Is AI the future of Indie RPGs?

[luj1]

AI makes some great stuff

Its crazy how advanced it already is, imagine it in a few years

But still, this is a decline of skill, art and society as a while

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

But still, this is a decline of skill, art and society as a while

I disagree. Because art, skill and society were in the trash can already.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

But still, this is a decline of skill, art and society as a while

I disagree. Because art, skill and society were in the trash can already.

True. A society that thinks we should replace artists with AIs never valued art to begin with.

Fact is, these programs are only a few tens of gigabytes in size. A human brain is estimated to have over 2 million gigabytes of capacity. It’s no contest.

But we treat human artists as worthless and overpriced, don’t bother to learn art ourselves, and have the audacity to think typing prompts repeatedly until we get a vaguely desirable result makes us artists.

The problem was never the AIs. The problem is us.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

A society that thinks we should replace artists with AIs never valued art to begin with.

Have you seen the average "artist" lately? Have you seen what kind of "creativity" humanity has been putting forth?
Anything that reshuffles the deck is an overall increase in valuable artistic output, not decrease.

The fact is that there are very few people using these tools to copy modern art, we can deduce this from browsing publicly available AI galleries. They're being used by people who are not classically trained, for whatever their reasons, to express their creativity in visually pleasing ways. These so-called artists, the massive majority of whom nobody wants their creations to look like, insist upon robbing works of beauty as if they should hold some natural monopoly over it.

Artists get angry because they believe there is some inherent value to all the rote learning they spent thousands of hours upon. I'm here to tell you that all the sweatshops in various eastern asian countries full of trained artists endlessly pumping out the most unoriginal garbage imaginable say that you're full of shit. The only thing that matters is creativity, and they're scared and frightened upon realizing they may actually not be creative at all, and their real skill was simply being able to draw what they were told to draw.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

A society that thinks we should replace artists with AIs never valued art to begin with.

Have you seen the average "artist" lately? Have you seen what kind of "creativity" humanity has been putting forth?
Anything that reshuffles the deck is an overall increase in valuable artistic output, not decrease.

The fact is that there are very few people using these tools to copy modern art, we can deduce this from browsing publicly available AI galleries. They're being used by people who are not classically trained, for whatever their reasons, to express their creativity in visually pleasing ways. These so-called artists, the massive majority of whom nobody wants their creations to look like, insist upon robbing works of beauty as if they should hold some natural monopoly over it.

Artists get angry because they believe there is some inherent value to all the rote learning they spent thousands of hours upon. I'm here to tell you that all the sweatshops in various eastern asian countries full of trained artists endlessly pumping out the most unoriginal garbage imaginable say that you're full of shit. The only thing that matters is creativity, and they're scared and frightened upon realizing they may actually not be creative at all, and their real skill was simply being able to draw what they were told to draw.

Sure, a lot of art made by humans is soulless capitalist garbage. That’s a problem with capitalism reducing everything and everyone to a commodity, not art.

AI art might dissuade people from ever learning to be creative artists. Why ever learn to draw when AI art is “good enough”?

Sure, some artists might be driven to compete and improve. But I expect that AI will drive all creative fields to extinction and just make the current soulless stagnation infinitely worse.

 

[Sexy Beast]

That’s a problem with capitalism reducing everything and everyone to a commodity, not art.

the current state of the art is not a fault of capitalism, it's a fault of atheism. only art that honors god, spirit and nature is worth a damn. another debate is if capitalism leads to atheism by design or this is the consequence of other forces (parenthesis people and propaganda)

 

[skeletonmeister]

If anything it may accelerate even more the production of low-effort games in attempts for a quick buck in a market already filled with shovelware indie games.

 

[Dexter]

But we treat human artists as worthless and overpriced, don’t bother to learn art ourselves, and have the audacity to think typing prompts repeatedly until we get a vaguely desirable result makes us artists.

Sure, a lot of art made by humans is soulless capitalist garbage. That’s a problem with capitalism reducing everything and everyone to a commodity, not art.

I don't think "capitalism" ranks up there with the Top reasons a lot of CURRENT YEAR art sucks, and yes a vast percentage if not most human "artists" are rather worthless:

Spoiler

For games specifically, I think anything that makes it easier for 2-10 guys in their basements to put together a game that can compete with what's out in the marketplace and never come in contact with any of these kind of creatures even by mistake is probably a net benefit.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

the current state of the art is not a fault of capitalism, it's a fault of atheism. only art that honors god, spirit and nature is worth a damn

You're confusing atheism with nihilism.
I will agree that a religious artist is probably on average more likely to produce art that an average person would consider to be beautiful, as most religions tend to value beauty highly.

 

[Kev Inkline]

It's telling that Lagole Gon is both a magnificent illustrator and a very very good prooompter. Talent pops to the surface, no matter the medium or tools. You can't escape the principles of aesthetics by blindly using AI. It's a tool like pen.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Going to be great for mediums that are almost dead because it's so time consuming/expensive.
Can't wait to see this be used for pixel art games.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

It's telling that Lagole Gon is both a magnificent illustrator and a very very good prooompter. Talent pops to the surface, no matter the medium or tools. You can't escape the principles of aesthetics by blindly using AI. It's a tool like pen.

The difference is the time to learn the skill.

You don't need to be an artist to have a sense of aesthetics. It just helps. You can pick an art style you like or emulate other prompters.

But not everyone has the time and talent it takes to become a real artist, who not only has a sense of aesthetics, but can draw.

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

Going to be great for mediums that are almost dead because it's so time consuming/expensive.
Can't wait to see this be used for pixel art games.

Dont hold your breath. Cant see this being useful anytime soon.

