NaGraNoGenMo

[zachwhalen]

I have about three different ideas right now that I think I'll weave together into a single thing.

[zachwhalen]

First idea, pretty simple, is taking tweets with a certain hashtag that also have a certain grammatical pattern, extracting a phrase from those tweets, and then smashing them together with randomly selected grammar. Some sample output:

We did the "Monster Mash" haha, but no one liked Kevin Jonas, but we met on this porch, and then we were "bffs" lol but then you jumped over you couch and knocked down a picture. Anyway, we did this, but later Beyoncé had a Pot Noodle for hair, but later we did that thing with that guy and then something happened or it was Stings Take State. Supras were a thing, but I was the only boy you vine meet up on Harbor. Eventually you weren't such a little bitch; Runway Magazine did a 2 page spread on us. Your cable bill was only $30 a month and included all the movie channels and your cell phone battery lasted 6 days. We lined up in the cafeteria for fresh baked cookies at WPCP.

It's rough, but I think it has potential. I could make the grammar more elegant with some templates, for instance.

[zachwhalen]

Here's a small update. What I'm trying to create here is a Watchmen-like comic layout, so this is the basic 9 x 9 grid generated with Imagemagick. I'm sure I could tweak it for the various variations on paneling that show up throughout the comic.

My next steps are:

1. Figure out how to get text into/onto the panels.
2. Create some sense of order or pattern for the panel content
3. Make the panel content more comic-like.
4. Make and fill alternate panel grids.

[MichaelPaulukonis]

No github repo? SON I AM DISSAPOINT.

[zachwhalen]

@MichaelPaulukonis I'm not that far along yet. I'm just using some Perl to pass commands to imagemagick for now, which I can share if you're interested...

So first I crop them down to size like

$fn = basename $file;
system("convert $file -resize \"1000x\" -crop 200x300+20+20 tmp/$fn");

Then I arrange them into a page like

system("montage $pan -tile 3x -geometry +4+4 -border 2 -bordercolor #202020 img/page.jpg");

[zachwhalen]

I have created a repo: https://github.com/zachwhalen/NaGraNoGenMo

[MichaelPaulukonis]

<SO PROUD/>

Uh. Are you aware of the other graphic novel generator?

[ikarth]

I'm interested in seeing how the different approaches to graphic novel generation compare.

[zachwhalen]

I'm definitely aware of the other project. I think our approaches are going to end up being pretty different, and of course it remains to be seen if I can get mine together at all. Greg is certainly a lot farther along than I am.

[zachwhalen]

Some progress to report. I can randomly generate some basic panel layouts, and the code gives me enough control where I could make a few specific special layouts like at the end of chapters for example. I've generated an empty Sample Chapter, and I've got my image source figured out.

Next steps are to get the images into the panels and then finally add some text.

[dariusk]

Oooh, exciting!

[dariusk]

(not sarcasm)

[MichaelPaulukonis]

I'm looking forward to seeing how this comes along.

My own project had some great output early on, and despite a lot of coding since then, the output looks roughly the same to an outside observer. BUT ITS SECRETLY BETTER!

Eh, explaining a working process to outsiders is fraught with difficulties!

[zachwhalen]

Some more progress, with just some lorem ipsum for now while I continue to work out my text source. I'm not completely happy with the font or the pencil sketch effect, but those are easy enough to change out for other options later.

[zachwhalen]

Midnight is approaching. I'm not sure if it will be done generating by midnight, but it should be close. I've made several changes since the last update, and there are many things I wanted to do differently or better with this but I don't have time for any more tweaking.

Here's a preview: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3202079/nagro.pdf

The full, final version will have 10 chapters of 25 pages each, assuming it actually runs to completion. As you'll see if you take a look at it, I decided to use ImageMagick's "-paint" command instead of "-sketch" because I like the colors. Also it's a lot faster than -sketch.

If I had more time, the main thing I'd work on would be making the text a little cleaner and less repetitive. The generated novel includes some explanation of its processes, and I'll probably write a blog entry or README with some more detailed post mortem.

[zachwhalen]

Also worth noting: the final version improves several things from this preview, like the title generation. (Hopefully.)

[ikarth]

Looking forward to seeing it!

[cpressey]

@ikarth I believe this might be it?

https://github.com/zachwhalen/NaGraNoGenMo/blob/master/output/book.pdf

I like it...

[MichaelPaulukonis]

Oh, nice.

[zachwhalen]

Ok. Well after a lot of frustration with the text, I finally decided to omit the text altogether and make it a wordless graphic novel. The code in my repo is way out of date now, but I'll update it later or eventually.

For now, please excuse my tardiness, and enjoy "THE SOMETHING, THE THANKSGIVING, AND THE NOTHING.":

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3202079/nagronogenmo.pdf

Warning: it's about 105 mb.

[zachwhalen]

@cpressey @ikarth That was an early draft that accidentally got slurped up, but I'm glad you like it!

[enkiv2]

This is very cool

On Tue Dec 02 2014 at 7:03:07 PM Zach Whalen notifications@github.com wrote:

@cpressey https://github.com/cpressey @ikarth https://github.com/ikarth That was an early draft that accidentally got slurped up, but I'm glad you like it!

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/dariusk/NaNoGenMo-2014/issues/40#issuecomment-65329424 .

[dariusk]

I love this

[zachwhalen]

FYI I've dumped all the page images into Reveal.js for easier scrutiny, browsing, whatever:

http://zachwhalen.net/pg/granogen/

Enjoy!