LIGHTING DESIGN AI REVOLUTION AND THE

Version 4 of Midjourney was a step change in performance which allowed the technology to create compelling lit environments. ‘You can tell it to light it up this way, that it has to be a play of contrast, for instance,’ says Izhar. ‘You can say ’it has to be a brilliant and stunning scheme’ because it understands a very conversational language.’

From accountancy to graphic design to (gulp!) journalism, artificial intelligence is upending a swathe of white collar professions. So what impact will AI have on lighting design? Much of the initial interest has been in its increasing prowess at image generation, especially platforms such as Midjourney, DALL-E and Stable Diffusion, but one could easily image a role for it in fixture specification and documentation.

Faraz Izhar, lead lighting designer with Dubai-based multidisciplinary practice AE7, has been one of the pioneers in exploring the tech and its capabilities.

Faraz Izhar, lead lighting designer with Dubai-based multidisciplinary practice AE7, is incorporating AI-generated images into storyboards and mood boards at concept stage.

While clients don’t know how to achieve the lighting effects using practical luminaires, Izhar expects them to begin to generate ideas on their own and ask designers to make them practical.

Izhar says he started playing with AI and lighting design ‘out of curiosity'.

‘Lots of architects were experimenting with it already and they were using them to developed the concepts as inspirational images. So that’s how it caught my attention.

‘So I started exploring it, and at first I couldn’t get it working satisfactorily until version 4 of Midjourney came out. It took me a bit of time but when I got the hang of it, I just couldn’t stop. I spent about three to four hours every weekend just talking to it, just generating images after images, environments after environments.

‘And the thing is that it’s getting more responsive as it learns. When Midjourney version 4 came along, the prompt writing techniques started getting easier, and it started responding very well to lighting.

‘If I tell it to imagine a building, maybe arctic or gothic style, maybe a hotel or a fort, and I tell it to intricately light up the facade elements, it starts doing that and then it starts extrapolating.

‘You can tell it to light it up this way, that it has to be a play of contrast, for instance. You can say ’it has to be a brilliant and stunning scheme’ because it understands a very conversational language.

‘It literally understands that language, so it will get what you are trying to say and it will light it up accordingly.

‘But what you cannot do is tell it to specifically light up a particular element such as a column with a linear LED – you can’t do that.

‘You can upload an image of a fort or an exterior but when the output gets produced, it's not the same image. It will tweak it to suit its own understanding and its own thinking at that particular time.

‘But if you tell it more parameters which are close to your uploaded image, then it will produce something similar but not the exact image.’

He believes that AI-assisted lighting design – when you can upload an image and get render of a lighting scheme – is a matter of time.

‘The way this is progressing, the way the space is developing, I would say that that day is not far off. It's learning very fast and it's getting very responsive. I think it's going to happen very soon.’

And it's beginning to understand lighting techniques. Midjourney already understands colour temperatures and concepts such as linear lighting.

‘When I started, it didn’t do that,’ says Izhar.

If requested, AI can copy a particular style such as that of the architect Zaha Hadid.

So the key question is what will be the practical uses of AI to a lighting designer?

Izhar uses it as more of an inspirational tool at the moment and is including AI-generated images in his projects now.

'For instance I’ll use the images in a storyboard or a mood board as the initial concept. Usually what happens is that we designers tend to grab the reference images from Pinterest or from the Internet. So this is like your personalised Pinterest.’

It’s also useful for avoiding copyright issues, says Izhar. If there’s an image that you particularly like and want to use, you can upload it to the bot, tweak it and maybe add a bit of extra layers of lighting.

‘Then it will produce an image to a much similar intent. But crucially it won't be the same image and there won’t be a copyright issue. So I think it's quite useful for concept narratives.

‘When AI can produce lighting design renders I would say that would be the time for us to worry, because clients would be doing everything on their own. They just have to learn how to operate it and how to speak to it, which is not at all difficult.’

While clients don’t know how to achieve the lighting effects using practical luminaires, Izhar expects them to begin to generate ideas on their own [using the AI tool] and then approach the designers to say ‘this is the kind of thing that we’re looking for – now we want you to make it practical and constructible.

‘I would say that this could start happening in maybe a year or two. But it's going to happen soon. It's developing very fast at the moment.’

Are lighting designers in danger that the creative element is removed from them and that they’re merely asked to make a concept happen practically?

‘Yes, that's right. Just basically serving as glorified draftsman.

‘The technology is already creating quite a bit of stir in the realm of the digital art. The artists are upset because they believe it’s copying their styles and their ideas.

‘For example, if you search for certain illustrators on Google, rather than displaying their original images, Google is pulling images from the Midjourney archives instead, images which have been copied from their style.

‘Their intellectual property has been taken by the computer and not credited.’

He fears the same issue could arise in lighting design. ‘Perhaps you could have one of your projects being used by AI to create an image that somebody else uses, and you don't get any credit or any acknowledgment. It's doing that already.

‘You can literally tell it to copy any particular style such as Zaha Hadid’s, for example. It can copy any any famous architect. It can copy the styles and create the images based on what exists now and what exists around the world, which is made by those architects.’

He thinks it’s too early now for organisations such as the IALD to formulate a policy on AI but fears that day is fast approaching.

‘But the way this space is developing, I think that kind of scenario would happen, and they would have to think about it in two years maybe.' ■