of just like being in the tool and enjoying what you're doing and keeping people here.

0:25:04“This is my new obsession” → why the search now lands

Play from 0:25:04 8:88:88 0:25:04 Yeah, yeah, I think I totally think so. I maybe I wasn't as inspired by it until this week when I was like, let me just go like I was a little bit bored on what I was creating. And I was like, let's just go see what this style explorer is like really got. Like I had been doing like the surface level stuff, know, like, like photography and like, you know, photography and pink and soft, right?

Play from 0:25:33 8:88:88 0:25:33 Like me a favor, type in, type in where's Waldo there. Cause I found this style code the other day. It's like basically a where's Waldo one. I'll think of that. All right. What's so let's see if they have something like killer acid. Yeah, all right. This is cool. You know, blacklight like tech blacklight interface.

Play from 0:26:05 8:88:88 0:26:05 So this is I spent like probably 30 minutes doing this the other night. And I was just like, huh, OK. Let's just see Matrix. I'm sure they have that too. Yep, cool. All right. Love that. OK, this is it. This is why this is never ready. I got to stop. search on these is definitely different. um This is definitely worth exploring if you play with style codes at all or have any interest in it whatsoever.

Play from 0:26:36 8:88:88 0:26:36 Yeah, I know people do. is why it's like you can get that it's never ending. This is the. To me, this is like my new my new like mid-journey obsession now that I was doing it, and now it's so, you know, everyone sorry for the detour there on on just going down that rabbit hole. But I think that one's been to me my favorite thing of the last probably like two or three weeks I've been doing on there. It's like.

Play from 0:27:04 8:88:88 0:27:04 Fun like that. That's now like a... If I was thinking about something for the social platform too, right? Maybe it's like a curated... It's like a... a favorite, but like style, like curation style, something like that. ah It's like style codes that you can like attach or just like list somewhere or like add them to... Add them to...

Play from 0:27:30 8:88:88 0:27:30 I don't know. You know I'm saying though? Just like here's the ones that I really like. or whatnot, you can just upload them into some space, something like that. I'm talking out of my butt. But that's just, you know, now there's a billion. but. Yeah, mean, you know, that's the thing too, is like once you've liked enough of them too, it's just that infinite scroll again. So it's like the, the cat, uh the categorization of the styles that you like, that's cool.

Play from 0:28:01 8:88:88 0:28:01 But then also it's like, all right, I think I've liked enough now where it's hard to find the one I'm looking for again, you know? uh So yeah, you need like a favorites within the favorites, but yeah, man, I mean, so, you know, going back to, uh I mean, that's something that's interesting. I mean, they talked about the style creator eventually. I think that's probably something that's going to be V8.

0:28:15Style Creator talk and the coming no-words UI paradigm

Play from 0:28:27 8:88:88 0:28:27 But uh the other big update for you guys is this talk of new UI. So they brought this up a few times, but didn't really elaborate on it before. But there's some really interesting things here. So new UI to craft styles without words. Enable simple prompts with precise aesthetic control. Algorithm feels strong. Main work is nailing an integrated, sleek UI.

Play from 0:28:53 8:88:88 0:28:53 Expect this to be a new paradigm preview, making images with minimal text plus rich visual control. So this kind of goes back to what we talked about long ago, which is like this idea of like prompting is... always evolving, it's always changing. It used to be this thing where we all started with an empty box uh confirmation that what prompting is with creating great images is changing.

Play from 0:29:40 8:88:88 0:29:40 And it's requiring less effort in terms of building the right prompt and thinking about things comprehensively. And there being so much gray area between what's a good prompt and what's not. And I think one of the great ways that we've sort of hacked that a long time ago was not only did we go down the vocabulary route, but we also had like GPTs. And I still use mine every day. uh where it's just like, I'm plugging an image in and now I can get exactly what I want in my prompt structure that I want.

Play from 0:30:12 8:88:88 0:30:12 And I'm not having to think too hard about it, right? Because then I can take that, I can run EXP on it with parameters, I can run a little bit of chaos with parameters. And now I've created 20 plus images that I can kind of go through and I'm probably gonna find something that I really like in there, right? And it's just like. That alone is a totally different experience than what we've had to deal with in the past.

Play from 0:30:37 8:88:88 0:30:37 so this is going to continue to get easier, but the UI part of it is interesting. We've talked about this before too, Rory, but it was like the idea that there's almost so many features now that even if you use this daily, you forget to use stuff. You don't use stuff. You know, like I don't know if you're using weird anymore. I haven't used weird in a long time. I haven't used remix in a long time. I know you're big on rem, but it's like we all have our, we all have our own things that we just don't use.

Play from 0:31:06 8:88:88 0:31:06 And it's not because they're not great features because like either UI doesn't present them in a way where it feels like it's, you know, at my fingertips or I just forget about it because maybe it's hidden. Right. So like this whole UI thing I think is needed. Um, that said, that's going to you know, that's going to be a little bit of a learning curve for folks because we haven't had a new UI with Midjourney ever. The only thing we've been dealing with is this new website when it came over, which seems like forever ago now.

0:31:22New UI learning curve; what should get simplified or cut

Play from 0:31:33 8:88:88 0:31:33 And then since then, just kind of like piecemealing, you know, these small additions or tweaks one by one, right? So it's like, OK, well, this is now over on the left side, or this is up at the top, or we got to now click here, or this is now renamed this. But we haven't had to like really shift. how we operate within that space. And I think that's coming, it sounds like. that's coming, I don't know how soon, big gradual resign over the next 12 months.

