Thoughts on AI art genres

[FaFeeder112]

So I typically use AI art when making a game (not that I’ve finished a game although I’ve started 3 and my motivation drops faster than a fat kid on a seesaw) and the reason for this is two-fold. Firstly I don’t have the knack for drawing or painting, I can model passably using stuff like fusion but that’s more for dimensioned parts for manufacture, not for artwork and the steep learning curve of blender has kept me firmly in the realm of making doughnuts. Secondly, I don’t have the financial backing to commission artwork for a game, the only way to achieve this is by either selling copies of a game which I can’t do without artwork (or if I can’t motivate my lazy ass to finish a game) or by the kind patronage of other same minded degenerates (which would be insane to back a game without artwork).

In saying this, this is not the topic of this topic it is merely a poorly written preamble to determine other people in the communities thoughts on the TYPE of AI art used.

For clarity, I generally use NovelAI, it’s consistent, the paywall is quite low and it is very user-friendly. One thing it doesn’t do well and, until recently, couldn’t do at all, is photorealistic models.

On my travels of the interwebs today I found a new service called Ideogram, supposedly the “Midjourney Killer”. I was fairly impressed with it so I bought the 8$ subscription after I used up my 5 free generations (It generates 4 variations on your prompted image which is neat). The results will be below but I’m curious.

What do people think of using realistic character models, albeit sprites, in place of the traditional “Anime” styled AI-generated characters? I know they’ve been creeping in a bit with that one game and the other one (I’m brutal with remembering names but the one about the magic school that controls weight gain and that new dungeon crawler).

Ultimately I think the likes of DAZ or VAM assets are a good middle ground between cartoonish and photorealism but I’m interested to see others thoughts.

Novel AI 1:

Ideogram 1:

NovelAI 2:

Ideogram 2:

Ideogram Bonus:

[Jupiter]

First of all, hard disagree on the quality of NovelAI and other web-based AI image generators. ALL of them are vastly inferior (and more expensive, if you’re familiar with how to set up SD cheaply) to running Stable Diffusion locally when it comes to generating fats.

Regardless of if you prefer the anime or photorealistic images (though I think that most would choose the former), anime styled images are objectively safer. I believe that photorealistic AI images of this kind are already becoming questionable or disallowed on many platforms.

I doubt that you would get into any trouble for them right now, but I could certainly see a future where they become potentially problematic or banned in many mediums. Regardless, photorealistic AI images (specifically those depicting sexual or fetish content) are certainly a MUCH riskier prospect than simple anime-style images, and I would recommend that anyone planning to make a game steer clear of them.

[appetitedelight]

while i think AI has definitely improved it is still usually pretty obvious to me and kind of draws me out of whatever im looking at, if you get me. i prefer ‘bad’ art that has character tbh. AI has inspired me to draw, as much of a noob as I am.

[Wulf_Diomhaireachd]

Even ignoring the potential legal issues of realistic AI in such settings (and the present ethical issues), realistic AI images are much more susceptible to falling into the uncanny valley. Anime style messes up? It’s just a “drawing”, and there’d typically be signs that would let you know it’s AI anyway. Realistic style messes up? Body horror.

That’s not to say I’d even want a completely accurate realistic style anyway; the closer we get to perfectly creating a “human” with AI, the more damning its ethical and potential legal issues become.