AI-generated content in games

[n0wh3r3]

I was wondering what other people think about this matter and what other place to gather people's thoughts if not the Codex? I strongly hope that I am not too late to the party, since this has been discussed for months (or more) by various people from (and not from) the industry.
I would be super-happy to get the greatest number of votes since this could also be influential for a personal, tiny project of mine. So please, discuss, vote and tell your friends about it! :D

Thanks a lot for your participation!

 

[Odoryuk]

AI content is like using bought assets, but shittier looking (and even though they are technically different if you generated them, they are still very easily to recognize, just like asset packs)

Then, again, nothing wrong with some games using asset packs, but incorporating them into your game so it won't look alien takes skill

 

[n0wh3r3]

AI content is like using bought assets, but shittier looking (and even though they are technically different if you generated them, they are still very easily to recognize, just like asset packs)

Then, again, nothing wrong with some games using asset packs, but incorporating them into your game so it won't look alien takes skill

Skill in generating them (AI-prompting is a skill) or skill in incorporating them? Why do you think they look like shit? I don't think this have to always be the case. Is there something in particular you hate about them?

 

[Odoryuk]

AI content is like using bought assets, but shittier looking (and even though they are technically different if you generated them, they are still very easily to recognize, just like asset packs)

Then, again, nothing wrong with some games using asset packs, but incorporating them into your game so it won't look alien takes skill

Skill in generating them (AI-prompting is a skill) or skill in incorporating them? Why do you think they look like shit? I don't think this have to always be the case. Is there something in particular you hate about them?

I think incorporating them. Not sure if it's possible to have a skill in generating so that it will feel like a tool and not a black box that randomly spews content and you have to select the best looking ones. But if you make something and by the looks it doesn't make you think that it's AI generated (which makes your game feel cheap, just like popular asset packs do), then all's good

 

[Crayll]

It doesn't incorporate that well now, but my fondest dream is that it one day becomes good enough to justify firing all voice actors and artists, forever.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Need a way to vote for first and last option at the same time.

As far as gamedev is concerned, it's just another tool/medium to make use of. That always comes along with a million retards who think they can get away with low effort garbage because there's no classics kicking around yet to compare to. There is absolutely no reason AI generated/assisted artwork should have extra fingers or eyebrows merging with spectacles or whatever. All that shit is on the artist for not picking it out or editing it themselves. Blaming AI for that shit is like blaming computers for shitty flash animations and suggesting we go back to hand drawn only.

OTOH I'm fairly convinced AI is going to wipe out humanity as we know it within 100 years or so as various powerful interests race to see who can create a wish granting genie first without particularly caring if it escapes or results in mutually assured destruction when used in war. So, better enjoy the extra indie games while we can!

 

[jaekl]

Every time I look at an ai picture, I start to get very uneasy. I think they must be evil. At first glance it might look pretty good but there's always something wrong about the colours and textures that starts to gnaw on your mind if you look at it too long. Plus you start to notice more and more strange, inexplicable things in the picture that are really off-putting. It's like when you're in a dream and don't know you're dreaming yet. Very spooky stuff, I hate it with all my heart.

 

[Fargus]

AI art just looks like generated, souless shit, which it is. Until AI can bypass that i'm not going to bother with low effort trash that have AI art in it.

But AI is a useful tool. Especially AI voices if were talking modding or adding missing voice lines. Too bad the dipshits seethe too much because of it.

 

[Tweed]

It's great, I love it.

 

[Just Locus]

AI like most things, should be used in moderation, but nobody ever uses it that way.

 

[antking2000]

I just want AI generated 3d models where it's supposed to be a cute anime girl but since AI can't do hands, it turns into a horrific monster

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Every time I look at an ai picture, I start to get very uneasy. I think they must be evil.

AI art just looks like generated, souless shit, which it is.

The vast majority of AI-generated art lacks any aesthetic sense, but that's merely due to the failure of the users to employ any knowledge of historical artistic styles and painters:

 

[jaekl]

Every time I look at an ai picture, I start to get very uneasy. I think they must be evil.

AI art just looks like generated, souless shit, which it is.

The vast majority of AI-generated art lacks any aesthetic sense, but that's merely due to the failure of the users to employ any knowledge of historical artistic styles and painters:

Sorry zed, it's still creepy and full of unnerving oddities and for some reason I feel like trying to explain it to you would be like trying to explain colour to a blind person

 

[Eirinjas]

Every time I look at an ai picture, I start to get very uneasy. I think they must be evil. At first glance it might look pretty good but there's always something wrong about the colours and textures that starts to gnaw on your mind if you look at it too long. Plus you start to notice more and more strange, inexplicable things in the picture that are really off-putting. It's like when you're in a dream and don't know you're dreaming yet. Very spooky stuff, I hate it with all my heart.

Have you seen the video of AI Doom? It starts out fine but gets freaky and hallucinatory very quickly.

AI DOOM

 

[Fargus]

I see a guy with six toes and disfigured arm holding a spearsword that goes through him, a dog from The Thing halfway through it's transformation and siamese twins trying to fuck each other... The court of mutants is even weirder nightmare fuel.

Now i get what you mean jaekl

 

[Fargus]

You should post it in this thread

 

[Humanophage]

I think it's great for illustrations, pretty good for music, great for code, not very good for writing, rubbish for video except perhaps subtle animation. Can probably be used in some creative fashion.

AI art is basically an extension of writing. The most appropriate art is that which reflects the vision of the author and not the artist, and AI is usually closer to it if the author bothers enough. It is of course important to control for the quality so that it doesn't look like ChatGPT art. But a lot of AI art looks just fine, certainly a lot better than the amateur art a la Spiderweb or the even more soulless art a la Warcraft. The unfinished-looking stylus art that began to proliferate in the mid-00s actually looks weirder. E.g., I think the stuff below looks just fine if that's what the author wants. Think of it as a quick sketch that enhances your comprehension of what is going on. It can also be used for other assets like buttons. Go slap some filters on it or whatever. Crop it if it looks odd like the knee of the skeleton and the curved thing next to it, and maybe regenerate his collar bones.