Play from 0:31:59 8:88:88 0:31:59 So it's not happening tomorrow. It's not happening at the end of the year, but it is going to happen. So something to keep an eye on. Hopefully some things they can get rid of. mean, you know, there's no need for, I don't think it's still even in there. There's like pan still in there. It's not the pan or pan situation. Doesn't look like it's in here. No, it's still in here. Don't need zoom. you've got the scale, right? Yeah, there's we have edit image.

0:32:10“Pan/Zoom” redundancy; grid-UI vs chat-UI debate

Play from 0:32:26 8:88:88 0:32:26 mean, all those things are good. Like that doesn't you know, it's like there's so much now, which I don't hate. It's just that it's now it probably does need like a rethought, like a rethink on some of it. But the other thing is, I'm like, I hate all the this is just me. I like an interface like this for like creating images. Like I don't want to talk and I don't want to talk in chat to that.

Play from 0:32:52 8:88:88 0:32:52 Yep, yep, yep. to chat with it. Some people might, I don't. I like the options of four images and like push some buttons, not like do this. Okay, now do this. Then like scrolling back through all that stuff. Like Reeve to me, I like what Reeve's done, but their new interface to me is worse than their old one. Like it's cool what you can do, but I still, like I wish there was like a legacy switch.

Play from 0:33:17 8:88:88 0:33:17 I kind of have Runway has like, can do chat, but you can also do it like. the old way in like the actual feels like a production interface versus like a chat interface. Yeah. I'm so glad you said that, because I feel the same way about it. There's something about the current interface that I really, really do enjoy. It is an enjoyable experience. And it doesn't feel like work.

Play from 0:33:43 8:88:88 0:33:43 And I think when you iterate, even if it's just simple iteration with an LLM, it still feels like you're pouring energy into it. Whereas if I'm just prompting, I have I don't feel like I'm... It doesn't expend me in any way, right? It doesn't feel tiresome to do it, uh generally speaking. I mean, maybe that's just because we've been using it so much, but I don't even think twice about it.

Play from 0:34:09 8:88:88 0:34:09 the question the right way? Like, I don't want to think about that. I just want to like get my idea in there. You know what I mean? Yeah. that's, that's, think exactly what I was thinking is just like that additional layer of thinking about the context that's in your head and translating that the right way is, is enough energy expenditure for me to not enjoy it as much. Yeah, because it's like, are you going to understand what I'm saying in the context of what I'm saying to like, actually get me the right answer?

Play from 0:34:36 8:88:88 0:34:36 And like, if I leave something out, it's like, sorry, I didn't like be uber detailed on this one little micro piece, but I'd rather just write it myself. Right? You know, so that's a, it's just like, I've seen a lot of people move towards this chat functionality. I think it's also it opens up too many possibilities that you don't actually look at, like you end up doing less. because you have so many options, right?

Play from 0:35:03 8:88:88 0:35:03 So I said about a left last week, right? I was like, if it can do anything, then it's like, I'll probably just end up removing backgrounds and changing shirt colors. know, it's like, if you build like little micro tools within like a left, which what they did, it's like, this one's for green screening, this one's for this, this one's for this. Like, okay, now know what to use, I'll just go do that, right? Instead of just like having the world at your fingertips. that is the hardest part, right? It's just like, even you and I are in this every day.

0:35:22Option overload vs micro-tools; how people really adopt features

Play from 0:35:30 8:88:88 0:35:30 And if you were to ask me something based on recall of all the different things anything can do, I'm gonna forget 75, 80 % of the use cases, because maybe I don't use those every day, or I'm just not thinking about it, or it's not a challenge I've run into recently. And that's for people like you and me that have been in this stuff all let alone people that just have no, they're just getting started. They don't even know what's possible, right?

Play from 0:35:57 8:88:88 0:35:57 And so like, yeah, I mean, that sort of like modular breakdown of just maybe individual things that can be done has to almost be like laid out pretty obviously to be effective, especially as it kind of passes the torch too from this tech getting into like first mover hands to like the general majority. So I don't know, that is a great point.

Play from 0:36:23 8:88:88 0:36:23 I don't know. Do you have anything else on that or do you want to kind of talk to about this sort of like this was the other piece of it that caught my eye, which is like. OK. talk about that. Because that to me is like the newest thing. Let's hope. I want it. Me too. Better image editing, edit model types in progress. Don't know much more than that. Is this a natural language, A to B sort of type thing like NanoBanana is where you can just simply and straightforward say what you want or make a quick change kind of thing.

0:36:28Editing & creative features pipeline, edit models, multi-image refs

Play from 0:37:03 8:88:88 0:37:03 I Midjourney always does something that's unique and different, which I appreciate and I love. But that edit model thing I think is interesting. uh Stronger multi-image reference workflows. Cool. Like that. That's very, very interesting. And then ongoing work on higher res quality coherence aesthetics profiling. But I think the fact that the thing about this in terms of a pipeline now, and a system, and a process, uh is something that Midjourney hasn't really done much, uh at least said obviously.

Play from 0:37:44 8:88:88 0:37:44 that they're focused on it. Maybe with the exception of that world building thing that they launched last year. But outside of that, I haven't heard them talk about sort of like creating things in a way that... feels like an assembly line or production or workflow or pipeline or process or system, you know? Well, this is to me, way that they need this.

Play from 0:38:11 8:88:88 0:38:11 Like you just, need this. We talked about it last week. It's just like at this point, everyone's got it. They need their own version. If we want to stay consistent and use the characters and like build worlds. And I think that's always been sort of the goal, right? They've said in world building, we need to have consistency and it needs to be easier for the common person. ah mid journeys in the office, like when they see something like Nano Banana, for example, where it's like the ability to like quickly change something or add or subtract or, and then there's like, damn, well now we can't do exactly that, but we got to find a way to do that without doing that.

