Flash Completed Behind the Dune [v2.36.2] [David Balsamique]

[jsmitth529]

Honestly, a lack of consistency can kill interest. I may just be nitpicky, but a character's boob size changing every other scene would just bother me incessantly. Same with other shit AI-Gen tends to fuck up, like fingers or facial features being just a bit off, the moment I notice that I can't un-notice it and can no longer fap to it because that detail will just bother me whenever I look at the image. Hell, even small pieces of the clothing constantly changing would bother the fuck out of me and be completely immersion breaking. Please, if you try to make a Dune game, don't just make it a dumpster of random art to bait people in just because of the subject of the content. Actually try enough to make the art consistent at the bare minimum. You're already cutting many corners by using AI-Gen at all, and that in and of itself can easily turn people away.

Hell, instead of a bunch of inconsistent images, it'd probably be better to just make a small amount of images for each character, like sprites, and then just make more only as they're needed. It'd allow you to work with less images and give you an easier time making sure everything that needs to be consistent is, in fact, consistent. Sure, you'd still need to put in more work on any actual 'scenes' a character would be part of, but it'd cut effort out of basic scene-to-scene transitions.

I do like the general style of the images you've shared, but I am worried about the inconsistencies between all three of them. So long as you can get stuff like that all cleaned up, I think the style, and potentially your idea, has a lot of potential.

 

[lmno]

Honestly, a lack of consistency can kill interest. I may just be nitpicky, but a character's boob size changing every other scene would just bother me incessantly. Same with other shit AI-Gen tends to fuck up, like fingers or facial features being just a bit off, the moment I notice that I can't un-notice it and can no longer fap to it because that detail will just bother me whenever I look at the image. Hell, even small pieces of the clothing constantly changing would bother the fuck out of me and be completely immersion breaking. Please, if you try to make a Dune game, don't just make it a dumpster of random art to bait people in just because of the subject of the content. Actually try enough to make the art consistent at the bare minimum. You're already cutting many corners by using AI-Gen at all, and that in and of itself can easily turn people away.

Hell, instead of a bunch of inconsistent images, it'd probably be better to just make a small amount of images for each character, like sprites, and then just make more only as they're needed. It'd allow you to work with less images and give you an easier time making sure everything that needs to be consistent is, in fact, consistent. Sure, you'd still need to put in more work on any actual 'scenes' a character would be part of, but it'd cut effort out of basic scene-to-scene transitions.

I do like the general style of the images you've shared, but I am worried about the inconsistencies between all three of them. So long as you can get stuff like that all cleaned up, I think the style, and potentially your idea, has a lot of potential.

Well the main aspect of the game would to be text-based, so the majority of scenes would be text with some accompanying images, so I am trying to stick to a limited number of highly tuned images.

Would there not be any level of inconsistency you would be happy with? Even if the collar is slightly different for Jessica's dress for instance?

 

[reynold.biplane]

Hell, instead of a bunch of inconsistent images, it'd probably be better to just make a small amount of images for each character, like sprites, and then just make more only as they're needed. It'd allow you to work with less images and give you an easier time making sure everything that needs to be consistent is, in fact, consistent. Sure, you'd still need to put in more work on any actual 'scenes' a character would be part of, but it'd cut effort out of basic scene-to-scene transitions.

I think that is the way he is going to do it. Sprites are the obvious way to go. The pictures shared so far are only examples and only one of them would be used and re-used with different backgrounds, I assume. And then different pictures for specific situations, like sex scenes.

But even sprites have their limitations, when working with AI. Changing facial expressions, for example, would be fairly difficult and require some solid image editing skills to cleanly copy and paste different faces from multiple AI generated images onto the sprite. Making a new sprite from scratch for each expression, would obviously lead to inconsistencies. Of course, things like different facial expressions and poses aren't strictly necessary to have in a predominently text-based game.

When it comes to sex scenes, I am less concerned about inconsistencies. When using different angles and positions, inconsistencies become less noticeable, especially clothing. Even Balsamique's art has inconsistencies sometimes, but few people care or even notice.

