Like the newest Star Wars live-action series, I have a strange affinity to the run-down and the derelict. Putting a 50s underground train in a modern station also displays some subtle anachronism, but not at the same level as the previous post.
Let me repeat the disclaimer from earlier: there is absolutely no guarantee that you would get the same image if you put the exact same prompt into even the same image generator (which is DALL-E 3 in our case, but the session happened last November).
Me: Create a photo realistic image of a train in an underground station. The train is electric but it is from the 1950s. The station is modern but cramped, with a lot of cracked or broken tiles. The station is dark, the only light is coming from the windows of the train. The light is dim blue.
DALL-E always has to ignore part of the prompt. Most of the time it has problems with negative or implicitly negative instructions (“the only light is coming from”). You do best if you build your prompt from short positive statements. But even in this case, you will be constrained by DALL-E always adding implicit, “default” elements to an item — elements that are usually, but not always, part of the item in real life.
Now remember that in the previous post, St Jerome started his journey in time and space to a conference in Brussels. After his flight, he needs to take a train. Why not here?
Me: Remove the lights from the top of the tunnel, and make the scene darker. Add St Jerome to the image, dressed as a Franciscan monk, waiting on the platform.
Then me again, struggling to really remove the lights: Remove all lights from the tunnel. Only the train has lights.
See how the negative instructions (“remove” and “only”) don’t work? The light indeed got dimmer but there are still some sources of light outside the train on all four pictures.
Also, if you look at the first two, notice how the train arrives on a track that is out of reach for poor St Jerome. This does not always happen (on the third and fourth image, DALL-E simply removed one of the tracks), but DALL-E has this tendency whenever it creates pictures of train stations.
Finally, let’s make the scene even more derelict:
Me: Make the train dented and the windows cracked.
This is what happens if your prompt is not specific enough. I meant for cracks on the windows of the train, but I did not explicitly say it. So, DALL-E made windows in the roof of the station and made them sort of cracked.
A final note: did you notice that the “50s train” looks like Soviet Mytishchinsky trains from the 70s? I never said that in the prompt but even in the EU, Prague and Budapest still has these trains (although they have all been refurbished).
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