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Show HN: NightCafe Creator – Create art from a text prompt using VQGAN+CLIP

creator.nightcafe.studio

31–40 of 45 posts

Re: Show HN: NightCafe Creator – Create art from a text prompt using VQGAN+CLIP

#31

This is what I prompted it. Actually very surprised with the results. Conceptually it did a good job: https://creator.nightcafe.studio/creation/JxN2V4LL2mTozEoPLV... Prompt: a large robot is fighting another large robot with a scenic background over the water 8k resolution

Those are indeed robots. what about a more explicit cultural reference to point in a different direction? Gundam, Voltron, Jaeger/Kaiju.

Re: Show HN: NightCafe Creator – Create art from a text prompt using VQGAN+CLIP

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are cool. I wish it was possible to move beyond Colab for generative type ML as the UX is horrible and there is no practical way to use them on mobile. Unfortunately it seems to be a problem of who has the hardware and who doesn't. Hopefully as time passes it will be easier to host these kinds of services, and not have to feel hopeless after the next AI Dungeon-type corporate implosion.

Yep, NightCafe has struggled for years with the expense of running algorithms on GPUs. It started out free, but as soon as you start to get any kind of volume, costs balloon. I almost gave up on NightCafe when I was trying to make money from selling prints to people. Then, one user generated 3,000 creations in a week, which cost him nothing and me $300. I decided to spend the weekend implementing a credit system to p…

Interesting. I suppose if it takes minutes on a GPU, it might take ages to generate one on a mobile ML/NN chip? If it were able to be optimized to somewhat-less-than-ages, it would be a different business model w/o the need to manage credits and worry about abuse.

Re: Show HN: NightCafe Creator – Create art from a text prompt using VQGAN+CLIP

#33

My first one turned out to be pretty great! https://creator.nightcafe.studio/creation/70lx2Il45nK1rmcE1D... I've been playing around with AI art generators for a while now and they are always great fun. Though it weirdly motivates to do some painting or creating of my own as if I need to compete with it. I think AI generators as inspiration tools is a very interesting use-case that I'd like to see more of! As a side…

That's a good one! Most of my regular users are artists who either use it for inspiration or use it to mix into their digital art. (NightCafe has been around for a while as a style transfer app). It's rare that people buy prints. Most money comes from people buying credits.

Is this profitable for you? Do the economics of it work out?

I'm somewhat involved in similar apps and I know the computation required, even for just inference, can be quite expensive.

Re: Show HN: NightCafe Creator – Create art from a text prompt using VQGAN+CLIP

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, NightCafe has struggled for years with the expense of running algorithms on GPUs. It started out free, but as soon as you start to get any kind of volume, costs balloon. I almost gave up on NightCafe when I was trying to make money from selling prints to people. Then, one user generated 3,000 creations in a week, which cost him nothing and me $300. I decided to spend the weekend implementing a credit system to p…

Interesting. I suppose if it takes minutes on a GPU, it might take ages to generate one on a mobile ML/NN chip? If it were able to be optimized to somewhat-less-than-ages, it would be a different business model w/o the need to manage credits and worry about abuse.

Yeah it would, but aside from the cost there are other benefits to cloud computation. It can be done in the background (i.e. it's ok to close your tab) and you can run multiple at once.

Style transfer on NightCafe has a bulk-create mode that has been used in the past to create 500+ creations at once and they all finished in 10 mins.

Re: Show HN: NightCafe Creator – Create art from a text prompt using VQGAN+CLIP

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are cool. I wish it was possible to move beyond Colab for generative type ML as the UX is horrible and there is no practical way to use them on mobile. Unfortunately it seems to be a problem of who has the hardware and who doesn't. Hopefully as time passes it will be easier to host these kinds of services, and not have to feel hopeless after the next AI Dungeon-type corporate implosion.

Yep, NightCafe has struggled for years with the expense of running algorithms on GPUs. It started out free, but as soon as you start to get any kind of volume, costs balloon. I almost gave up on NightCafe when I was trying to make money from selling prints to people. Then, one user generated 3,000 creations in a week, which cost him nothing and me $300. I decided to spend the weekend implementing a credit system to p…

Is the option to buy prints still there? Some services offer the possibility to buy prints on canvas tied on a wooden frame, possibly manually retouched, which look much like an actual picture you can hang in your living room

Re: Show HN: NightCafe Creator – Create art from a text prompt using VQGAN+CLIP

#36
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, NightCafe has struggled for years with the expense of running algorithms on GPUs. It started out free, but as soon as you start to get any kind of volume, costs balloon. I almost gave up on NightCafe when I was trying to make money from selling prints to people. Then, one user generated 3,000 creations in a week, which cost him nothing and me $300. I decided to spend the weekend implementing a credit system to p…

Is the option to buy prints still there? Some services offer the possibility to buy prints on canvas tied on a wooden frame, possibly manually retouched, which look much like an actual picture you can hang in your living room

Yeah you can still buy prints but they're not manually retouched. You'll get product mockups and a buy option for your first 5 creations.

Re: Show HN: NightCafe Creator – Create art from a text prompt using VQGAN+CLIP

#38
post #24

Interesting to see an art creator based around buying credits. Do you use Shopify for the order processing?

Yes I do, it's a bit of a hangover from the original business model of buying prints. Stripe would potentially be better for credits.

Cool. I never used Shopify. Didn't know you can use them to sell digital goods.

Do you have to integrate your own payment or do they handle it all for you? Do they collect the money from users and then send it to you once per month? Do they handle the tricky parts like dealing with VAT per country?

Re: Show HN: NightCafe Creator – Create art from a text prompt using VQGAN+CLIP

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good one! Most of my regular users are artists who either use it for inspiration or use it to mix into their digital art. (NightCafe has been around for a while as a style transfer app). It's rare that people buy prints. Most money comes from people buying credits.

Is this profitable for you? Do the economics of it work out? I'm somewhat involved in similar apps and I know the computation required, even for just inference, can be quite expensive.

It's not very profitable, about a 10% margin after doing a lot of work to get costs down and sales up.

Re: Show HN: NightCafe Creator – Create art from a text prompt using VQGAN+CLIP

#40
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I do, it's a bit of a hangover from the original business model of buying prints. Stripe would potentially be better for credits.

Cool. I never used Shopify. Didn't know you can use them to sell digital goods. Do you have to integrate your own payment or do they handle it all for you? Do they collect the money from users and then send it to you once per month? Do they handle the tricky parts like dealing with VAT per country?

I basically use the API to create a checkout specific to the user's order, then listen to the webhook to fulfill the credits. Gateways are Shopify and PayPal. Shopify payments are in my bank account in a couple of days.
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