I discovered I really like how each of the factions in Cyberpunk 2077 have their own unique aesthetic. For the longest time, it was the NCPD. Later, the 6th Street Patriots. Even as far back as Wizard 101 I preferred the look of a uniform in my characters - all my girls wore Samurai armor - then later in Pirate 101 I was obsessed with the Marleybone Colonial Naval uniform - all my girls wore that as well. The NCPD of course is in uniform, but with Sixth Street they were all veterans, so had the military look and feel to their outfits. When the DLC was released, I eventually became enamored of Barghest - the toxic bluish yellow contrasting their black garb was just gorgeous in my opinion. As often happens, once I did absolutely everything I could think of to exploit that, I needed to move on. Trauma Team was the next with their bluish green uniform color palette blended with dark turquoise and white - not to mention the paramilitary design and pattern. Aesthetic.

From my last post on the subject, "My first Trauma Team video was shot very nearly frame-for-frame to mimic the first season opening titles of Grey's Anatomy, but I wished to inject some drama to match the vibe. Thing is, I suck at drama. The end result was the conversation between the Night City Police Department dispatcher, and the Trauma Team dispatcher at the beginning of the video...which turned out to be everyone's favorite part, so I kind of just ran with that. The next two videos explored that relationship..."

Feeling particularly conflicted one night (or perhaps simply frustrated), I authored their break-up. It was heart wrenching and gives me goosebumps to this day. Not so much for their story, but my own - despite not originally being a 1:1 blueprint to my experience, it was in part drawn upon heavily. The next one however? Moreso. Only two months passed between the two, but it feels instead like two lifetimes have passed.

Mostly I'm frustrated. Frustrated with my inability to let things go which do not serve me coupled with my inability to hold onto and appreciate the things which might. Its a whole vibe.

Why I am the way I am is a much longer discussion. That said, for reasons unknown, I thought it would be fun to create a Gray's Anatomy/General Hospital drama based on Cyberpunk 2077's Trauma Team. Having previously been enamored with Dogtown's Barghest (specifically the neon yellow color scheme) I initially reworked some of the graphics I'd made with those to represent Trauma Team's color scheme (teal/white/red). I'd made a couple of videos highlighting a handful of the various gangs within the game, but my idea for this proved to be a little more challenging.

My first Trauma Team video was shot very nearly frame-for-frame to mimic the first season opening titles of Grey's Anatomy, but I wished to inject some drama to match the vibe. Thing is, I suck at drama. The end result was the conversation between the Night City Police Department dispatcher, and the Trauma Team dispatcher at the beginning of the video...which turned out to be everyone's favorite part, so I kind of just ran with that. The next two videos explored that relationship, all tediously done not only with in-game screenshots, but I'd also used mods to meticulously create the sets in which to shoot. This took months. This is when I wondered if it would be easier to create AI models of the two main characters and intersperse the resulting output with the screenshots (the two on the left are in-game screenshots, the two on the right are my AI models).

The next video was also right around the time drax0r and I discovered AI music creation, so my first test with the new models was a music video which still relied heavily upon screenshots. It was at this point in its evolution that AI was also able to create video from still images which opened up a whole new set of possibilities - moreso that I have the hardware to run it locally (though some things are actually less expensive than electricity).

The next music video however (based on the anime Dan Da Dan; a recreation of its opening theme) used entirely AI-generated models. The next four music videos leveraged the AI models, let me refine music making, and further experiment with video. At some point I felt I'd done all I could do with the relationship between NCPD and Trauma as far as music videos were concerned (much later I explored what would happen if they broke up experimenting with a style in my first attempt to copy Ethel Cain). Still, I utilized the models I'd made by incorporating other existing models for costuming, turning everyone I know into a unique Trauma Team member. Which is where we find ourselves today:

I've been using Wan2.1 locally on my desktop for making image-to-videos (i2v) utilizing the Pinokio installer. I found its "one-click" installation/upgrade/management effortless and elegant, and it comes with numerous configurations for low vRAM systems - as low as 5GB via optimization. It's pretty freaking sweet. The videos turn out best when limited (currently) to 5-seconds, but since I can make as many as I want, I've been importing them into Premiere Pro, and capturing the last frame as the first frame for a subsequent video, ultimately stitching them together. I'm also using the logos I make in Stable Diffusion to animate them.

Pinokio also (now) comes with a built-in video upscaled, which is the preferred method over trying to brute-force create HD. One of their models, Fun InP, can create a 5-second video on the RTX4090 in ~90 seconds (full 480p takes me ~10-minutes), so there's lots of time for other fun stuff. In other AI-related news, HiDream (17B) is out, and the news on that looks fantastic, though I haven't had a chance to play with it yet myself. I also was approved for Envato's new i2v beta, and that's even more amazing because it renders a photo in realtime as you type so you can make changes on-the-fly before submitting; I've never seen anything quite like it.

Fox Force Five. Fox, as in we’re a bunch of foxy chicks. Force, as in we’re a force to be reckoned with. Five, as in there’s one…two …three…four…five of us.

Thought it would be fun to make Jennifer a Trauma Team member. Then - as I was working on a Flux model of Geekfriend - thought I'd make her one as well. It's been a L O N G time since I did anything with Cass, so added her into the mix. That's when I began thinking about an altogether different connotation of, "Trauma Team," as a team assembled who support mine. Mentioning this, Gabby said, "In that case you'll need Tess on there." Once I had communicated the idea outside Gabs, Leslie suggested Gabby should be on there also.

And that's how we got to FOX FORCE FIVE.


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