Crispyking
Got another one:
Alia (teenager) is suckling on Jessica's breast. Jessica is holding her close to her, spoiling her daughter for a change. Alia got one hand on Jessica's butt. Paul is standing in the foreground, only partially visible and out of focus. Alia is looking his way with furious jealousy. Perhaps she is also giving him the finger. She doesn't want to share.

And another one:
Jessica (or Irulan) is teaching Paul's concubines some secret Bene Gesserit sex techniques. Harah and Chani are on the bed, one wearing a strap-on, entangled in some esoteric sex position, that maybe might look a bit like a strange wrestling hold. Illustrated books and scrolls and oil flasks and various implements are spread out around them on the bed and the floor. The teacher is standing next to a blackboard and vigorously pointing to two stickfigures, that show how this position is done right.
This one's probably too complicated, but I like the mental image and wanted to share it.

 

[Tomy29kid]

I was actually going to speak to you at some point about if you wanted to help with the project, your story I mentioned before gave me this idea in the first place. I think a VN with BtD game elements is a good way to look at it, and obviously this can be expanded down the road.

In terms of the artstyle, I do see what you're saying about the anime/eastern style so I've been looking into changing it. I've been learning photoshop skills to attempt to clean up the AI art so that's just a work in progress. I'll put an early concept of Jessica in the new, more western, style. Let me know what you think!

She looks perfect on this image

 

[lmno]

I think that is the way he is going to do it. Sprites are the obvious way to go. The pictures shared so far are only examples and only one of them would be used and re-used with different backgrounds, I assume. And then different pictures for specific situations, like sex scenes.

Correct!

Changing facial expressions, for example, would be fairly difficult and require some solid image editing skills to cleanly copy and paste different faces from multiple AI generated images onto the sprite. Making a new sprite from scratch for each expression, would obviously lead to inconsistencies.

Yeah this will be difficult to implement so I've decided that (for now) the sprites will be fairly static and event/quest images of the characters will be the ones that have varying expressions and poses. (which is fairly similar to how BtD does it)

She looks perfect on this image

Thank you for the kind words! My idea is that this type of outfit will be an unlockable one later down the line after Jessica has become considerably more sexual towards Paul/MC

 

[jsmitth529]

Well the main aspect of the game would to be text-based, so the majority of scenes would be text with some accompanying images, so I am trying to stick to a limited number of highly tuned images.

Would there not be any level of inconsistency you would be happy with? Even if the collar is slightly different for Jessica's dress for instance?

Nah, but that may or may not just be me being nitpicky. That's why so many people hate on AI-Gen being used in games, it's because of inconsistencies like that. If I see details like that changing then it'll just bother me and make it extremely hard to get immersed into any situation in which I notice it happening. I've yet to see any such inconsistencies in Balsa's art, at least the stuff that's in this game. So yes, even if the collar is slightly different it'd still bother me. Most people just treat that as a normal standard to hold games up to, and just because AI-Gen is used doesn't mean you should be held to substantially lower standards, especially since a lot of the initial work has been done for you. Unlike what another person stated, even if it's in an H-Scene it'd still bother me. People don't just magically alter their outfits when having sex. If it's that difficult to keep consistency, just make characters nude in those scenes whenever you can get away with it.

 

[lmno]

Nah, but that may or may not just be me being nitpicky. That's why so many people hate on AI-Gen being used in games, it's because of inconsistencies like that. If I see details like that changing then it'll just bother me and make it extremely hard to get immersed into any situation in which I notice it happening. I've yet to see any such inconsistencies in Balsa's art, at least the stuff that's in this game. So yes, even if the collar is slightly different it'd still bother me. Most people just treat that as a normal standard to hold games up to, and just because AI-Gen is used doesn't mean you should be held to substantially lower standards, especially since a lot of the initial work has been done for you. Unlike what another person stated, even if it's in an H-Scene it'd still bother me. People don't just magically alter their outfits when having sex. If it's that difficult to keep consistency, just make characters nude in those scenes whenever you can get away with it.