Play from 0:38:48 8:88:88 0:38:48 You know what I mean? Like. they've had the luxury of being ahead on most of this stuff for a long time. know, like style reference, they were ahead on that. Like they were ahead on a lot of personalization, a lot of this stuff. think this stuff, because it just seems so naturally easy to the user now, where it's like, okay, I like this, this should be something that's on our platform, right? Because it's it's, Nano made it so easy, SeedEdit makes it easy.

Play from 0:39:17 8:88:88 0:39:17 Reeve has their model now, ChatGPT has a similar functionality, Flux context has it, Runway references has it. It's now just like to keep up with that sort of, to like, almost like a peas. Because I like the, if they're gonna go like that ingredients sort of direction where it's like, know, here's character, object, environment, put it together.

Play from 0:39:44 8:88:88 0:39:44 I like that sort of idea. too, because that's definitely something that's not as easy with those tools like Nano and SeedEdit. It's like keeping that stuff consistent when it's like, I want to put this thing in this environment and this person doing this thing. it's like, somewhere you lose coherence and one of those ingredients isn't right. um But most of the time, you just got to do it in steps first trying to add it all in there at one time.

Play from 0:40:12 8:88:88 0:40:12 Regardless, think that would be, if they nailed that down, Awesome. We can, we can keep moving. No need to, cause the other thing with Midjourney, right? to stay on mid-journey for stuff like that. God, that'd be amazing. there's intricate stuff that you create on here that you can't do in nano. Like it'll do something, but it's not going to do it all. Same thing with any of those other models. any anytime I have to use another tool like a Firefly or even Image Gen, which has gotten good, but it's just you do you put that same prompt in a Midjourney or somewhere prompt.

Play from 0:40:48 8:88:88 0:40:48 I mean, it is just you're just like, man, there's still no comparison here. There's literally still no comparison here. It's, and you can recognize it if you just do a really short prompt, like photo of a sports car. You go to mid-jury and you see what it pumps out, then you go to like every other model and see sort of like the generic looking stuff that it posts.

Play from 0:41:13 8:88:88 0:41:13 That being said, the more detailed you go with something like Imogen, it's super coherent, then it'll give you something like awesome, but you have to get there first. Yeah, you have to like get to that point. But. you know, then you're using LLMs or you're typing a full paragraph prompt, right? That's sort of like the idea, but that's a... mention too, they're going to try to get back to this release cadence shipping updates weekly thing.

0:41:31Weekly release cadence returning; “sailboat”/secret-projects notes

Play from 0:41:43 8:88:88 0:41:43 It was cool for a while there. Again, I wasn't on this officer, so I don't know if this was talked about when or anything like that or what specifically they had in mind for that. I love to hear that. You've also got, we talked about the sailboat stuff last time. Vision and resource strategy brought in from a product company and more diverse research lab with humanistic, helpful projects. Most resources into core product while funding high impact initiatives seek 10 to one value per dollar spent.

Play from 0:42:14 8:88:88 0:42:14 Avoiding costly marginal gains that don't meaningly help users. So just some anecdotes there. Cryptic, maybe vague, I don't know what that means. uh yeah, I mean. know what secret projects are. Maybe we'll know by the end of the year. They've been secret for a long time. Well, I wonder if they actually like release them and then they don't actually like tell you that it's them and Secrets been out of the bag and you're like, all right, you know If they're collabing with other people They don't seem to care about PR so it doesn't really make a difference whether they get mentioned or not, you know though been making some little changes here and there, but no, you know, like the sailboat meetup, they posted on LinkedIn like three or four times in the last week or two.

Play from 0:43:03 8:88:88 0:43:03 I'm like, yo, you guys had posted there twice all time. You know, I think they started a TikTok. I'm not on TikTok, but I mean, you know, so I mean like they are broadening. I think they have to. But I love that they're leaning more into the other channels because I feel like they have to. And they would be smart to do that.

0:43:19Market share, comms, and why MJ must show up on more channels

Play from 0:43:29 8:88:88 0:43:29 Obviously, they still do have a strong community. ah think the market share, though, I mean, it's a tough fight. It's a tough fight right now. mean, Midjourney had it on lock for a long time in a lot of ways. And I think you've just seen all these other models pop up. Some are just talking and releasing and more visible in certain channels, right?

Play from 0:43:56 8:88:88 0:43:56 And so I think Midjourney has to play that game a little bit. Well, you can tell they're not marketers. So you know that they're on the developer side and they're on the tech side, which is what is good. So it makes the product good. they want marketers, I mean, we're here. Hey, it's, they need to, need to like, under, mean, they don't need to do anything, right?

Play from 0:44:23 8:88:88 0:44:23 Take, take what I say with a grain of salt. It's just like their, their avoidance of business is sort of, I think what led this happen. I think open the gates for everyone else to be like, we know that people use this way more for business than they use it just for personal, right? So it's, but whatever, they can have their lane. They can be the personal tool. I'm just saying if that was a concern, then there is an avenue to go.

Play from 0:44:49 8:88:88 0:44:49 It's a really tough place for them to be too, because on one hand, right, they want this to be not super business, right? They're also not VC funded, you know? And so, you know, like as you get more and more competition and you do think about market share and you do think about, you know, continuing to bring in revenue and generating, you know, revenue. mean, like you are going to come to these sort of fork in the roads where you are you going to compromise at all or adapt?

