unidice – How to create unique skins without drawing?

Isabella-Viktoria Helm
/
March 5, 2023

Unidice is a completely adjustable digital die that can replicate up to 6 dice in one and is a must-have for any lover of board games, Pen&Paper games, or the simple act of rolling dice. Unidice is ideal for those who like to add a little of excitement to their games, and its flexible customization options allow for practically limitless personalization. But what if you don’t want to use some of the free skins that come with the unidice? But you also don’t want to draw your own skins? Well – we have the solution for you!

But in short, it can be summarized to:

  1. Download the Unidice companion app.
  2. Open the app and select “Create a New Dice Set.”
  3. Choose the number of faces you want your digital die to have (up to 6).
  4. Choose your favorite artwork or upload your own custom design.
  5. Overlay the image with any dice number or text you need.
  6. Save your digital dice set and you’re ready to use your very own custom Unidice! Just connect to your die and tap “install”

How to create unique skins without drawing?

I am sure that by now, pretty much everyone has heard about AI Art. It is a wide discussion and a highly controversial topic.

At its current state AIs are a helpful tool that can create images for you – but don’t think that you get exactly what you got on your mind. For that, you still need an artist.

But if you are happy with generating something that is similar to that what you got in your mind AI is the perfect tool!

Ai Art Tools

There are a lot of AI Tools out there – I made a comparison some time ago on my own blog if you want to get an overview. Keep in mind that AI evolves extremely quickly! Since I released the post, many new tools have popped up, making it even more complicated to decide which tool to use.

In summary, if you don’t mind paying a few bucks, I would recommend Midjourney. It has a subscription-based model, and you can generate unlimited images with the right subscription. If you prefer a free alternative, check out Stable Diffusion. Its Models (influences how images look) got much better since I did the test, and you can also use models that are, for example, specialized in creating anime-like aesthetics.

Since I am most comfortable using Midjourney, this blog will focus on how to use Midjourney for generating skins for the unidice.

Midjourney - how to get started

To get started with Midjourney, visit their website: https://www.midjourney.com and join their discord server.

You can use your free tries to get your unidice skin there, or you get a subscription. Keep in mind that you have to share the chatroom with everyone as a free user. If you decide to get a subscription, you can either invite the bot to your discord server or chat privately with it.

Start Generating

To start generating just type /imagine and let autofill complete the command (tab). Your chat should look like this now:

Behind “prompt” (inside the box), you can now write whatever you want.

Let’s say I want to generate something for my “The Dark Eye” witch. She is an extremely peaceful individual, which is mainly the support of the group. She heals people with her spit (bah) and summons crows to distract enemies. But she is also an extremely good alchemist. So I want to go with a potion design.

So I go with the following: “clean vector icon design, potion, mystical, hand-drawn design, elegant” which generates the following images:

They look neat, but maybe I want more of a game icon design, so I enter: ”game icon, potion, mystical, hand drawn design, elegant

That’s more what I like! You see, just changing one word changes the whole design.
So don’t hesitate to test out all sorts of prompts!’

But one more thing – you see, there are currently 4 images, and you have 9 buttons beneath it.

I edited the image to show which skin has which number. It is always like this, the 1is the top left, the 2 the top right, 3 bottom left, 4 bottom right.

Now you have two, well 3 options. U”1-4” upscale one image. That means you get that image in a more significant resolution and with a bit more detail.

V”1-4” means that you get four more variants of that image with slight changes, and the two arrows mean “generate me four more images with this exact prompt”,

That’s pretty much all you need to know about how to generate images for the unidice with Midjourney.

But what if you don’t have the slightest idea what a skin for your character or game could look like? I also have a solution for that for you!


Let Chat GPT create a AI Art prompt for you!

Chat GPT is highly discussed nowadays, even more than AI Art! It is one of the fastest-growing platforms, and it can make pretty much everything for you if you know how to talk to it!