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

In fact I was drawing some cliff faces a few weeks back and working these into a landscape and was thinking, how on earth would I even be able to use a proc art generator to help me, and not be a massive waste of time, and massive extra effort just to make it work with my pipeline?

It cant generate textures, it cant generate form, it doesnt understand the principles of lighting. How could you even begin to communicate the context of how the art piece will be used? This is just some of the issues I would face.

I think those that have not spent any time learning how create art(proompters) for a game will totally misunderstand the capability of the proc art generation. This is kind of the problem. Doing a mashup of art isnt really all that useful in the grander scheme of creating art purposefully.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

how on earth would I even be able to use a proc art generator to help me

Doesn't look like it could hurt much tbh.

I think those that have not spent any time learning how create art

Might want to go back to the drawing board, Michelangelo. The trees are the only things with shadows in that pic.

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

how on earth would I even be able to use a proc art generator to help me

Doesn't look like it could hurt much tbh.

I think those that have not spent any time learning how create art

Might want to go back to the drawing board, Michelangelo. The trees are the only things with shadows in that pic.

That's just unfinished assets. I'm showing how I would compose a scene to check assets work together. I'm a slow artist and not that good but your "AI" art is shit in comparison.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

That's just unfinished assets. I'm showing how I would compose a scene to check assets work together. I'm a slow artist and not that good but your "AI" art is shit in comparison.

Lol, you just posted the game design equivalent of some AI art piece with 3 hands trying to show off, and now you're getting defensive because I pointed out the error.

The difference between AI art and yours is that AI art takes 5 seconds to look flawed and yours takes hours.

Btw, that's not "real art" either. You didn't paint the scene. You're using randomized repeating assets to fake a painted scene because it saves time. You're a total hypocrite and don't even realize it.

 

[tritosine2k]

" It's a tool like pen."
" AI art takes 5 seconds to look flawed "

neither really define the crapshoot this is (it's craptacular 19 out of 20 times & Lagole cherry-picks like a mofo ) and you can't help cause it's also a black box (even img2img) and 99% of "innovation" will be overengineering by "software engineers" (lmao).

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

That's just unfinished assets. I'm showing how I would compose a scene to check assets work together. I'm a slow artist and not that good but your "AI" art is shit in comparison.

Lol, you just posted the game design equivalent of some AI art piece with 3 hands trying to show off, and now you're getting defensive because I pointed out the error.

The difference between AI art and yours is that AI art takes 5 seconds to look flawed and yours takes hours.

Btw, that's not "real art" either. You didn't paint the scene. You're using randomized repeating assets to fake a painted scene because it saves time. You're a total hypocrite and don't even realize it.

Nice try. I don't care how I achieve a result. I did paint the scene - I just use texture brushes and stamps rather than pixel by pixel. I don't think it matters at all!

My point isn't that I care if you use "AI", my point is it's that it's pretty shit at getting it to do anything consistently useful. I still don't see how it can do anything that would actually improve my art process. You also seem to be out of suggestions.

 

[Kev Inkline]

" It's a tool like pen."
" AI art takes 5 seconds to look flawed "

neither really define the crapshoot this is (it's craptacular 19 out of 20 times & Lagole cherry-picks like a mofo ) and you can't help cause it's also a black box (even img2img) and 99% of "innovation" will be overengineering by "software engineers" (lmao).

Welll, I meant it's functions in principle as a tool, like pen is a tool - not that it functions exactly as a pen. The whole point is to cherrypick. That's why you run scripts that canvas over large grids of parameters, pick up the best result and then continue on from there. I see nothing in your propositions that would contradict what I said.

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

A cherry picking approach is a massive waste of time. I don't see how that's realistic to use that approach. The further and further into the project and the more variatios that will have to be generated and more difficult it gets to cherry pick.

 

[Kev Inkline]

A cherry picking approach is a massive waste of time. I don't see how that's realistic to use that approach. The further and further into the project and the more variatios that will have to be generated and more difficult it gets to cherry pick.

I guess it depends what you want. For instance, in a very period of short time I can generate dozens if not hundreds of D&D avatars, all of reasonable quality for any 5e nostalgic isometric game. Also very helpful producing components for matte painting and concept art.
But creating textures adjustable to dynamic settings - maybe less useful - I haven't looked very deeply into that.

 

[tritosine2k]

...

Welll, I meant it's functions in principle as a tool, like pen is a tool - not that it functions exactly as a pen. The whole point is to cherrypick. That's why you run scripts that canvas over large grids of parameters, pick up the best result and then continue on from there. I see nothing in your propositions that would contradict what I said.

The whole point is to cherrypick.

that's giving it "feedback" because it's not intelligent on its own so you just took I out of AI and all that's left is artifical.

 

[Kev Inkline]

...

Welll, I meant it's functions in principle as a tool, like pen is a tool - not that it functions exactly as a pen. The whole point is to cherrypick. That's why you run scripts that canvas over large grids of parameters, pick up the best result and then continue on from there. I see nothing in your propositions that would contradict what I said.

The whole point is to cherrypick.

that's giving it "feedback" because it's not intelligent on its own so you just took I out of AI and all that's left is artifical.

That's semantics, for what it is worth, I don't mind calling it artificial stupidity or whatever, the point is, it's an useful tool.

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

If there's one strength it has then it could be said avatar generation. Possibly backdrops too but less so.

So, ok great but that's 1% aspect of all the art requirements of a typical game covered. Making portraits is not even a challenging part. Freestyle art isn't so hard to create and it's not just very useful generally.

Art needs specifications and to work to those specifications in order to make progress building a world or a UI or whatever. Generating millions of variations and picking the best fit isn't going to help here.