I’m a big fan of science fiction, a diffusion of the impossibilities with science and art never fails to blow my mind. My love of science fiction and fantasy films sparked my interest in both science and cinematography. As I’ve been trying to learn physics in order to understand more about the universe, I’ve also been trying to learn photography, and after getting my hands on them, my desire to create something related to sci-fi has grown stronger. Although it is not rocket science, making a sci-fi or fantasy film is difficult; it demands exceptional ability and knowledge, and you cannot do it alone. I tried to make a fantasy edit in Photoshop, but it had a limit; I couldn’t put all of my imagination into it. For years, I believed it was an incredible dream to pour everything within my thoughts into art until AI came along and changed everything. Midjourney was my first AI art platform, and I started with a simple prompt: “/imagine a woman skydiving with a grass field below, free, countryside” The outcome was great.
One of the best aspects of the digital era is the ability to connect with people all around the world who share our interests. And Twitter or X is the ideal way to find a group that shares your passions. My timeline expanded from photography to NFT to AI Art. I’ve been studying how to produce a prompt for a specific result. Starting with this information, I started to make AI art every day in many genres, with a primary focus on sci-fi and fantasy.
I created my first Sci-Fi mini-series, “NPC Revelation,” about two weeks ago. I used the NPC concept as the main topic because it resonates with many people. Most people in this society are trapped by a fabricated system, we are obligated to do specific things in order to be accepted by society. It’s difficult to go against the current and pursue our own desires, especially when they don’t fit with the majority. However, we only live once, right? From that standpoint, I created “NPC Revelation” in 11 episodes, all of which were generated by Midjourney. I’ll walk you through the process step by step, from conceptualizing the idea to scripting the story, and generating visuals.
Crafting the Storyline
The NPC story was highly inspired by The Matrix movie, also recently, I found many people often talk about it. I used ChatGPT to craft the storyline with the prompt “Write a story about how to stop being an NPC inspired by the Matrix movie” as shown below:
I also asked GPT for the title, character name, and futuristic city name ideas. I go with NPC Revelation as the title, Maxen as the main character, and Virtuopolis as the city name. The storyline has 11 paragraphs in total, I use one paragraph as one episode. For this article, I separated the journey into two sections, in the first part, I will concentrate on episodes 1–5, and the rest will be discussed in the second part.
Let's start with the first episode.
1. First Episode
Midjourney Prompt: (storyline), npc characters, the matrix movie preference, sci-fi aesthetic, voluminous mass, medium shot, pink deep cinematic gradient — ar 16:9 — style raw
I kinda regret the neon pink gradient because, after a few episodes, it doesn't match other color palettes. In the first episode, I want to highlight the daily routine of people in general: go to work every day with the same routine. In images 3 and 4 I introduced the main character Maxen or Max.
2. Second Episode
Midjourney Prompt: (storyline), in the style of the matrix movie, diagonal shot, mist, minimalist, deep green cinematic, haze, 8k, ultra-realistic, — style raw — ar 16:9
These images, especially the third image, match the concept well. Deep Green cinematic and detailed code on the image really went well with Maxen's daily job as a software developer.
3. Third Episode
Midjourney Prompt: (storyline), in the style of the matrix, cinematic grading, — style raw — ar 16:9
In the first until third episodes, I use the same storyline (with little modification) as shown in the subtitle. The hardest part in generating AI Art is to have the same face and body figure.
4. Fourth Episode
Midjourney Prompt: (storyline), tonalist color scheme, pensive stillness, in the style of the matrix movie — ar 16:9 — style 1nJxTGZf48
As I generated these images, Midjourney launched a style turner! And style 1nJxTGZf48 is one of my first custom styles.
Style Turner Prompt: a parallel world, cinematic, tonalist color scheme, pensive stillness, misty, in the style of scifi, — ar 16:9
Style Turner has changed a cinematic prompt to a new level. Add the style code in your prompt and the result is totally different!
Starting from this episode, I no longer use the subtitles as the storyline in the Midjourney prompt, I used my imagination to create a specific picture. An improvement happened in episode 4, after many trial and error the result finally came out exactly as I wanted, the parallel world and the color grading were just perfect.
5. Fifth Episode
Midjourney Prompt #1: a group of people looking at the big computer screen, billboard, private room, cinematic, tonalist color scheme, pensive stillness, in the style of the matrix movie, — ar 16:9 — style 1nJxTGZf48 — c 10
Midjourney Prompt #2: detective case board, pin board, detective room, holographic, tonalist color scheme, in the style of the matrix movie, — ar 16:9 — style 1nJxTGZf48
Midjourney Prompt #3: electric wire coming out of a man’s head with two colored televisions hanging from the ceiling, detailed face, vibrant stage backdrops, in the style of the matrix movie, cryengine, haunting visual, gloomy, minimalist sets, toycore, 32 uhd, distrubingly whimsical, — ar 16:9 — style 1nJxTGZf48
Midjourney Prompt #4: case board detective, detailed case board, tonalist color scheme, in the style of the matrix movie, — ar 16:9 — style 1nJxTGZf48
Shared all the prompts because it was different, my favorite is the third one. I didn’t expect the result will look like that, I am showing you all the results:
All the images matched the storyline perfectly, I was confused about which one was the best. However, my mind came to the subtitle that said “The Enforces kept people in line” which made the last image a perfect option to line up with the story.
Crafting a good prompt needs a lot of experience and trial and error, note some powerful keywords such as in these pictures “cryengine, distrubingly whimsical, haunting visual, toycore” to change the result dramatically.
Episodes 6–11 have very different vibes, with more varied and colorful concepts and color grading. I’ll go into more detail in the second part next week!