So let’s get started. How do you tell Chat GPT to create a Midjourney prompt for you?

How to get started with Chat GPT?

First, you need to go to that website: https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt/ and sign in to Chat GPT.

There you’re confronted with an empty chat box, and you are ready to go!

How to talk to Chat GPT

Since Chat GPT was trained in 2021 its information about Midjourney is a bit outdated, so we need to feed it some information. Feel free to just copy the things I write here. I will also include the whole prompts at the end of the article!

I will show you two different approaches, one for TTRPG and one for board gaming!

Generating for a TTRPG Character

the dark eye, xaviera fuxfell, ttrpg, midjourney, chatgpt

At the beginning, I want to tell Chat GPT its role and give it some information about the game or character. I will once again use my witch as an example.

Let me tell you about my witch for the ttrpg ruleset the dark eye. Her name is Xaviera Fuxfell, she travels with a group and acts as a cook, alchemist, healer, and supporter for them. She loves brewing potions and summons ravens which attack enemies and distract them to support her group. Her newest skill is sewing. She learned it since her friends always trash their clothing and she wants them to look well-clothed when they enter a city. She has orange hair and pale skin. She is quite small compared to her companions.

Which icon or simple scene could represent her? Which colors would you choose? Write down in a bullet point list which icons/scenes and colors would fit her. Explain why.

And then explain to Chat GPT it how Midjourney works:

Since you aren’t the best artist you want to use an AI called Midjourney to generate some art that resembles the character. Prompts for this could look like: /imagine prompt: potion, vector graphic, game asset, simple coloring, bright yellow potion –v 4

or:

/imagine prompt: tree with sun, green and yellow, hand drawn style, medieval art style –v 4

or:

/imagine prompt: A breathtaking and tranquil scene of a majestic tree and a glowing sun, nestled within a beautiful natural landscape. The tree is tall and imposing, with a trunk that is thick and textured, adorned with lush green leaves that sway gently in the breeze. Its branches reach up towards the sky, spreading out in all directions to create a canopy of shade and shelter. The sun is radiant and warm, with a soft, golden glow that illuminates the tree and its surroundings, casting a serene and peaceful light over the scene. The atmosphere is one of tranquility and natural beauty, with a sense of awe and wonder at the majesty of the natural world. The prompt should be realized as a high-quality digital illustration with a focus on the intricate details of the tree and the surrounding landscape, using a warm and earthy color palette to convey the sense of peace and natural harmony. –ar 1:1 –v 4

The command for creating a prompt is: “/imagine prompt:[icon], [colors], [artstyle],[background] [else] –ar 1:1”

*Don’t let any keywords out:

  • [icon] has to be word by word the previously defined icon/scenery
  • [colors] has to be word by word the previously defined colors
  • [artstyle] can be anything from artist names (if you use an artist name please put “In the style of” in front of it) or things like “game asset”, “vector illustrations”, etc.
  • [background] is the description of the background. It needs to include the word “background” together with an adjective like “magical”, “simple”, “friendly”, etc.
  • [else] includes everything that you think could improve the prompt*

Make sure that the icon, colors, arstyle and also the background are specified. Is some component is missing add it. If the icon is missing at it at the beginning, if the colors are missing add them after the first “,”, if the artstyle or the background are missing at them at the end!

you can add the suffix –niji at the end of the prompt if you want to get a more intersting style.

For the suffix –ar use 1:1 Generate me 4 prompts. Please create these prompts in /imagine commands in the previously described format. Make each prompt a code block.

In the end, define once again how you would like the output structure.

The Overall structure should therefore be the icon/scenery and color palette followed by an explanation why you would choose that. After that should come a code block with the midjourney prompt so that i can easily copy and past it.

The result that Chat GPT gives me is the following:

the dark eye, xaviera fuxfell, ttrpg, midjourney, chatgpt, skin, unidie skin

Icon/Scene: A raven, colors: black and orange.

