New developer here, what is the general consensus on AI art?

[euphonium131]

Hi all,

I've been hoping to make my own game at some point using RPG Maker, I'm still in the brainstorm phase but something has been worrying me.

Coming from an IT background, I'm pretty comfortable with developing/coding when it comes to making games, but I'm terrible at making art and for my first game I would like to keep the costs low. One thing I am quite comfortable with is Stable Diffusion, and I have used it to create art for quite a few roleplays that I have done.

So I wanted to know how the community generally felt about AI art, is it frowned upon? I have a huge respect for the artists that work on the games that I love, and I would hate for people to think that I am ruining their opportunities or something.

Sorry if I structured that weirdly, but I would love to hear your thoughts, thank you!

 

[woody554]

the consensus is everybody hates it. try posting some on any forum and see how incredibly much people hate it.

 

[Count Morado]

Just like with anything dealing with personal tastes:

• There are people who hate it.
• There are people who do not like it.
• There are people who do not care.
• There are people who prefer it.
• There are people who love it.

And, typically, people who hate things are most likely to be the most vocal about what they hate. Thus why businesses have an ideal complaint to compliment ratio of 5:1, because they know that people who have a problem or dislike something are much more highly to be ones who make it known over those who like it.

Honestly, from what I have found is --- most people prefer hand-drawn 2D and 3D over AI... however, I have also found a lot of people who don't give a shit because they just want to cum and go on to the next game to cum and go...

What I have seen is that people want decent enough art with some consistency in the character models and continuity of style throughout.

I would recommend perusing the AI art threads in the forums: https://f95zone.to/forums/artwork.112/?prefix_id=111 (as well as any others you come across) and post some of your work for critique and suggestions, as well as a way to promote your game to people who obviously enjoy AI art.

FYI: In the last 365 days, 364 games have been added to this site that are tagged AI cg. That's of the 500+ total games on this site with the AI cg tag. So, as you can see, there is a growing trend of their usage. So, if you like to use AI cg and you plan to be attentive to details, cleaning up problems in photoshop and keeping consistency a key factor, then it's a good tool for you to use. There will be haters of anything you do - whether it be game engines (some people despise RPGM and will bitch about that... others Ren'Py... etc), the writing, genres (Harem vs. Netorare fans and haters), etc --- or if you handdraw 2D, use 3D (then you have the DAZ vs. Honey Select vs... etc fans and haters).

The key is to build the game YOU WANT TO PLAY, the way YOU WANT TO BUILD IT. There are over 7 million people registered on this site --- even if just 1% play your game - that's 70,000 players. And that's just from here. Now, don't expect even 1% of 1% to be subscribers for funding, however --- 2/3 of all adult game developers on Patreon only bring in $100 USD or less per month, even after 3+ years on that site, no matter what their art style, writing, game engine, genres, etc.

the consensus is everybody hates it.

Not true. Not everybody hates it.

 

[euphonium131]

the consensus is everybody hates it. try posting some on any forum and see how incredibly much people hate it.

Thanks for the response, and I see, would you say you don't like it because of how it looks? Or is it more to do with the ethics behind it when compared to real art?

 

[euphonium131]

Just like with anything dealing with personal tastes:

• There are people who hate it.
• There are people who do not like it.
• There are people who do not care.
• There are people who prefer it.
• There are people who love it.

And, typically, people who hate things are most likely to be the most vocal about what they hate. Thus why businesses have an ideal complaint to compliment ratio of 5:1, because they know that people who have a problem or dislike something are much more highly to be ones who make it known over those who like it.

Honestly, from what I have found is --- most people prefer hand-drawn 2D and 3D over AI... however, I have also found a lot of people who don't give a shit because they just want to cum and go on to the next game to cum and go...

What I have seen is that people want decent enough art with some consistency in the character models and continuity of style throughout.

I would recommend perusing the AI art threads in the forums: https://f95zone.to/forums/artwork.112/?prefix_id=111 (as well as any others you come across) and post some of your work for critique and suggestions, as well as a way to promote your game to people who obviously enjoy AI art.

FYI: In the last 365 days, 364 games have been added to this site that are tagged AI cg. That's of the 500+ total games on this site with the AI cg tag. So, as you can see, there is a growing trend of their usage. So, if you like to use AI cg and you plan to be attentive to details, cleaning up problems in photoshop and keeping consistency a key factor, then it's a good tool for you to use. There will be haters of anything you do - whether it be game engines (some people despise RPGM and will bitch about that... others Ren'Py... etc), the writing, genres (Harem vs. Netorare fans and haters), etc --- or if you handdraw 2D, use 3D (then you have the DAZ vs. Honey Select vs... etc fans and haters).

