- Welcome to The Steampunk Forum at Brass Goggles.
The Lighter Side of Steampunk
News:
For Forum status and technical updates, follow @vonCorax on Twitter X, and @vonCorax@mastodon.social on Mastodon.
Recent posts
#21
Off Topic / Re: Departed Cultural Icons 20...
Last post by Rockula - November 30, 2023, 04:28:12 PMShane Patrick Lysaght MacGowan (25 December 1957 – 30 November 2023) was an Irish musician who was best known as the lead singer and songwriter of Celtic punk band the Pogues.
#22
Trading / Re: Alkemy Chimeras
Last post by von Corax - November 29, 2023, 02:08:33 PMIf you have a website you're welcome to post a link, both here and in your profile and signature. We just don't allow blatant advertising in posts outside of Trading.
#23
Meta-Clubs / Re: The Brass Goggles Occult S...
Last post by Tomas29 - November 29, 2023, 08:42:56 AMOur website offers you a unique opportunity to discover the mysterious world of tarot cards by plunging into the depths of the dark forest.
https://tarotcardsdarkforest.com/
Why choose Tarot Cards of the Dark Forest?
The uniqueness of the cards: Each deck here is a masterpiece, hand-crafted by highly skilled artists who skillfully embody the dark secrets of the forest in each card.
Interpretation and guide: On our website, you will find a detailed explanation of each card. You will not only learn their meanings, but also get valuable tips and insights aimed at your personal life.
Online Tarot: Try our online tarot to get answers to your questions and find out what the future holds for you.
Community and forums: Connect with other tarot enthusiasts, discuss card readings, share your experiences, and get advice from others.
Shop: You can also order your very own tarot deck, where each card is a unique creation that will add mystery and depth to your tarot experience.
Let Dark Forest Tarot Cards be your guide to the world of mystery and help you discover your inner world through tarot cards. Feel the magic of the forest in each card and find the answers to your questions.
https://tarotcardsdarkforest.com/
Why choose Tarot Cards of the Dark Forest?
The uniqueness of the cards: Each deck here is a masterpiece, hand-crafted by highly skilled artists who skillfully embody the dark secrets of the forest in each card.
Interpretation and guide: On our website, you will find a detailed explanation of each card. You will not only learn their meanings, but also get valuable tips and insights aimed at your personal life.
Online Tarot: Try our online tarot to get answers to your questions and find out what the future holds for you.
Community and forums: Connect with other tarot enthusiasts, discuss card readings, share your experiences, and get advice from others.
Shop: You can also order your very own tarot deck, where each card is a unique creation that will add mystery and depth to your tarot experience.
Let Dark Forest Tarot Cards be your guide to the world of mystery and help you discover your inner world through tarot cards. Feel the magic of the forest in each card and find the answers to your questions.
#24
Tactile / Re: New work
Last post by selectedgrub - November 29, 2023, 08:39:13 AMRunning out of free minutes on my interweb supply sorry 
AM SW MV radio waves blah blah blah gigahertz blah blah Dipole blah
Finished it blah blah
https://selectedgrub.blogspot.com/2023/11/blog-post_48.html
AM SW MV radio waves blah blah blah gigahertz blah blah Dipole blah
Finished it blah blah
https://selectedgrub.blogspot.com/2023/11/blog-post_48.html
#25
Metaphysical / Re: Do you even need steampunk...
Last post by J. Wilhelm - November 29, 2023, 07:42:41 AMWell, Steampunk has gone back underground, so these makers you speak of aren't as numerous or as visible as they were when Steampunk became mainstream over a decade ago. Do the artists exist? Well, they should, probably not under the title "Steampunk," considering that there's a lot of people who make costumes for cosplay, for example. I don't see why any costume maker in 2023 would have a problem reproducing this picture I generated with Patience.ai, for example:
Changing the subject a bit, I think AI is a great design tool. It can be used to compliment your ideas, because the computer will naturally deviate from your ideas according to a variable control setting. The image you see took many iterations to turn into what I wanted to see. I would jump from one AI model to another when that version of AI wasn't responding to a request, or gave me something I didn't want.
Among the number of images I generated, about 20 or 30 to get to that single image you see, the AI would insert odd design changes that sometimes helped me get new ideas for other costumes, for example. At other times, the AI was horribly stubborn and just refused to give me anything useful.
The Lederhosen chest plate you see in the picture had to be forcibly inserted in the picture (Photoshopped a picture from an online catalogue) and then I input the modified picture back into the AI so it would intelligently blend my patch into the image, while reinterpreting the chest plate (the final form is what you see in the picture), because when specifying tracht or lederhose, the AI refused to paint anything other than standard trouser braces and men's cloth shorts. Apparently that version of Stable Diffusion had very little input on traditional German trachten.
