EpoHeroes NFT: AI-Generated Metaverse Identities
by Justin Perri
2/1/2022
Eponym by ART AI, the AI generation NFT project, is back with a new collection; EpoHeroes — AI-generated virtual identities. Eponym released their first collection in October, allowing collectors to generate NFTs using their artificial intelligence software.
Users inputted a word or phrase, and the algorithm would return an AI-generated image. Endless possibilities could be produced until collectors find a result they wish to lock in as an NFT on the blockchain.
Now, ART AI has released their second collection: metaverse-ready, AI-generated characters called EpoHeroes.
What are EpoHeroes?
The Eponym team has now made the move into avatars with their new EpoHeroes. Instead of generating art, this time the AI has been trained only on profile pictures and human images. You can get anything from a hyper-realistic photograph of a celebrity to a magical glowing warlord that looks as though it escaped from a video game.
It all depends on the prompts you give the software and learning how to work with the system’s Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) technology. Users input a word or phrase to describe their hero, type their hero’s name, then the AI generates a hero.
EpoHeroes are now available to mint at .08 Ethereum each, with 10,000 total available to be minted in the collection.
How the EpoHeroes AI Works
The basics of how the AI employs GAN is well described by Eyal, one of the Eponym co-founders. Imagine it as a digital artist presenting work to a digital critic until an agreement is made that the result matches the prompt.
The user inputs the name of the person (which will also be the name of the NFT) and a word or phrase describing the person. In return, the user gets an AI-generated image.
We sat down with Eyal and Ben, the other co-founder, in an interview for 60 Mints to discuss ART AI and Eponym. Eyal goes into more detail about how the AI works and we discussed the process of building the project as well as what’s to come.
What’s Different about EpoHeroes?
There’s much to be excited about with a project that allows for the collectors to choose what they take home from the process. By minting an EpoHero, or any Eponym, you as the collector are permanently adding your personal selection to the body of work.
Imagine if you could re-roll traits on a Bored Ape — everyone might have laser eyes, but the implications of rarity and the inherent nature of the project would change drastically. Eponym is using group curation of profile pictures to force the rarity conversation to change and create a project that is composed only of items their collectors desired to mint and own.
Changing your EpoHero after Mint
If that wasn’t enough, however, you can endlessly regenerate your EpoHero even after the mint is complete. A few days after minting is wrapped up, the team will open the option to change your EpoHero completely.
You can give it a new name and make a brand new character at any time, just pay gas to lock it to the blockchain. This flexibility is essentially unheard of and allows anyone to have the full Eponym experience whenever they want after purchasing a EpoHero on the secondary market.
EpoHero Minting — now live
The collection mints publicly at 3 p.m. EST on Feb. 1. It’s highly recommended to at least go and play with their AI, understand the fun of feeding the AI prompts, and getting back a digital identity. You don’t even have to mint anything, it’s just fun.
Members of the community also created a guide on using the system to create the best results for EpoHeroes, which is very helpful when trying to create something specific and covers the finer details of the process.
Eponym is certainly pushing the boundaries and doing so innovatively. With the traits attached to these EpoHeroes and some of the hints we’ve gotten from the team, there could be some big things coming for these characters in the metaverse.
Either way, it is definitely an NFT project to keep an eye on.