Tutorial: Staying within the Grid - Creating pixel artwork characters with GPT Image 2

Hello Friends,
And welcome to another tutorial for GPT Image 2.
While most of my other tutorials were very versatile and could be used for most purposes, this one is quite specific.
Specifically, it is about video game artworks, or pixel artworks in general.
When trying to come up with art like this, it is often important that the characters, creatures, units, buildings, are approximately the same size, don't "bleed" into the terrain, don't clash with other objects, and so on.

GPT Image 2 is well suited for that, and in the tutorial I will show you plenty of examples and use cases.
But it wouldn't be a tutorial without an explanation of the workflow, and more details, right?
So, the "key" for creating arts like this, and also for creating your own, custom prompts, is the following:

-You need to be very specific and state exactly what the art should *be* like, which ideas or "rules" it should follow.
For example, I first tried to use prompts that specified a grid playfield and the theme of the art. But I realized, this was not enough. The characters began to cross the boundary.
What I did add was a line that explained to GPT Image 2 that this should not happen in the finished artwork.

-When doing the artwork with top down, or horizontal 2D graphics, a new problem happened: the art became very chaotic, characters had different sizes...
Therefore, I also specified that the entire art should follow, and be placed along "grid" or "tile logic".

And this fixed the thing!

-With some graphics, for example isometric designs, it is not desirable to avoid "bleeding", as the characters need to be larger than the tile they stand on, usually. To compensate for this, I specified that the character art should be close to the same size for the major characters.

So what is the use for this?
These artworks could be used as design drafts, or, if the background gets removed, the characters could be utilized for games straight away.

Examples:

Prompt: create a cyberspace themed tile based isometric retro game with 16 bit style pixel art characters. all characters should approximately have the same size

Prompt: create a tile based top down 2d strategy game field with 16 bit style alien themed pixel art characters. the character artwork should stay within the boundaries of its respective tile.

Prompt: create a worldbuilding game style hexagonal playfield with 16 bit style pixel art buildings. the building artwork needs to stay within the boundaries of the respective hexagon tile.

Prompt: create a labyrinth game with 16 bit style pixel art characters. walls and characters should be placed according to tile logic. the theme is libraries.

Prompt: create a platformer game with 16 bit style pixel art characters. walls and characters should be placed according to tile logic. the theme is ice and crystals.

How to get GPT image 2 to tell a story from start to finish by (more or less) using a single prompt

Having fun in the 4th dimension (time) or: how to get GPT Image 2 to create a sequence of images that tell a story from start to finish by (more or less) using a single prompt

Hi Friends,
This was one of the moments where I was really, really blown away by the capabilities of AI, or GPT Image 2, to be more specific.
Generating "still" images is all fun, but sometimes we need to create a series of images that have a progression, for example for telling a story from start to finish. we need to add the "fourth dimension" to our images - time.

Usually, this is done by the user. you need to think up your story, flesh it out in detail, and then you try to truncate each part of the story into small segments, that could fit into one single prompt. and then you try to come up with the right prompt for each.
For example: one prompt for creating an image of a character that walks to a spaceship, one prompt for lift-off... and so on.

But wouldn't it be nice if we could delegate this task to AI? And find a prompt that generates sequential images, without needing to change the prompt too much?

And here is that one.

For this example, I want to create a futuristic pixel art short story. So I use this prompt:

i am working on a short story in pixel art style. the story should have 7 pages. it should tell a sci fi story beginning on earth, explore strange and alien planets, and finally end on earth again.
please generate page 1 out of 7 now.

Now all i need to do is to increment the number for each new image. by changing the last line to "please generate page 2 out of 7 now.", "please generate page 3 out of 7 now."... you get the point.

If somehow, an image that get's created does not fit too well, we can re-use the same prompt, until we are happy with it.

I am using Leonardo.Ai for this, and GPT Image 2 is one of the models they have available.

so let us look at a test run for this:

Isn't this stunning?
All these images were created by repeating the prompt, and just increasing the number each time. I did not change anything else with the prompt, nor did I add things, or more specifications.
You could say some elements are slightly off and misalign a bit. Personally, I think the art style could be even more coherent. But this is just a test run, and with some tweaking, this problem could be solved, too.

And, once again, "there is more out there", and this technique can be enhanced and researched even more!

Tutorial: How to use GPT Image 2 in the same way as ChatGPT - but with a visual twist

GPT Image 2 is out for a while now, and has been blowing everyone's mind, including mine.
It is more responsive and "understanding" to prompts, tasks, specific demands than any other AI image generator I tried so far.
It's so smart and advanced that you can actually use it... or rather, talk to, in a very similar way as you talk to ChatGPT - and use it for most of the tasks that you set for ChatGPT, too! But with a visual twist.

And that is the big, big game changer. Because, so far, the various AI models were separated by their mode. We had large language models like ChatGPT or Gemini, AI image generators, AI sound generators, AI video...
But GPT Image 2 more or less merges the power of ChatGPT and image generators into one.

So, you can talk to the AI, just like you would talk with ChatGPT.
The only difference is that this time, the AI does not respond with text, words, chatting, or at least not directly. It responds in a visual way.

So let us start with some examples:

Prompt: Rank the 5 tastiest italian dishes. Give a reason for each.

Prompt: Create a pixel art design, in which nikola tesla explains his invention of alternating current.

Prompt: Create an info graphic explaining the australian emu war. The graphic should look like it is actually from the 1930s.

Create an info graphic that explains the differences between a trebuchet and a catapult. Make it look like it's from the medieval era.

Explain what a labyrinth is. The letters should be arranged like a labyrinth or maze themselves.

Tell me a good italian spaghetti recipe with which i can impress my guest. make the recipe look like it was written on a medieval scroll.

Create a pixel art design that shows a space station control room. There should be a screen, and the screen should show 5 interesting facts that people rarely know about english grammar.

What is the use for this method of talking to GPT Image 2?

Well, at the most basic level, there are at least 3 potential use cases:

1: "spicing" up your text output. Want to create a promo text for your new steampunk metroidvania game? then let it create the text *in the visual style* of the game.

2: creating very specific artworks and visuals, with long and fancy texts, sentences, passages...

3: creating images where the visual arrangement of texts is actually vital to the image. crossword puzzle designs, labyrinth structures made up of sentences...

These are just some basic examples. I think there are still boundless other uses possible... there is still a lot of research that can be done!