Eventually it did start drawing leather shorts, on its own, but what the AI did do without a prompt, surprisingly, was to introduce a corseted extension (abdomen area, see picture) on a pair of cloth shorts, which I didn't ask for, nor specify in any way. Curiously that matched my own uniform concept for the Luftschiffengl characters, who wear a metallic corset over their lederhosen shorts, which are Denim, not leather.
So I thought that was an interesting development that can be used in design. I can see fashion designers using AI. So just like that, the computer will suggest ideas as you move closer to what you want to see. Sometimes the best thing to do is to not insist on the computer giving you what you want, and you have to change tack and pursue another concept, or even mix AI software (input the output of one AI into another - I did that a lot). When you're inputting your own Photoshop changes, then you are training the AI.
Changing the subject a bit, I think AI is a great design tool. It can be used to compliment your ideas, because the computer will naturally deviate from your ideas according to a variable control setting. The image you see took many iterations to turn into what I wanted to see. I would jump from one AI model to another when that version of AI wasn't responding to a request, or gave me something I didn't want.
Among the number of images I generated, about 20 or 30 to get to that single image you see, the AI would insert odd design changes that sometimes helped me get new ideas for other costumes, for example. At other times, the AI was horribly stubborn and just refused to give me anything useful.
The Lederhosen chest plate you see in the picture had to be forcibly inserted in the picture (Photoshopped a picture from an online catalogue) and then I input the modified picture back into the AI so it would intelligently blend my patch into the image, while reinterpreting the chest plate (the final form is what you see in the picture), because when specifying tracht or lederhose, the AI refused to paint anything other than standard trouser braces and men's cloth shorts. Apparently that version of Stable Diffusion had very little input on traditional German trachten.
Eventually it did start drawing leather shorts, on its own, but what the AI did do without a prompt, surprisingly, was to introduce a corseted extension (abdomen area, see picture) on a pair of cloth shorts, which I didn't ask for, nor specify in any way. Curiously that matched my own uniform concept for the Luftschiffengl characters, who wear a metallic corset over their lederhosen shorts, which are Denim, not leather.
So I thought that was an interesting development that can be used in design. I can see fashion designers using AI. So just like that, the computer will suggest ideas as you move closer to what you want to see. Sometimes the best thing to do is to not insist on the computer giving you what you want, and you have to change tack and pursue another concept, or even mix AI software (input the output of one AI into another - I did that a lot). When you're inputting your own Photoshop changes, then you are training the AI.
#26
Meta-Clubs / Re: Dicey wildcards. tabletop ...
Last post by rovingjack - November 29, 2023, 04:08:04 AMspent some time modifying the D&D monster types and damage types, so that they correspond with cold type monsters doing having cold resistance and possibly doing cold damage. this allows for making a pokemon style grid of resistance, immunity, and super effective. then charted a preliminary grid for types.
The types are:
Fel (fiend)
Celestial
cold
lightning
fire
air
earth
water
acid
poison
verdant (plant)
necro (undead)
psychic
fey, dragons, giants etc are descriptors but don't need to be creature types distinct from humanoid or animal or monstrosity (which themselves are all more or less the same thing, and are the base standard against which others are gauged), they can be modified by adding a type: frost giant, fire dragon, forest elf, zombie humanoid etc.
likewise your magic weapons can do fire or celestial damage, or a spell can do acid damage or earth damage.
it let's us know that a wizard casting fire spells at a water type will result in a less effective attack.
I then used these changes to update my monster generator, so that I could have a practice run at monster creating, first as part of an advent calendar style event in december again this year, and then as a daily generation for 2024.
I'm debating whether I should do 3 options this year like last years NPC, Location, and Magic item (person place or thing) options to randomly generate, or if Monsters and Spells are good enough.
also trying to decide on the name of a project where I write a page asking for the person to write down:
a couple dangers (traps, monsters, cave ins, etc), something to solve (puzzle, riddle, secret door etc), and opponents, and boss. As well as the faction name and goals and the reward for beating them. once you use the ones from your groups game, randomly roll each or some of them or come up with your own... you turn the page and read the description of the one page dungeon with rooms 3 and 7 being the dangers, room 5 being the riddle locked door, and the Name of the dungeon and boss monster and his forces guarding the item you seek.
It's Mad-libs but for one page dungeons. I was thinking Map-Libs, but Mad libs is already a twist on Ad-lib, and a twist on a twist gets a bit twisted.
This style allows for reuse of a dungeon that will become an entirely different dungeon each time you answer the questions or random generate responses.
The types are:
Fel (fiend)
Celestial
cold
lightning
fire
air
earth
water
acid
poison
verdant (plant)
necro (undead)
psychic
fey, dragons, giants etc are descriptors but don't need to be creature types distinct from humanoid or animal or monstrosity (which themselves are all more or less the same thing, and are the base standard against which others are gauged), they can be modified by adding a type: frost giant, fire dragon, forest elf, zombie humanoid etc.
likewise your magic weapons can do fire or celestial damage, or a spell can do acid damage or earth damage.
it let's us know that a wizard casting fire spells at a water type will result in a less effective attack.