The key is to build the game YOU WANT TO PLAY, the way YOU WANT TO BUILD IT. There are over 7 million people registered on this site --- even if just 1% play your game - that's 70,000 players. And that's just from here. Now, don't expect even 1% of 1% to be subscribers for funding, however --- 2/3 of all adult game developers on Patreon only bring in $100 USD or less per month, even after 3+ years on that site, no matter what their art style, writing, game engine, genres, etc.


Not true. Not everybody hates it.

Thank you, this is really helpful.

I completely agree with those who don't like consistency in the character models, I've seen it in some games I play and dislike it just as much.

 

[hysepReC]

A lot of people here have a hate boner for AI art. They will say it looks like shit, no matter what. If you're able to generate consistent looking images and think you have a thick enough skin to ignore the usual haters, then I say go for it.

As for moral concerns, this is a piracy forum, so I think it's a bit silly to be worrying about that. Devs that use Honey Select or Koikatsu to make their games are technically 'stealing' the art too.

 

[DawnCry]

If you can manage to have consistent art with the AI then it's fine, a tool like any other, in 5 years we will probably have the AI as the mainstream with most of the current issues solved.

Technology never stops it's progress, you either adapt to it or fall behind the times, of course in the meantime many people will oppose it and with good reason since a lot of jobs are on the line, but as it happened in many other jobs with any other revolutionary tool/technology/improvement, it will end up prevailing.

 

[Erosoft]

I would wager that most people love AI art when it's done with care and consistency. There is a sampling bias - good AI art is often not identified as AI art at all, or at least not brought up in conversation as much. The low-effort AI art stands out and attracts the most attention, which is why AI art tends to be perceived negatively on average.

It is also worth mentioning that the best AI art is often modified significantly in post-production. You see the "AI" tag, but not the hours that went into scrubbing away artifacts, shading, fixing to a color palette, manipulating hand and facial expressions, etc. Does this count as purely AI art or not? People will have different answers to this.

You are on the F95Zone forum, which is filled with passionate artists. Artists tend to despise AI art as it's an affront to their craft and a threat to their livelihood. Therefore, even though players generally like it, you can expect the game developers here to not view it so favorably.

 

[RH11]

Complete random here who also sucks at anything artistic, so take this with a grain of salt because this is all my personal thoughts/taste:

- AI art can be a good entry-level tool because you don't have to pay for it (or won't pay much) because you don't have to pay a real artist. The issue ethically (at least for me) becomes when people either: (1) actually try to claim they're a professional artist because they know how to write decent prompts (that just means you are creative enough to express your ideas in the syntax/language the tool will use to do the work) or (2) opt to use AI generated art when they have the means and ability to hire an actual artist instead (either with existing cashflow from a project to swap AI/placeholder art for real art, or if you collect donations or have subscribers during development and thus already have some profits for the project) or (3) have the AI purposefully mimic the style of a specific real artist (even if you have a disclaimer and have contacted the artist but couldn't afford them, it's still generally disrespectful to the artist unless they gave you their explicit approval).
-- For what it's worth, it doesn't sound like you'll fall into any of those categories. But if your game becomes popular and/or you get better cashflow, I would recommend hiring an artist for any sequels or next projects.

- I don't really like the look of AI art because it ends up being a mix of uncanny valley, occasional stylistic changes throughout the piece of artwork, and general mistakes or continuity issues that can be really jarring depending on the piece. Especially if you're not confident enough to edit a generated image yourself to touch it up and fix any of the AI-standard issues like misshapen fingers/hands and outfits where the details are messed up or aren't actually connected together properly.
-- Some people don't have an issue with this if they're just going to "jerk and go" or if the writing of your game stands on its own, but personally I'm very visual and artwork is like 70% of appeal for me. If the game is basically just a passion project for you and anybody else liking it is a bonus and not a requirement, this is a non-issue.

- With AI art being so easily accessible and half-decent these days, as mentioned above there's a lot of it floating around and it can be an indicator of lazy work or poor quality. It's everywhere, both in just standalone H art and H games. Without a real artist's unique style to help make your game visually stand out (the first thing people see), it will be relying basically entirely on your writing and the gameplay mechanics. Unless it's in a very specific/small niche/kink, that may be difficult.
-- I generally just skip anything with AI art personally these days, nothing I've tried that uses AI art even if it's otherwise including tags I enjoy has kept my interest. If the game is basically just a passion project for you and anybody else liking it is a bonus and not a requirement, this is a non-issue.