Explanation: The raven represents Xaviera’s ability to summon ravens to attack enemies and support her group, while the colors black and orange represent the raven’s feathers and Xaviera’s hair.

/imagine prompt: raven, black and orange, in the style of Alphonse Mucha, magical background, –v 4

Generating skins for a board game

Getting generations for a board game can be a bit more complex than for a character since Chat GPT does not know every board game in existence. So you have to be a bit more specific in the beginning – the rest stays pretty much the same!To start out, go to boardgame-geek or similar websites that have some explanations of games and copy past the description.

Let me tell you about one of my favorite board games “Human Punishment: The Beginning” ”Human Punishment: The Beginning is a stand-alone game and the Prequel of Human Punishment: Social Deduction 2.0 and it is a semi-cooperate, social deduction & pick-up and deliver hybrid!

3-6 players try to avoid the secret Machine revolution, but Machine spies are everywhere and they try to corrupt the Human players. There are also Outlaws, Fallen and Legion just as in Human Punishment and every faction works for their own goals.

This game features a new mechanic called CWS (Connecting World System), which gives you the option to combine Human Punishment: The Beginning with Human Punishment: Social Deduction 2.0 to experience an epic theme night with YOUR OWN outcome! The Beginning is a fully stand alone game, but you can also combine it with Human Punishment: Social Deduction 2.0.

Fight Machines, build Apex, avoid Deus X Machina and don’t become corrupted by the Machines. Rewrite the history of Humanity!”

Then describe in detail what you need a skin for!

I want to create an awesome design to put numbers on it. I want to use the design to figure out where my enemies spawn. So it would be good if it resembls some sort of spawn point or target.

Which icon/scenery could be used for that? Which colors would you choose? Write down in a bullet point list which icon/sceneries and colors could fit. Explain why.

After that we return to the Midjourney part of the prompt. There pretty much all of it.

unidice skin, chat gpt, midjourney

Icon/Scenery: Crosshairs in black and orange

Colors: Black and orange

Reasoning: Crosshairs are commonly used to indicate a specific location or target, and the black and orange color combination gives it a sense of danger and urgency.

/imagine prompt: crosshairs, black and orange, game asset, simple coloring, dark background –niji –ar 1:1

To be fair, for that game, it would be way easier just to use the skins that come with the unidice and were made from the original graphics of the game ;)

I hope that this guide helped you! See you in the next blog!

The Finished Chat GPT Prompts

I structured the Prompts in a way that you just need to put in your information in places where there is a bold word in brackets [X]. The AI does the rest for you :)

The Final TTRPG Prompt

Let me decribe you my TTRPG Character [Name] from the ruleset [rulset].[Character Description]

Which icon or simple scene could represent her? Which colors would you choose? Write down in a bullet point list which icons/scenes and colors would fit her. Explain why.

Since you aren’t the best artist you want to use an AI called Midjourney to generate some art that resembles the character. Prompts for this could look like:

/imagine prompt: potion, vector graphic, game asset, simple coloring, bright yellow potion –v 4

or:

/imagine prompt: tree with sun, green and yellow, hand drawn style, medieval art style –v 4

or:

/imagine prompt: A breathtaking and tranquil scene of a majestic tree and a glowing sun, nestled within a beautiful natural landscape. The tree is tall and imposing, with a trunk that is thick and textured, adorned with lush green leaves that sway gently in the breeze. Its branches reach up towards the sky, spreading out in all directions to create a canopy of shade and shelter. The sun is radiant and warm, with a soft, golden glow that illuminates the tree and its surroundings, casting a serene and peaceful light over the scene. The atmosphere is one of tranquility and natural beauty, with a sense of awe and wonder at the majesty of the natural world. The prompt should be realized as a high-quality digital illustration with a focus on the intricate details of the tree and the surrounding landscape, using a warm and earthy color palette to convey the sense of peace and natural harmony. –ar 1:1 –v 4

The command for creating a prompt is: “/imagine prompt:[icon], [colors], [artstyle],[background] [else] –ar 1:1”

Don’t let any keywords out:

– [icon] has to be word by word the previously defined icon/scenery

– [colors] has to be word by word the previously defined colors

– [artstyle] can be anything from artist names (if you use an artist name please put “In the style of” in front of it) or things like “game asset”, “vector illustrations”, etc.