Play from 0:45:17 8:88:88 0:45:17 from maybe the original, maybe mission, some of the things that maybe, like the API thing, right? Like the API thing was never gonna happen. Now it's happening to some degree. uh I don't know where that's at by the way. uh They did talk about sort of starting with a small batch. I don't know if that's already underway. They haven't really talked about that lately. So that's maybe something we could bring up on office hours in the future. But a lot of people interested in that API though.

Play from 0:45:43 8:88:88 0:45:43 A lot of people interested in that API. I mean, you know, it's just that's other thing too, right? Like if they don't want it to be business, right? All you have to do is just add this editor. It like functionality is the same thing that's nano and. Now it's business without having to be business, right? Like I said, so. You'll get the residuals for anyone that's doing the personal stuff, but there will definitely be people on there for business, because.

Play from 0:46:13 8:88:88 0:46:13 I think they mentioned it. I don't know if David mentioned this also. I'm trying to remember if I'm just making this up in my head, but he said they were working on some text stuff as well to make text better um for V8. And I was like, OK, right. I think that maybe sounds right. I can't remember that specifically or if I've seen it in the notes, but I feel like that's been said. Yeah, I mean, like I'm I'm ready for that for them. You know, I've been living long enough without it.

Play from 0:46:41 8:88:88 0:46:41 It's not necessary. It's not a necessity. It's just nice to have it. If that makes sense, nicely pop. are you using like, are you using free pick or? ah sparingly, but I know the interface and the functionality and the tools. think my only issue with it is a little clunky on navigation and finding stuff. It is.

0:46:46Freepik: models, workflows, collections, brand-swap use cases

Play from 0:47:07 8:88:88 0:47:07 uh There are things here that are really good, and then there are other things that are, I think to your point, I don't like the way that it's currently, the navigational structure and sorting through things is set up. mean, they do have a lot of these models in here now, which is great, right? Like you've got NanoBanana in here, you've got ImageGen4 in here, Mystics in here, Runways in here. uh This stuff makes it really easy.

Play from 0:47:35 8:88:88 0:47:35 where you can just kind of like, hey, maybe you got a certain color palette you're going for, blah, blah, blah. Some of this works OK. But more for the aggregation is great. They do have, let's see if it's here. Is it here? See? There it is. This is interesting. I've been meaning to like spend more time in here, but they've got like some really cool things here though.

Play from 0:48:01 8:88:88 0:48:01 um You know, just workflows, right? So they've got, you know, sample workflows you can go through. Like for example, like let's just click into this. I don't know what this. OK, interesting. So it does it for you, right? Like it's just kind of giving you that structure. um chat? Yeah, what is this?

Play from 0:48:28 8:88:88 0:48:28 Why did it take me there? my go back, go back to that real quick. Click on their little button down at the bottom or no back with the chat interface. See where it says workflows under in the prompt box. What is is that just OK? I if it brought you to like a different interface. I just say it's just a switch through OK. So it's just running like multi step workflows. yeah, and there was this also this interesting thing here. Like this might be worth exploring from your perspective too from the advertising front, but mock-up packaging, like there was even some things in here I saw.

Play from 0:49:02 8:88:88 0:49:02 curated collections maybe this is it. Macho drop. Where it felt like, right? Like essentially the way that I would look at this is these shots are done. If I want to change color, if I want to change texture, if I want to change skin color, gender, blah, blah, blah, and apply this to my brand, I don't need to download these mock-up files for Photoshop anymore, right?

Play from 0:49:30 8:88:88 0:49:30 Like, you know, this is a curated collection where it's, if I'm a brand overnight, I can just go in here. and quickly update these things to my brand. So I do like that they have these things called collections. They do have the workflow stuff. Again, I haven't really spent much time in here. like how does this work? So let's see.

Play from 0:49:55 8:88:88 0:49:55 Edit with AI. Let's see if we click this. Remove background, adjust settings, open AI editor. So resize, restyle, background, upscale. Is there a way to upload your logo in here? Well, so this is what I was thinking.

Play from 0:50:21 8:88:88 0:50:21 way that I would use this is almost with the Nano Banana thing in mind. That's the way I was thinking about it. Maybe there's an easier way to do it. But I was like, you could essentially download this whole collection. And then I could go, guess, one by one. Maybe there's a way to do it in bulk, where I've got my logo, I've got the colors, the hex codes, and boom. I guess if there is text.

Play from 0:50:47 8:88:88 0:50:47 But I'm just thinking from a workflow perspective of that's really interesting if you're able to do that. Yeah, oh I, there's a product there for sure. And this is what I do with, this is what I do with Weevy. It's just like, this is what I'm, I would come up with this concept. Yeah. just trying to digest it mentally because I haven't spent time here, but there's something there that's interesting that I want to figure out.

Play from 0:51:14 8:88:88 0:51:14 ah Because from your Weeby perspective or that node-based perspective too, this is essentially like us coming up with that prompt, that system prompt and the prompt itself to direct it on the kind of shots we want. But if we've already got shots that we can interchange with that are royalty free, not. I mean, like boom. I can just, you we can just use those. So this could be a good, this could be a good, yeah, it could be, right?

Play from 0:51:40 8:88:88 0:51:40 But like, this is where it's like, okay, you know, change this, if this doesn't fit my vibe, change this desk to a different desk type instead of industrial, right? Like this is something else. uh So anything is infinitely interchangeable, but maybe this is a great place to start, you know? Interesting so this is so they're all just basically just templates and then you go to edit the templates like they provided the templates for you Okay That is interesting Yeah like I could just, maybe there are 10 shots in there I really like, you know, let me apply this to a, I know, I'm just thinking fishing brand or whatever comes to mind, right?