I then used these changes to update my monster generator, so that I could have a practice run at monster creating, first as part of an advent calendar style event in december again this year, and then as a daily generation for 2024.
I'm debating whether I should do 3 options this year like last years NPC, Location, and Magic item (person place or thing) options to randomly generate, or if Monsters and Spells are good enough.
also trying to decide on the name of a project where I write a page asking for the person to write down:
a couple dangers (traps, monsters, cave ins, etc), something to solve (puzzle, riddle, secret door etc), and opponents, and boss. As well as the faction name and goals and the reward for beating them. once you use the ones from your groups game, randomly roll each or some of them or come up with your own... you turn the page and read the description of the one page dungeon with rooms 3 and 7 being the dangers, room 5 being the riddle locked door, and the Name of the dungeon and boss monster and his forces guarding the item you seek.
It's Mad-libs but for one page dungeons. I was thinking Map-Libs, but Mad libs is already a twist on Ad-lib, and a twist on a twist gets a bit twisted.
This style allows for reuse of a dungeon that will become an entirely different dungeon each time you answer the questions or random generate responses.
#27
Metaphysical / Re: Do you even need steampunk...
Last post by selectedgrub - November 29, 2023, 03:38:12 AMStill where are all the Miliners, tailors and gadget makers gone that could produce a real version of the photo.
#28
Trading / Re: Alkemy Chimeras
Last post by selectedgrub - November 29, 2023, 03:29:05 AMVery good.
#29
Metaphysical / Re: Do you even need steampunk...
Last post by RJBowman - November 28, 2023, 04:55:19 PMAI art is necessarily derivative of existing art. You aren't going to get any originality out of it.
What I've seen looks like detail of existing art stretched over layouts of existing art.
What I've seen looks like detail of existing art stretched over layouts of existing art.
#30
Photography / Re: IMPORTANT: Potential Image...
Last post by J. Wilhelm - November 28, 2023, 03:38:42 PMHello, denizens of Brassgoggles! I'm getting closer to making a decision on the future over at least a portion of the pictures I've posted since 2009.
The situation at X, or as I call it, "Xchan" is getting exponentially worse at the direction of Musk. Late posts made by the owner of the platform make me question whether I should start closing accounts right away, at least the older accounts that are not in use.
I won't go into details as to what Mr X did now, but it's sufficiently offensive that anyone staying on the platform could be regarded to be tangentially supporting a type of ideology that was flat out rejected by most of the world at the end of WWII. Mr. X is now legally lashing out at the news and media outfits that reported him, in a desperate effort to clear his name from what anyone with two brain cells can see is an affirmation to said ideology.
I feel I have no choice but to start shutting down my three (four?) accounts. I will keep the main one open until I can back up the images, but the two (three?) older accounts that host my former Steampunk business images will be shut down ASAP, meaning the images about smartphone and tablet cases, computers, laptops and maybe some of the Mk.I Boombox images will disappear. I don't know exactly when, but it's imminent.
I have backup photos of everything in "hard storage", but it'll take time for me to find them and host them somewhere else. The newest account that holds most of the material posted since ~2013 will continue operating as I make more backups of my Brassgoggles pages, including the Steamy Building threads and Victorian Food Brands thread. All of that is in the newest account.
It's more tractable to do it this way, as my former Steampunk business hasn't been alive for almost a decade, it's hard to track my older posts on BG and no one talks about them anyway.
The situation at X, or as I call it, "Xchan" is getting exponentially worse at the direction of Musk. Late posts made by the owner of the platform make me question whether I should start closing accounts right away, at least the older accounts that are not in use.
I won't go into details as to what Mr X did now, but it's sufficiently offensive that anyone staying on the platform could be regarded to be tangentially supporting a type of ideology that was flat out rejected by most of the world at the end of WWII. Mr. X is now legally lashing out at the news and media outfits that reported him, in a desperate effort to clear his name from what anyone with two brain cells can see is an affirmation to said ideology.
I feel I have no choice but to start shutting down my three (four?) accounts. I will keep the main one open until I can back up the images, but the two (three?) older accounts that host my former Steampunk business images will be shut down ASAP, meaning the images about smartphone and tablet cases, computers, laptops and maybe some of the Mk.I Boombox images will disappear. I don't know exactly when, but it's imminent.
I have backup photos of everything in "hard storage", but it'll take time for me to find them and host them somewhere else. The newest account that holds most of the material posted since ~2013 will continue operating as I make more backups of my Brassgoggles pages, including the Steamy Building threads and Victorian Food Brands thread. All of that is in the newest account.
It's more tractable to do it this way, as my former Steampunk business hasn't been alive for almost a decade, it's hard to track my older posts on BG and no one talks about them anyway.