– [background] is the description of the background. It needs to include the word “background” together with an adjective like “magical”, “simple”, “dark”, etc.

– [else] includes everything that you think could improve the prompt

Make sure that the icon, colors, arstyle and also the background are specified. Is some component is missing add it. If the icon is missing at it at the beginning, if the colors are missing add them after the first “,”, if the artstyle or the background are missing at them at the end!

you can add the suffix –niji at the end of the prompt if you want to get a more intersting style.

For the suffix –ar use 1:1 Generate me 4 prompts. Please create these prompts in /imagine commands in the previously described format. Make each prompt a code block.

The Overall structure should therefore be the icon/scenery and color palette followed by an explanation why you would choose that. After that should come a code block with the midjourney prompt so that i can easily copy and past it.

The Final Board Game Prompt

Let me tell you about one of my favorite board games [“Name”][“Game Description“]

[Describe what you want to do with the skin, for what is it? What should it resemble?]

Which icon/scenery could be used for that? Which colors would you choose? Write down in a bullet point list which icon/sceneries and colors could fit. Explain why.


Since you aren’t the best artist you want to use an AI called Midjourney to generate some art that resembles the character. Prompts for this could look like:

/imagine prompt: potion, vector graphic, game asset, simple coloring, bright yellow potion –v 4

or:

/imagine prompt: tree with sun, green and yellow, hand drawn style, medieval art style –v 4

or:

/imagine prompt: A breathtaking and tranquil scene of a majestic tree and a glowing sun, nestled within a beautiful natural landscape. The tree is tall and imposing, with a trunk that is thick and textured, adorned with lush green leaves that sway gently in the breeze. Its branches reach up towards the sky, spreading out in all directions to create a canopy of shade and shelter. The sun is radiant and warm, with a soft, golden glow that illuminates the tree and its surroundings, casting a serene and peaceful light over the scene. The atmosphere is one of tranquility and natural beauty, with a sense of awe and wonder at the majesty of the natural world. The prompt should be realized as a high-quality digital illustration with a focus on the intricate details of the tree and the surrounding landscape, using a warm and earthy color palette to convey the sense of peace and natural harmony. –ar 1:1 –v 4

The command for creating a prompt is: “/imagine prompt:[icon], [colors], [artstyle],[background] [else] –ar 1:1”

Don’t let any keywords out:

– [icon] has to be word by word the previously defined icon/scenery

– [colors] has to be word by word the previously defined colors

– [artstyle] can be anything from artist names (if you use an artist name please put “In the style of” in front of it) or things like “game asset”, “vector illustrations”, etc.

– [background] is the description of the background. It needs to include the word “background” together with an adjective like “magical”, “simple”, “dark”, etc.

– [else] includes everything that you think could improve the prompt

Make sure that the icon, colors, arstyle and also the background are specified. Is some component is missing add it. If the icon is missing at it at the beginning, if the colors are missing add them after the first “,”, if the artstyle or the background are missing at them at the end!

you can add the suffix –niji at the end of the prompt if you want to get a more intersting style.

For the suffix –ar use 1:1 Generate me 4 prompts. Please create these prompts in /imagine commands in the previously described format. Make each prompt a code block.

The Overall structure should therefore be the icon/scenery and color palette followed by an explanation why you would choose that. After that should come a code block with the midjourney prompt so that i can easily copy and past it.

Subscribe

* indicates required

Other Postings

view all posts
arrow
Consent Preferences