Play from 0:52:18 8:88:88 0:52:18 And then all of sudden, boom. Interesting. Yeah, free picks always to me. It's like I would I don't even know if I would have seen that page because I Didn't navigate through it. Yeah this pivot from free pick a long time ago on the pod. We were just like, I can't even believe that that's the same company. I mean, this was, this was where you went for little icons and illustrations and you know, you had to have a monthly subscription under $10 where you could just grab shit.

0:52:26From icon packs to aggregator; Canva/Krea comparisons

Play from 0:52:47 8:88:88 0:52:47 You know, it's like, this is, I don't know. I have no idea. That's great. That's a great question. All tools. Do others, do they have an icon generator, image extender? They have a background remover. This is like one of those examples where it's just like this product has changed so much and it has so many capabilities too that it probably is not communicated very well to its general user base. Like I'm in here a little bit, not a lot, but it's just like, I didn't know about the background remover.

Play from 0:53:17 8:88:88 0:53:17 they do have an icon generator, sound effect generator, music generator, clip editor, lip sync. And anything with an API is in here, basically. Basically. The there's another one that that I've been using for sound effects called Morello. Pretty good. It's like it's like M.M. Audio, but pretty, pretty decent. Not going to win you any awards, but it's when you need it in a pinch.

Play from 0:53:46 8:88:88 0:53:46 Pretty good. It's probably on here now. But there's like this one for like, you know, again, icons, right? Like that's a micro tool to have here. It's like if you just upload, you know, if you create an icon, then it's like create a whole set just like. Push a a little bit like they're coming for Canva free pick. Yeah, maybe. I don't know. Canva? I think they're taking Canva, like, ideas here.

Play from 0:54:14 8:88:88 0:54:14 I think some of this collection stuff is very Canva. Yes, it is. Yeah. you know, Canvas started, you know, I actually haven't been in Canvas in a minute, but I'm imagining, I know they have the background remover. I have no idea if they're doing anything with audio, but a lot of this other stuff is there. I still think they probably got a lot of stuff in Canva now. I haven't opened it in a long time. Let me even... listeners, like if you're playing with any of these sort of like, ah what do you want?

Play from 0:54:43 8:88:88 0:54:43 What do you want to call these types of tools? FreePak, Canva? mean, just like. Candace, can the image, can compositors, I don't know. It probably sounds so dumb right now not being able to come up with a word, but. I mean, but it is like how does how does how does free pick describe themselves now? I don't know. I don't even know. What do you what do you call them? I don't know. is it? Aggregator? Like, Canva?

Play from 0:55:08 8:88:88 0:55:08 I call them an aggregator, right? Like, them, Higgs Field now is an aggregator. Like, CREA, aggregator. I'm just looking at Canva AI right now. I don't know. Again, it's like chat functionality. It's like, what do I want to do? I don't know, design. um It's like, make me a design.

Play from 0:55:34 8:88:88 0:55:34 This is so right. It of feels different. I haven't been here in so long. Yeah. is the like they've got Interesting. Soar. So they're like, they've also got just images like a gallery that you can look at and recreate from. mean, it's just, I don't know. This whole thing is interesting in terms of like, I'm trying to digest this.

Play from 0:55:59 8:88:88 0:55:59 I get it from their point of view, but this feels like such a hard thing to market because it's like the awareness of all these little intricate little specific things you can do in here. It starts to get very hard to explain. Yeah, it does. That's why, you know, it's it starts to get really people start asking questions like, well, you can use this tool for that or this little micro tool where this one actually is pretty good for it.

Play from 0:56:26 8:88:88 0:56:26 And then you start to be like, how do I how do I have all this random knowledge in my head about some of the stuff? Oh, because we've just tested a bunch of these things and failed at them. You know what I mean? Like. And then some of this stuff, I. I don't know. The aggregator tool sort of like they all. If they're going to go that route, it has to be all based on UX, UI, and marketing.

Play from 0:56:53 8:88:88 0:56:53 How easy can you make it for the user to use all these tools? How clean? How simple? And then how do you just get the word out because you just have to continue to acquire? You just have to market, market, market, market. Because that's basically what you're doing. You're paying the margins on the APIs, I'm assuming. And then you have to keep subscription uh and user base up. I mean, I haven't been on as...

Play from 0:57:19 8:88:88 0:57:19 you still have... Go to Korea real quick. I'm just curious to see if they changed their interface recently. I haven't been there like a month or two. haven't either and I'm not a subscriber anymore. Huh. Look at that. Looks way different than the last time I was in there. Yes it does. Huh, doesn't look as fun as it used to. It's like more sterile. Click on the photos or the, I just want to see what the image or video or, no, the top navigation, see if that changed.

Play from 0:57:50 8:88:88 0:57:50 Like image, video, then there's the enhancer, right, then the real, okay. So I don't know, I don't know. forget that they started with real time, eh Because I haven't used Korea in a while, but. I still like the tool. Real time was so much fun. It's just so random. Yeah, like I wonder if that's going to.

0:58:00Genie note; Higgsfield’s “rage-bait” marketing, Popcorn storyboard

Play from 0:58:15 8:88:88 0:58:15 I wonder if that's going to become more prevalent. I know there's there was more. There's a recent update about a Genie 3 or whatever that is from Google that won the immersive world one. I think that one was a recent the last couple days, but. Yeah, Korea haven't been on in a while. Higgs fields popping up new stuff. Higgs, I think Higgs field, the whole marketing plan is just like, it's just rage bait.