Even when you can tell it's AI generated, what's the big deal? It's AI generated but author-controlled, so this is what the author wanted to communicate but perhaps couldn't do super perfectly - but then graphics are rarely perfect, and you don't complain that a 3D head looks blocky and uncanny. "Oh my god did you know that eyes don't look like squares and people don't turn their heads like this?!"

The situation with books is more or less ideal. A single person should be able to make a game and it should look passable. The fewer people are involved in any capacity, the better. Distribution is already enough of a bottleneck to stifle creativity.

Incidentally, artists associated with games are usually very woke and try to use their assets to promote their insidious agendas (e.g., deliberately adding racially ambiguous features, dreadlocks, mannish features to women, etc.) It's best if their influence as well as the influence of big companies responsible for fancy graphics is reduced to a minimum.

 

[deuxhero]

Having played with it extensively and enjoying several of my creation, I can conclude unless there's a major fundamental change in how everything works, machine learning image gen is a tool to make prototyping faster and incapable of replacing hand made assets. You can make (mostly) pretty pictures, but you can't make useful pictures. Getting it to learn even relatively basic concepts that aren't exact booru tags is a mess (even Flux's natural language stuff can't handle anything technical: Good luck getting it to generate a proper sword stance). The tech can (via Image to Image) make useful pictures prettier.

My opinion is the same as it was a year ago (minus time reference shifting): The tech is where 3D printing was 10 (now 11) years ago when the Liberator came out. In those 11 years 3D printing has gotten cheaper and more accessible, there's people that make good money off selling 3D printer files, 3D printed guns have advanced far enough to see serious used in armed conflict (now 4 and a half years ago), tyrants are learning they can't stop the signal and put the genie back in the bottle, and lots of companies use it to make prototypes or small run products, but its hardly killed the miniatures market, top minds putting their full effort into it have yet to make a working rifle round capable design without using "gun parts" (they've made the FGC-9 considerably better and easier with various forks, but it's still a PCC)

Now machine learning based voice generation, that will likely go somewhere fast. Both the ability to toss out a really shitty industry, and ability to generate content on demand (assuming stuff gets cheaper over time) are great incentives, and the problem with results being very mean (medium, mode) aren't a problem with human vocals (mean vocals are normal vocals). The funny thing is all the voice actors screaming they'll be replaced by imitations, not realizing nobody actually needs them. The only value their voice has is recognizably, which is only important in sequels/remakes/expansions. A voice made off a data set of Beth from Oklahoma mixed with one of Mary from Idaho (and that's assuming the quality of the talkies entering public domain over the next years aren't sufficient to make a data set. It might even be possible to automate cleanup of old public domain recordings.) is going just as good as one made off a union VA, and that's ignoring the cheap gimmick options like casting various political figures whose image ownership is questionable and have ample public domain training data (The sidekick is voiced by Ronald Reagan? Sure. Why not?).

 

[mondblut]

All the cunts crying over being "exploited" for machine learning are alone a reason enough to have more AI-produced content. Nigga, you ain't seen nothing yet. "Artists" my ass.

 

[Sweeper]

The path to hell isn't paved with good intentions, it's paved with convenience and efficiency. Nietzsche and Kaczynski thought things were pretty bad, they had no fucking clue, and it's gonna get worse.

 

[Fargus]

We are already in hell.

A decade ago, maybe more i was browsing deviant art and stumbled on some creepy retard's page. Where he made hundreds of cartoonish drawings of cross-dressing Adolf Hitler in lingerie and full makeup in different poses. And that was all he was drawing. Guy was acting like deranged AI before AI generated art was a thing.

Skynet should just wipe us all out. It's long overdue.

 

[Talby]

From now on, the majority of games will have at least some AI generated content and you won't even notice most of the time. The genie is out of the bottle.

 

[Habichtswalder]

As a player I can live with AI-generated assets.
If the developers have no understanding of art it is however pretty easy to spot inconsistencies in the art style. A good looking picture is not enough and honestly nothing special anymore in times of AI. You also need to understand how to use it properly and how it harmonizes with the rest of your assets.

As a hobby dev I would like to use AI assets more because I can't draw and using store assets limits my creativity. But I'm unsure whether I would actually use it a public product because there are so many people opposed and I probably don't have the patience for managing a shitstorm.

 

[Damned Registrations]

As a hobby dev I would like to use AI assets more because I can't draw and using store assets limits my creativity. But I'm unsure whether I would actually use it a public product because there are so many people opposed and I probably don't have the patience for managing a shitstorm.

My suggestion would be to commission someone to make some stuff for you. I'm sure it'll take a while for the market to settle, but before long there'll be people good at getting AI to spit out something they can edit in 10 minutes into something that would have otherwise taken them hours, thereby cutting the costs down to something affordable. People without any practice drawing are going to miss all the little things that pop out to artists and make them bitch about how they can't get hands quite right or always draw the same pose.

I think in the long run too, we'll end up with way more and cheaper store assets. Part of the problem with AI is trying to get it to give you something that fits with existing style. If all you want to do is say, generate fantasy portraits or backgrounds and give zero fucks about consistent style and just curate/edit out flaws, you can create a massive library of stock assets to sell for dirt cheap. Someone's going to make a fortune on that with a dedicated website probably.

 

[PunchYouInTheFace]

I think AI is good enough for talentless dev/individuals and also because those who enjoy AI "art" usually artistically stunted, they do not understand "art" at all.