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Kiss, like flower, like water. Orchids.

by GymDreams
Abstract surreal videography about the love among gay men. Rendered with Stable Diffusion, Deforum, and Juggernaut Aftermath.

Kiss, like flower, like water.

A kiss and a passionate embrace between two gay men started a chain reaction and a visual journey — mixed with flowers, water drops, and ethereal light. Abstract surreal photography realized through AI. Rendered with Stable Diffusion, Deforum, and Juggernaut Aftermath.

I used orchids as the flowers in this video. Like all the other flowers in this series, they have special meanings to me

As I have mentioned previously, Lilies and Tulips are generally what I buy for others, whether on special occasions or just to brighten up the day. But over time I have found it wasteful to buy cut flowers, so where possible, I have switched to sending Orchids in planters instead. It’s also something that I like to buy as a house-warming gift for friends.

Researching this flower on the internet revealed that it is most associated with Brazil, and that’s why I chose to pair them with Brazilian men. Admittedly, I don’t know a lot of Brazilian men, besides a few co-workers I used to have, so hopefully these depictions of Brazilian men are still accurate. I did ask a few friends in Brazil to make sure that the renders were ok.

Unlike what many may assume, having in-depth knowledge of the subject matters is still crucial in AI. When you don’t know the subject matters, you can easily make the wrong choices, and the results will be very obvious.

Soundtrack

There are very few remaining tracks from Aaron Paul Low that I can use for this series. I have found one of the few gems left that have the correct mood.

This piece is called “Sparks Fly”.

Technical Details

Like the Cherry Blossom / Japanese video, this video used my new workflow where I first upscaled all the 512x910 images to 2048x3640 with Topaz Gigapixel, then used those to create an image sequence as a video, thereby ensuring a much sharper video as a result — even if he final render is in HD. The image sequences are at 15fps, and they’re rendered at 30fps, with frame-blending enabled for every other frame, to ensure much smooth transitions.

Text prompts in Stable Diffusion, Deforum, 1500 frames, edited to 1 min 30 sec.

  • Juggernaut AfterMath, DPM++ SDE Karras, 25 steps
  • 512x910, upscaled to 2048x3640, scaled down and cropped to 1080x1920
  • Seed: iter, 3D animation, 1500 frame, Replicate border, 15fps, frame blended to 30fps in After Effects.
  • Images: Topaz Gigapixel HQ 4x, 2048 x 3640
  • Soundtrack: Licensed music “Sparks Fly” by Aaron Paul Low. Remixed to animation length in Ableton Live Suite
  • Animation: Adobe After Effect

Image Index

Stills

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