Play from 0:58:41 8:88:88 0:58:41 Like, I think that's the entire marketing strategy is just rage bait. for sure. This was that this was that latest thing, this popcorn thing. did see something about it, but I can't remember exactly what it was. So this is visual stories with popcorn. It usually create a storyboard that lets you plan and visualize your idea before generation. They're taking the APIs and then they're building workflows. It's in the backend and they're making little micro tools out of it.

Play from 0:59:09 8:88:88 0:59:09 And this is all comes down to the UX UI. So it's like, this is cool. I haven't used it yet, but. haven't either, yeah, obviously. You know, I think Higgs field realized real early on that it's just like their their video model wasn't going to get it done. So it's like, let's go this other route. Their their image model, surprisingly awesome. I really liked Higgs field soul. I think it's really legit, really good.

Play from 0:59:36 8:88:88 0:59:36 Yeah, know you're bullish on that. You know, the other thing too, like, I don't know if uh anybody's using this in, like, the node-based tools like Weevy, for example, but, um like, they have these, like, camera controls as options, you know, when you set them up. And without thinking too hard about it, um this, I don't know if this is a hack or not, maybe it is, but, like, with all of these, if you click into them, The way that I was just describing the prompt, the text prompt to couple with the video was I was just taking these little short descriptions of each camera control and putting those into the prompt coupled with the effect.

1:00:04Camera-move snippets as prompt clauses (easy wins)

Play from 1:00:21 8:88:88 1:00:21 And they work really well that way. without thinking too hard about it, that was something kind of cool that I was like, oh, OK, that's... That's pretty dope, right? Because it's just like, the camera pulls back rapidly from the sub, it should reveal, you know, and you can change that or whatever it is. But it's like you take that first line, that's all you need for the text prompt, throw it on, you know, connect it to the actual control on Higgs field in the node based tool and then boom. But.

Play from 1:00:47 8:88:88 1:00:47 well some of these are also it's interesting. I don't know if you notice this on Higgs field. Like if you go to a lot of like the presets on the video side of things like some of them are like presets with. Mini Max or presets with cling right like so you can like video you go to. If you go to create a video right, go to create a video and then on the top left where it says general, where you know or the see what says general.

Play from 1:01:15 8:88:88 1:01:15 go to change and then you go to go click on top go to minimax right so these are the ones these are the presets with minimax so they're basically just writing system prompts for cool stuff like this and then yeah so if you i mean if you i don't know if you click on wireframe does it show you like what it is if you click on wireframe or does it just put in um yeah okay this one and it just threw it in right here.

Play from 1:01:46 8:88:88 1:01:46 Yeah, so with this, right, like I've always just sort of like, well, now I know that Minimax can do this. I do it myself because, you know, why waste credits on here when I could use my either Minimax or Weeby credits that I have to because I tend to find that I'm that I ripped through a lot of. I think I do, but I haven't been there in a while. Well, you know, a little bit of a gripe with Mini Max on that one.

Play from 1:02:13 8:88:88 1:02:13 bought the yearly unlimited last year because it was such a good deal. It like three hundred dollars for the year for like unlimited, which I was like, even if I use that for a month, that's like that's like really solid deal for unlimited. And I used it a lot. But then when they dropped to two, there was like, oh, sorry, like your grandfathered out of that, you can only use one and you can't use what you have to buy more to.

Play from 1:02:39 8:88:88 1:02:39 Yeah, I was like, oh, yearly subscriber, huh, guys? So if you're to do also, they had me in the they initially had me in the first run of their creative partners program, which was cool. I had like free access to it, you know, pretty early on. And then I got to know where I just like disappeared. It's just like. I need to see if I've still got the unlimited urge.

Play from 1:03:08 8:88:88 1:03:08 Cause I do, I think Mini Max probably top one or two with anything action related. Like it's really good. Yeah. mean, it gets slept on for sure. I like it, I use it a lot, especially in Weeby I use it a lot. I'm not even like the pro model, just the standard model of O2 is good. Which was more than five seconds, regardless, I think it's good. But this is also a good place to go in here, just to see some of the stuff, like you said, that's just like, from like a, I like how Higgs Field does it, where they show it to you, like every single one is showed, yeah.

Play from 1:03:45 8:88:88 1:03:45 It's just such a simple thing, but brains process the visual components so much faster than text. Come on, give me the little preview. This is a great way to, again, ideate, but now you're showing me visually exactly what I can ideate with the video side. I'm more of a stills guy, so this helps me a ton. I come in here, I'm like, OK, cool. Yeah.

Play from 1:04:12 8:88:88 1:04:12 What can you click on? Click on popcorn real quick though. I'm curious now to see if it's to see how it looks. So you upload for reference images to stand using a storyboard, describe your story and optional. Interesting. Okay. So you upload for four reference images and then you hit, okay, that's interesting. if I my log. Do I have any? I have no idea. Looks like it.

Play from 1:04:38 8:88:88 1:04:38 Yep, only use 33 % rock and roll. And then. that's news to me. Let's what are we doing? Like, uh I don't know, man. Oh, another another little hack with Higgs field. Actually, I forgot that I use it. Is there there a Chrome extension browser, the Chrome browser extension?

Play from 1:05:05 8:88:88 1:05:05 I don't know if you have that. You can just basically you can any image on the Internet that. ah You can just hit recreate and it'll just drop automatically into Seoul, but it's not about. To me, it's not about getting the image. It's about just like, cause Higgs field will show you the exact prompt it used to create it. So I just go and use like that prompt. That prompt is oftentimes like really good for other stuff.

