itch.io

Thanks for this, I really liked this comment. Good read.

I think about this a lot as well. Especially because of what I know about how AI works. It makes the term "AI art" confusing to me. Which part is the art? Is it the final result? Is it the prompt technique? I don't know for sure. But what I suspect, is that the final result is not the art of it--and this is why:

AI works by building and understanding a concept. A cigar is never just a cigar to an AI. So if I type "a girl standing in a field" and it produces a decent image, whoopdie doo. But what if I accept AI for what it is, keep in mind what it does, and then I say something like "wet metal raindrop ripple blooming breath" and it produces a wildly detailed image, 2D but obviously sourced from some 3D environment subject to it's own physics, an image of a lone vine growing from rich dirt with a single droplet of dew on it's leaf (notice no signs of metal)... what if I did that on purpose? Is it art yet?

Then, what if my next generation is blank and it still gives me something with thematic connection? It has no data. Why did it produce another flower? Or another something earthy? You look and find that there's no data saved between generations but this happens so often that it's an undeniable pattern... why? how? I think somewhere deeper down this rabbit hole, there's something artsy.

I had to reply twice here because you brought something up that I think is crazy important:

"I mean I'll speak from experience. As I'm trying to design a long term RPG.

My friend is showing me artwork of one of my characters "Cookie", and I appreciate his help. At the same time, I can tell the images he's showing me are AI and that none of them would ever realistically work for me. The artwork is far from what I would want, and the stylization is so strongly AI that it's off putting. I have a very strong feeling that, no matter how much I prompt the AI, I will never get a "Cookie" that I like. the Cookie that was made several years ago by someone when this was an undetermined RPG feels much more authentic than any of the AI artwork he offered."

This is true of 99% of AI art output. What's more, it's an uncomfortable experience I could relate to even far back before AI was ever a thing.

I worked on a game for a few years and along the way I had people approach me like, "hey I can make the art for your game", and I'd say "wow, thank you". I would hand over the crude cast of characters I had at the time, I think there were 7 of them, and no matter who it was that offered or how many times I got the offer, one of these things would happen:

- often it was just nothing at all

- they would come back with 1 or 2 characters half-done then disappear

- they would come back with 2 or 3 characters done, but their art style clashed too hard with everything else

- they would come back with 1 or 2 characters done, but the characters were unrecognizable and would require re-spriting, etc.

- no one ever got past maybe 3 or 4 characters sketched or finshed

This happened with or without pay incentives. It also always happened without any malice or ill-intent. Life gets busy. But it would lead to that same awkwardness you feel when you don't wanna say, "that looks amazing and I appreciate the effort but I can't use that". To me, being able to snip this whole part out of the process is such a big deal.

In an ideal world, if I had all the funds I could ever want, I'd cook it up and brainstorm and prototype with AI all the way up until it's ready for release. Then, I'd scour the net for artists. Anyone, big or small, just pure vibes and art style. I'd find the artists that had a portfolio where something spoke to me and I'd reach out like, "hey, I've got this game ready to go but it's a walking skeleton and I need artists to breath in some life... would you play a free copy and, if you feel like you could see yourself in this world, would you be available for hire to do this project's artwork?" But that's just me.