Hmm, ok. I'll keep that in mind when developing images and editing them. Hopefully I can get people who share your opinion to also enjoy this project!

 

[jsmitth529]

Do keep in mind that you're already using AI-Gen and making it primarily a text game. If you give any more ground on top of what you're already doing, people are likely to take one look at it and just move on unless they're just that desperate for Dune content. What little actual image content there is needs to be done well, and consistency between images is usually treated as an aspect of bare minimum quality for the vast majority of games. What you're doing sounds promising, but you can't be lazy about the whole thing if your goal is to actually have it be memorable. If you just slap something together with the power of AI-Gen and just throw it out there without any meaningful Dev effort to clean it up to regular game standards, not many people are going to care about the project. It'll just be another dump of typical AI-Generated art.

 

[reynold.biplane]

I've yet to see any such inconsistencies in Balsa's art, at least the stuff that's in this game.

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It's like with movies. If you're having a good time, you don't notice the continuity errors and plotholes, as long as they're not too bad. Even if you notice them, you're not bothered so much by them, because your brain is otherwise engaged, you're having fun.
But if the movie is boring, you are picking it apart.

Same with AI stuff. The difference is, that it is new and there's a lot of negative hype. There are justified moral concerns and AI is already being used by hacks to make easy cash grab games of dubious quality. Of course people are suspicious and extra nitpicky.

But given some time, we will all get used it. I suspect AI art will be seen with the same distrust as the [RPGM] tag gets now: Frequently used for quick hack jobs or babby's first H-game, but not inherently bad. Just depends on how it is used.

You make a good point, though: Nudity should be used as often, as logic allows.

 

[jsmitth529]

The problem with the examples you've provided is that the second and third image are set in the future, thus allowing for clothing differences like that. The third scene even has her hair down, and one can reasonably argue that her hair is just covering the collar. I'm talking about scene to following scene inconsistencies, short-term stuff that you can't use logic to explain. I personally never noticed a bust difference from scene to scene, but I suppose the more simplistic art style does better to cover stuff like that up so long as the differences are small enough. The more realistic the style is, the more those differences stick out, and the style of AI-Gen being used here is, at least to me, substantially less simplistic than what Balsa uses, and so will run into problems like that much more if they aren't very careful about it. AI-Gen is fine when it's actually cleaned up to a reasonable standard, but I disagree with merely 'getting used' to its flaws. People shouldn't just get used to less quality just because it's starting to become the norm, it'll only start to become more respected when it's used to make consistently better content than it currently pushes out, which sadly may not ever happen with how it's most often used.

I believe some people use the term 'AI-Assisted' rather than 'AI-Generated' to differentiate someone using AI-Gen for the foundation and then substantially cleaning it up afterwards, or otherwise adjusting it, from someone using it for the entire process, which is what people tend to not like, as it tends to spit out garbage and be the first sign of a bad project.

 

[reynold.biplane]

AI-Gen is fine when it's actually cleaned up to a reasonable standard, but I disagree with merely 'getting used' to its flaws. People shouldn't just get used to less quality just because it's starting to become the norm, it'll only start to become more respected when it's used to make consistently better content than it currently pushes out, which sadly may not ever happen with how it's most often used.

I'm not trying to suggest, that people should lower their standards (although many have already done exactly that). Just that I foresee, that AI art will lose much of its stigma and people will stop actively hunting for glitches and countig pixels, once more people with talent and/or patience put out more quality stuff and/or the technology improves. And the hacks, who are cranking out hundreds of pictures without any selection or editing, will fall by the wayside and be ignored, just like any shitty artist. The real problem right now is, that those guys are still getting attention, because of the novelty.
Balsamique himself has created a lot of good AI assisted art already, just not for games, because of the consistency issue.

I don't know, if Imno has posted any cleaned-up pictures yet. At least most of them are just the raw AI output. We will see, if he is any good at editing.