 

[woody554]

Thanks for the response, and I see, would you say you don't like it because of how it looks? Or is it more to do with the ethics behind it when compared to real art?

because how it looks mostly, but also because it's such a scam industry. there's the ethics problem of course as well which is gonna be the nail in the industry's coffin, but that's completely irrelevant here on f95.

I wasn't giving my own opinion though when I said everyone hates it. it's the consensus if you go look in any art forum or art group. I'm in maybe 10 different art groups with 50K to 500K members, and when someone posts AI art the breakout is roughly 30-50 comment telling the AI poster to go fuck himself per one comment who thinks it was really cool. it's just extremely hated even by laymen who know nothing about it. there's just something about it that rubs people the wrong way. (and I don't think it's the finger problems).

 

[Goeffel]

^ but I wonder, are not half of them or so stupid kids who think by proclaiming their hate they'd come off as cool / hip/ in-the-know ?
also: art/ist forums are hardly representative, for porn game- art consumers likely even less.

In anime forums or such you'll find 3dcg=shit! haters, who then have this or that 3dcg title among their favourites - they did not even notice it being 3dcg. Does not keep them from being very vocal how 3dcg=shit.

 

[DuniX]

So I wanted to know how the community generally felt about AI art, is it frowned upon?

We already have a few examples here you can look at.
My impression of them is Art is fine but not enough Content and Gameplay just like with any projects with few releases.
The advantage of AI is you can make a lot of things like Monsters, Items, Locations, Cards, Species etc.
The disadvantage is that content is shallow that is more one-off without as much recurring characters.

 

[Paranoid American]

It's a lot easier to hate AI art when it's obvious. Not as many complain about it when it's well done or unique. There's lots of obvious tells like small details changing between poses/etc. I think if done tactfully it will be harder to tell and draw less criticism.

Personally I don't think it gives enough control yet (even with tricks like controlnet and ipadapter/etc) -- but that will likely change soon.

 

[RH11]

> The disadvantage is that content is shallow that is more one-off without as much recurring characters.

+1 to this actually, to add on to my post up above as well. If you need multiple pieces of art for a recurring character (or even just different outfits for the same character) AI has a hard time with consistency and every generate image will generally look different enough that you lose the sense of continuity that it's the same character. This can be mitigated if you (or someone you hire) does extensive touch-up on the image as I mentioned in my original post, but at that point maybe you should just hire an artist to do all the art.

 

[Gone405]

Hi all,

I've been hoping to make my own game at some point using RPG Maker, I'm still in the brainstorm phase but something has been worrying me.

Coming from an IT background, I'm pretty comfortable with developing/coding when it comes to making games, but I'm terrible at making art and for my first game I would like to keep the costs low. One thing I am quite comfortable with is Stable Diffusion, and I have used it to create art for quite a few roleplays that I have done.

So I wanted to know how the community generally felt about AI art, is it frowned upon? I have a huge respect for the artists that work on the games that I love, and I would hate for people to think that I am ruining their opportunities or something.

Sorry if I structured that weirdly, but I would love to hear your thoughts, thank you!

I don't mind AI art at all just need to refine it to not make it look weird. Which sounds like you have the skills to do so with the IT background. I would say if you could get a style going with it that would be awesome or at least make all the characters look like they belong together. I hope the first game goes well mate!

 

[RevolverOcelote]

AI is generally frowned upon. If you can dissociate your work from it, or otherwise show that significant effort was put into your game in other ways, you can still be successful as has been the case for numerous games employing the use of AI.

The sentiment will likely get better as the years pass but for now, you can expect the anti-AI apologists to rain on your parade(or game) if you happen to use it in any capacity.

 

[nodeline]

The thing about AI is that if you're using it, but you're still making games that are simplistic VNs with 2d pictures that amount to nothing more than glorified galleries, you're not really making anything. You can use AI, but you have to be smart about it, or you have to bring something to the table that isn't AI driven - eg. some sort of new animation engine that lets us see the action in 2.5d, lots of content, incredible story and art direction. Something new, something refreshing and exciting.

 

[Ass prefer]

See "developer" who made his shit with ai
Day ruined

 

[tanstaafl]

See "developer" who made his shit with ai
Day ruined

A developer who makes a game with AI images and a developer who makes their game with Daz do the same programming. Wrong term. Single devs of adult games wear two hats. One is developer, the coding. The other is artist, the art.

 

[Emperor4919]

My own opinion is that it's okay if a developer uses AI images, but he needs to be transparent and honest about it. Some people care less about the art, as long as the game mechanics or story are good. I mostly use it for backgrounds that won't be used often, and to generate images as reference for the artist.