We have started a YouTube channel for all things Sci-Exploitation. Follow us for sci-fi/fantasy that blends classic, old-school esthetics with a grown-up twist. 

https://www.youtube.com/@SciExploitation

More updates, coming soon. 

I’m just going to jump right into this one with some examples, thoughts, and candid feelings about how Escape From Planet Omega-12 is shaping up. These little video clips are all tests that helped me to learn where I’m going to use AI and where I’m not, to bring this story to life. I’ve been very open about why I feel AI is a tool for artists and especially filmmakers, not a cheat, so I won’t bother to go over all of that again. I’ve been an artist and a writer all of my life, and the advent of this technology does not somehow void that. 

These examples, which are all at the bottom of this post, are all AI-generated with some 3D elements, digital compositing, and painting on top. What you’ll see at the end of this first clip is me trying to figure out how to composite Tara into the scene. 

I think in these examples I’m about 80%, there and the learning experience they gave me will have me 100% there when I create the first scenes, which I will have done by the time you read this but those examples will be for subscribers, only. 

By the way, the reason I’m making this post public is that I want to start getting more content out there to drive subscriptions up. Although AI is supposed to make things inexpensive and faster I’ve found that if I want to stay on the cutting edge of both using all the latest in available programs and keeping ahead of all the other very innovative people using it, for now creating with these tools comes at a premium of both money and time, so your shares and contributions do help.

What I need to focus on next is getting Tara up to the level of beauty I originally conceptualized in my production art. There are ways to upgrade the details on her and enhance the prettyness of her face. I based the character on my wife so she has to be captivating. I’ll be focusing my attention on that aspect of things for the first scenes. 

When I first started this project my real passion was, and still is for environments. If you’ve seen my past work from the pre-AI era of my life, you’ll know that I’ve always been enamored with ways to create fictional worlds and fill them with details like fog, light, insects, and other moving elements, including the camera, that help bring them to life and make them another character in the story. 

Although South American temples are not part of the story, I thought I’d try my hand at them as a way to play around with them as a way to test the limits of making depth mattes with Midjourny and Stable Diffusion, bringing them into Adobe After Effects to make them look like 3D locations that our characters can exist in and interact with. 

I’m not going to lie. I absolutely love the results and with so many free services available right now, like Minimax to generate elements like water, smoke, fire, and whatever else I might need to add to the final composite, it’s an embarrassment of riches. 

But like I said before, none of this stuff comes ready to use, as is. It takes me hours just to generate them, get what I need, and then do the retouching and compositing to stitch it all together. Every image goes through three or four different programs before I then spend time turning it into scenes. Rocks just start out as pictures, they get turned into 3D elements, and then they become part of an arduous process of building a shot. 

Here’s where I’m going to level with you. Although I have help from my producing partner Dough Mayfield and a very small handful of other talented artists, I’m worried if the final product will be enough by the time it’s done. 

I can now produce anything that I could possibly want but so can everyone else and there are some talented people out there aiming for the same goal, I am. Weirdly, more resources mean that the stakes have never been higher to exceed audience expectations. Right now there is some very impressive stuff and where before I wasn’t concerned because most people were just creating vignettes that were novel but often not useful, now I see them pushing the same possibilities that I see but with more talent, time and resources to get them done ahead of me. 

I often wonder if with the realism AI can achieve getting exponentially better with every passing week, will all the extra effort I put into doing it “the hard way” make the difference I thought it would when I started this journey? Will what I produce measure up and resonate with audiences in a way that technology alone can’t do, or will it just seem kind of quaint and low-budget? 

That’s not what I want. I feel like we’re doing something special, here and it is by shear passion and drive, nagging at me like an addiction that I continue on, knowing that Escape From Planet Omega-12 will be worth it, despite the constant exhaustion and yes, sometimes misery that endlessly toiling at it can make me feel. Committing yourself to such projects without any promise of success or recognition can sometimes feel like living in a hopeless and lonely void, wondering if the thing you love is the thing that will come to nothing and leave you heartbroken. Disappointing those I care about is my biggest fear. Letting them down instead of delivering on success and elevating us all to a better tomorrow. That’s why I think a lot of people quit but I just can’t bring myself to do so because paradoxically that would also feel like letting it break me. 

The only way is forward. Another hundred miles and maybe another thousand after that, with what feels like a million people looking at you as if you’re a fool? Who knows? I do think that if you’re reading this, if you’ve made it this far, then you do believe in me and that gives me a little piece of mind, a little hope, and for that, I say thank you. 

Stories matter, and I think this one will, too. Knowing people are waiting for it is the light at the end of the tunnel I need.