I believe some people use the term 'AI-Assisted' rather than 'AI-Generated' to differentiate someone using AI-Gen for the foundation and then substantially cleaning it up afterwards, or otherwise adjusting it, from someone using it to for the entire process, which is what people tend to not like, as it tends to spit out garbage and be the first sign of a bad project.

Yes. Unfortunately, there is only so much, that cleaning up can accomplish. Consistency will stay an issue for now. Anyone, who is good enough at editing to solve THAT, doesn't really need AI in the first place. The only real way to get around that is the brute-force method and lots of patience (or computing power): Let the AI make a shit-ton of pictures until you get one, that is fully consistent with your previous output. Or you understand the limitations of your medium and plan your project accordingly, like: Only one picture per scene. Avoid making things, that AI is bad at, as much as possible. Try to cover up any sloppy work. Etc.

 

[jsmitth529]

I don't know how AI-Generation precisely works, but there is a big difference in scale between just making it from scratch and editing something that AI-Gen has produced. If it's small things like a belt, basic clothes design, or small proportion adjustments, using AI-Gen for the base still cuts out a lot of work that you'd otherwise have to do. I believe it's generally easier to edit small things like that than it is to just draw something from scratch, though the skillset of each probably differs in some areas. Consistency doesn't have to be an issue, it isn't unavoidable, you just have to know how to edit the images well, and I can easily see that being easier to learn than learning how to draw the whole thing yourself. That being said, AI-Gen often isn't that good, so there are some things you have to avoid or work around. Consistency just isn't one of those things, as it can be tackled fairly head on, you just have to have the drive to learn and actually do it, even if you take shortcuts like snipping small features from an image to stitch to others, maintaining the consistency of small details that way, so long as you can blend them together well. I can see that being a solution to things such as belts and bracelets.

In the end, making it look good will still require work, even if it does require less skill. You have to get good at photoshop instead of getting good at drawing, which I believe can be done in substantially less time, but it does still require some legwork to get something good at the end of the process. My point is ultimately that an AI-Assisted project can look just as good as something drawn from scratch, consistency isn't some unavoidable plague, you just have to put in that work. You may even still have to have some drawing skill on a small scale, just to make small adjustments. It's still much less work.

Like any other project, if you don't put in the effort, it's not gonna turn out good, and that isn't the fault of the method used.

 

[NaplesM]

How can i modify the game so i can move the smuggler to the sietch or the fremem to the market?

I want to have all the women (that i can have sex with) in one place

 

[lmno]

I don't know how AI-Generation precisely works, but there is a big difference in scale between just making it from scratch and editing something that AI-Gen has produced. If it's small things like a belt, basic clothes design, or small proportion adjustments, using AI-Gen for the base still cuts out a lot of work that you'd otherwise have to do. I believe it's generally easier to edit small things like that than it is to just draw something from scratch, though the skillset of each probably differs in some areas. Consistency doesn't have to be an issue, it isn't unavoidable, you just have to know how to edit the images well, and I can easily see that being easier to learn than learning how to draw the whole thing yourself. That being said, AI-Gen often isn't that good, so there are some things you have to avoid or work around. Consistency just isn't one of those things, as it can be tackled fairly head on, you just have to have the drive to learn and actually do it, even if you take shortcuts like snipping small features from an image to stitch to others, maintaining the consistency of small details that way, so long as you can blend them together well. I can see that being a solution to things such as belts and bracelets.

In the end, making it look good will still require work, even if it does require less skill. You have to get good at photoshop instead of getting good at drawing, which I believe can be done in substantially less time, but it does still require some legwork to get something good at the end of the process. My point is ultimately that an AI-Assisted project can look just as good as something drawn from scratch, consistency isn't some unavoidable plague, you just have to put in that work. You may even still have to have some drawing skill on a small scale, just to make small adjustments. It's still much less work.

Like any other project, if you don't put in the effort, it's not gonna turn out good, and that isn't the fault of the method used.