1:05:05Higgsfield Chrome extension → “Recreate” → steal the prompt skeleton

Play from 1:05:34 8:88:88 1:05:34 There, let me show, I'll pull it up. I've got the Chrome extension up. What do you want me to pull up? Yeah. So click on the click the Chrome extension real quick. I just want to see what it does. Do you have to sign in or is it like ready to go? Okay, let's see. Just try a... Yeah, no? Sound work? here. What am I doing?

Play from 1:06:00 8:88:88 1:06:00 Weird. I wonder if I need to go to something else. are you on Chrome or are you on Arc? I'm on dia. Yeah, but I mean like I can add the chrome extension here Let's see. Because, yeah, technically you could click into any one of these images. And then just right click on the image and see if it comes up.

Play from 1:06:26 8:88:88 1:06:26 Oh, okay. I might not do it. Let's see. Because you have mid journeys, right click. That's right. But I've done it a lot with. There will be I'll do it. Yeah. show it, I'm curious about that. It's really interesting. Remember like Glyph? Glyph had some stuff like that. I need to revisit Glyph. Let's see, we have.

Play from 1:06:51 8:88:88 1:06:51 you remember Glyph? Yeah, let me just make sure I'm logged into Higgs field over here or else it's not going to. OK, let's see this open this writing available. OK, so just say like, know. Interest, let's just go with like the first interest, the first image on here. Cool like this one. See how it's.

Play from 1:07:17 8:88:88 1:07:17 So it's you hit like recreate and then you can generate. Let's just do this in three four. I can change the aspect ratio, hit generate. And then when I go to images, it's already generating in here. But what I like about it is when I use an image like that or something, like I use the reference image, I was like, cool. When you go in, the edit prompt, it's got a really good prompt.

Play from 1:07:44 8:88:88 1:07:44 interesting, interesting. got all this stuff in here. It's a real solid structure. if I was to... good say do you use that structure on another model and it works OK? definitely used it on a few. Let's run it. Let's run it. Take this one exactly as is. Because you know what? You know, man, you know what would be interesting too is to run that image like what I would want to do is run it through my GPT to and then the structure that I've gotten there and just kind of see compare the results.

Play from 1:08:25 8:88:88 1:08:25 Rock and roll. Looks pretty good. Yeah. See, this is, again, like going back to our point, right? You shouldn't, I mean, you can, but you don't have to be starting with an empty box for prompting. I mean, it's like, especially when you're in deep on a project or you got something at hand, it's about scale and efficiency. You can't be doing this stuff manually one by one.

Play from 1:08:52 8:88:88 1:08:52 You have to have some sort of automated component. when it comes to the prompt itself, right? And so this is where it's like the structure going back to the very beginning where you and I, I think we're talking about this stuff really before anybody else was, which is about like creating this structure of these templates that the model understands that can rip, you know, descriptions visually and slot those into those spots. You don't have to think too hard about it, right?

Play from 1:09:18 8:88:88 1:09:18 Like there's still some times where it's like, okay, maybe this pulled in the typography and I don't want that. Maybe I'm not wanting this pink, I'm wanting green. Maybe I'm not wanting, you know, uh an old woman, maybe I'm wanting a young man, right? Like just like, but that alone, you've got the consistency to just kind of instantly use things at your fingertips. I mean, I'm thinking about stuff right now. Like I've got to create hundreds of still images.

Play from 1:09:46 8:88:88 1:09:46 You know, I'm not doing that one by one, you know, in terms of like prompting an empty box, right? I have to find a... a structure that's going to work and things that are repeatable. So let's see, I'm just like, we're showing you the exact process right here, right? Great. We just took, we used Higgs field to. can zoom in on that just a little, if you can. I'm not sure if you can, but try if you can. There you go. There you go, brother.

Play from 1:10:11 8:88:88 1:10:11 Yep. what we just did was basically we took an image from Pinterest, right? We recreated it in Higgs field and then we took, you went into the edit prompt, we copied this, this whole prompt, which is actually broken out the way that I would typically prompt in like this JSON style, right? That is what the ChavGVT synthesizes prompt into a prompt formula. Now you can use this over and over and over and over again.

Play from 1:10:39 8:88:88 1:10:39 Right? That's you can just copy this. You can go build a custom GPT off of this. You can go do build a system prompt off of this. Like there you go. That's what that's what the formulas are for. That's what the templates are for. So, you know. prompt? So you took that in and what did you say? You said synthesize this prompt into a prompt formula or template. Yeah. and just bang, there it is, lens effects, subject, description, wardrobe, grooming, scene, location, time of day, environment, action, props, physics, cool, right?

1:10:59Turn that skeleton into a reusable prompt template

Play from 1:11:09 8:88:88 1:11:09 too, because if, in my GPT, for example, I've got I think three different prompt structures that it breaks out. And most of the time, one or two is all I need to try. But if you imagine having a handful of these that you can swap in and swap out, and now you're instead of like starting from scratch, you just take copy and pasting five things, let's just call it, and you're finding the best result.

Play from 1:11:37 8:88:88 1:11:37 And that also makes this a little bit model agnostic, right? Because maybe the coherence is slightly different on mid-june than image generally, right? But like now you can kind of really shortcut this process. I mean, this is something that like, when me and you first did this, it didn't feel like this big thing. And it's certainly not this hard thing to do either. But the impact and significance of this, and the application of it, how often you're going to use this is insane. So if you've not done this by now, you should.

Play from 1:12:03 8:88:88 1:12:03 let's do something here now. Let's go see how model agnostic this is. We'll go and paste this prompt into Weeby, and then we'll go and run. Let's go see which image generators we can. Let's pull in Reeve. Let's pull in ChatGVT image 1. Let's pull in image N4. Let's do Flux 1.1. Let's do Mystic. Let's do Ideogram.

Play from 1:12:31 8:88:88 1:12:31 And let's do Luma photon. think Luma, Minimax image is better than that. Let's do this. All right. So let's try to like run all these real quick. We'll set this up. me where you try to get those perfectly straight? I mean, just kill me. Hey, hey, Weeby, if you're listening, which we could talk to him about, but if we could get like snap in place, straight lines.

1:12:44Weavy fan-out: test same prompt across 6–8 generators fast

Play from 1:13:03 8:88:88 1:13:03 ah dude, it's my ADHD would thank you so much. Yeah, this is. This is the only thing where there's one. Then once you have it set up, we can run like 15 of these, right? Let's just say Mystic. Throw this in here. Let me make sure these are all three, four, so we do the same exact thing. I mean, I haven't run Mystic outside of Weevy, but like when I have surprisingly pretty good results, Maybe not surprisingly, but like underrated.

Play from 1:13:35 8:88:88 1:13:35 Yeah, I've been a fan of Mystic as of recently, like a lot. I feel like I use it way more than I think I would. It just listens and it's got good texture and color, right? Because you can also go up to 4K with it. So let's run all these at the same time. then also, I could just dupe this and we'll run the other one. Run one of the other ones. see how, again, we'll see how model agnostic this is.

Play from 1:14:02 8:88:88 1:14:02 Not bad. Works pretty good. GPT, you are really slow. Reve, fast. Ideogram, fast. Flux, 1.1, really fast. Mystic, also really fast. Not listening to the fork though. Let's go back here. This is how we go. Oh, this is a good one. Let's do this one. Edit bronze.

Play from 1:14:29 8:88:88 1:14:29 Still back here, we'll use this one, paste. Guys, another great use of Weeby is just like, this is like my way to which image generator is gonna work, whether you're doing like film or stills, if you're gonna do video or stills, and like, this could be like my starting point for all of my images, right? Like, okay. Damn, breathe, nice. Very nice. I like so this so there you go God, RIP Visual Electric too.

Play from 1:14:59 8:88:88 1:14:59 I feel like that would have been a one to have in here too. I wonder what Perplexity is gonna do with that. Nothing. Dipperplexity acquire them. Yeah. Let's see. right, so. These, know, Reeve. Good. I like the little omegene. original image that you pulled in, was a great image.

Play from 1:15:24 8:88:88 1:15:24 And there are some really interesting lighting elements and colors coming through on that original image. And just look at these images. mean, these are pretty incredible in terms of what it's capturing and the vibe. I mean, these do feel great. And that's why I like. back to that prompt again. again, so maybe that's a real nice one, man.

1:15:45Comparing results; where each model shines

Play from 1:15:53 8:88:88 1:15:53 good stuff, man. I really like I really like, you know, I was doing some really cool things with their like with their image generator. I really like it. And it's got it's got super high like saturation um on a lot of this stuff. But like for these these types of shots, you know, these are you can tell the car is like a little bit glossy.

Play from 1:16:19 8:88:88 1:16:19 You know, some of this stuff like for hyper realism, like it's going to be, it's a good spot. Um, what's who have Midjourney did with these, right? Like still this prompt works except the, uh, forks a little bit screwed up, but dude, big fan of what you can do with Higgs field. So, cause this is the original, right? That's from Higgs field. This is the new one from Higgs field that I just generated. It's, it's, yeah, it's got that real like a HDR plus the that saturation on a lot of it.

Play from 1:16:51 8:88:88 1:16:51 It's good. I'm just a fan. this is because again, this is a new way to start to figure out how to like get through this stuff. Right. Like how are you going to go and test all these tools? I don't know. You can't you can't have a subscription to all of them. We can help there. And then we can test prompt structures and things like that. We can use chat. How many tools do we just use here to get to something in five minutes? Right. Like that was that was Higgs field.

Play from 1:17:18 8:88:88 1:17:18 Chrome extension to Higgs field sole to ChatGPT back into Weeby to use 10 other tools that happened really quick. So it's sort of how you connect the dots, right? But that was a, I couldn't, that was good. We haven't, we haven't like really experimented like that in a few episodes. So that was good. Yeah. that's that's awesome. I love that. And shit, man, let's wrap it up because I feel like we covered a lot.

1:17:28The nugget for the real ones + sign-off and Halloween tease

Play from 1:17:44 8:88:88 1:17:44 We're running a little long. But thank you guys. I mean, if you guys stuck to the end, not only like and subscribe, Rory, not only that, but I mean, like, dude, you know what? I love what we I love what we go to the like it's the end and we like not even purposefully find some of the the gems of the conversation just because it's like, you know, at first we're just trying to share things and just kind of like pair it back and maybe add some anecdotes, then we get into more of our thinking and actual action behind it then it leads to this kind of shit.

Play from 1:18:16 8:88:88 1:18:16 So I think that's good stuff, man. That Higgs field thing is super interesting. I'm gonna try that. That sort of prompt format too. That's awesome. ones who stuck around for an hour and 15 minutes. This was about, this was about like and subscribe. Good to see y'all. We'll be back next week. Rory, man, good to see you. Take care of the fam. Halloween edition next week. Maybe, maybe we do something for that.

Play from 1:18:44 8:88:88 1:18:44 Yeah. Yeah, let's do it. You can be a nun with a gun and I'll be a homesteader. Yeah, there we go. There we go. mid-journey costumes. Awesome, dude. to see you. Thanks for joining us, and we'll see you guys in the next one. See ya.