I completely understand your fears and hesitation over AI generated artwork but I really will be editing all the images that make there way into the game to keep consistency. For example, here is the current state of Jessica's sprite, pre and post edit. Let me know what you think.

 

[jsmitth529]

Mmm, a bit overzealous in the carving of some areas. Pieces of her hands have been chipped off, especially her right hand, and some of her hair has been a bit awkwardly sheered off, and the cutout is just a bit jagged in several places. A small piece of her hair is also blurry. I would retreat the cut to include more of her black outline, probably all of it, as some areas just look a bit off without it. It looks like that outline is important to the art style of the image you're generating, and cutting it off has lead to certain parts of her outline just being amputated in ways that don't look good, like the outline of her hair looking less natural and the tips of her fingers on her right hand being cut off. Her right index finger also looks all kinds of fucked up. It's a good attempt, but I think you cut too much off, I'd include her entire outline and only cut off what you really need to remove the background.

Aside from that, I'd clean up her chest and collarbone area. There are white smudges around her chest that look like an AI-Gen's attempt at light reflection. The problem is that it didn't place them well at all and humans also aren't that shiny, it would be better just to not have them. Part of your editing also turned a small collarbone shadow into a larger black smudge that now sticks out like a big piece of dirt or some kind of weird mark. There's another small smudge near it, and now that I really pay attention I start to notice that her collarbone is a bit too low for human anatomy and I have to look away before it slips any more into the uncanny valley.

Such is the curse of AI-Generation, it still doesn't quite know how to properly proportion a human body.

 

[rin tashiro]

How do I unlock the smuggler/captain shower scene? What I'm more specifically stuck in is bringing the smuggler into the palace. I've bought all the items and services, but there is no option to get her to follow me.

 

[reynold.biplane]

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Like any other project, if you don't put in the effort, it's not gonna turn out good, and that isn't the fault of the method used.

I seems like we actually agree on the macro level, when it comes to possibilites and limitations of AI art. I guess I'm just more optimistic, overall.

I completely understand your fears and hesitation over AI generated artwork but I really will be editing all the images that make there way into the game to keep consistency. For example, here is the current state of Jessica's sprite, pre and post edit. Let me know what you think.

Looks better, but there are a few small things left to clean up.

I'm sure I can find more, if I really go pixel hunting.

And like jsmitth529 has said, you went overboard with the outlines.

How do I unlock the smuggler/captain shower scene? What I'm more specifically stuck in is bringing the smuggler into the palace. I've bought all the items and services, but there is no option to get her to follow me.

You can't make the smuggler follow you, but you don't have to. Only the Captain needs to be in the palace for that shower scene to happen. You can increase the chances of it triggering by moving other characters, who might appear in the shower, out of the palace.

 

[fried]

I completely understand your fears and hesitation over AI generated artwork but I really will be editing all the images that make there way into the game to keep consistency. For example, here is the current state of Jessica's sprite, pre and post edit. Let me know what you think.

Let's move this discussion to another thread of your own, please - here would be appropriate. for example:

https://f95zone.to/forums/programming-development-art.73/

 

[Err0r 0ne]

So anyone who talented to "continue" Balsamique Behind The Dune?
Of course Fan version.
Add more content.

 

[dokodesuka]

For now though, let me know your thoughts on these new images! But please bare in mind that they haven't been cleaned-up in photoshop yet so minor issues with the images will be fixed down the road.

All three images look like "beauty shots", with the character in the center and with a neutral expression and semi-open mouth, the kind of stuff that you'd find in someone's ArtStation portfolio. The subject looks mostly consistent, there's some changes to the clothing and accessories.

But anyway, by "different expressions and poses", I meant more like a set of emotions that people use in dialogues and VNs:


Assuming you want it to be a sexy adult game, I second what's been said about having animations.

This is a hack job with Blender and not much experience with these puppet animations:

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I'm sure someone w/ more experience & a specialized tool like Spine or Live2D would make it pop with life: