Ai art???

[sogeboy98]

Either the devs got scammed or this artist kinda sucks. Either way indie stone needs to get their money back because I hope they didn't generate this themselves.

[Silamon]

Originally posted by Glamorpuss:

Originally posted by Shen373:

I mean it has all the weird ♥♥♥♥ with the extra fingers or missing fingers you can't blame me for getting worried.

No, it really doesn't have anything that looks out of place. The "missing" fingers are hidden behind Kate's hand, because she's basically making a fist and she's in dark shadow. The whole scene looks somewhat sketchy, but has details on important objects like the teddy bear's eyes. Like a human, that knows what objects are important to convey a particular emotion. Or it's a rough draft, but again, AI art pretty universally puts in equal amounts of detail on foreground objects, background, has bland facial expressions, etc. Their faces are nearly completely hidden in shadow, but the emotion of losing Kate is obvious.

There were things I liked about the new main menu background. I liked the rain on the window, for example. But there were several things that seemed really off, like the lamp shade having a lit bulb with no stand.

I hope they revamp the main menu but keep it closer to the original than that one they removed.

[Terranical]

Originally posted by Dooly:

It isn't AI art, come on now.

it literally is if you look at it closely lol

[Silamon]

Originally posted by Terranical:

Originally posted by Dooly:

It isn't AI art, come on now.

it literally is if you look at it closely lol

This reddit post made it really clear exactly why it looks so wrong.

I've seen a lot of posts hyper-focusing on small details in the new loading screen art, trying to confirm whether or not its AI. In doing so, most of you are just not paying attention to the most GLARINGLY obvious signs of AI. . . Pointing out fingers and inconsistent little details in an art-piece caneas to a lot of false-positive identifications - after all, hands are notoriously hard to draw, and it's easy for artists to ♥♥♥♥ up small details without realizing or simply bcoz they feel it doesn't matter.

Y'all are missing the forest for the trees.

There's a reason most of you are clocking these images as being AI-generated, and it's not because of the small details. These images are uncanny valley to the max, and your minds are picking up on it.

Look at the driver in the first image.

Follow his eyes. What is he looking at? The woman behind him? The zombies that are also behind him? He's leaning out of his car window and making a scared expression, yet he's looking at nothing. . .? He could easily be looking at any of his mirrors, or he could be twisting his body to look behind him. He isn't. He's making this weird gesture of holding his head out of his window to look at nothing.

Now, you could easily say he might be looking at something that is simply out of our view like a zombie approaching him off-screen.

The counterpoint to this is that art is drawn with intent. Things are not simply put into art for the sake of being there. When you draw a scene, you are telling a story and everything included in that scene is drawn with purpose. Even shards of glass on the asphalt tell a story. THIS is how you should be examining art to figure out if it's AI or not. What is the story being told here, and what doesn't add up to tell that story?

Of course, indentifying small inconsistent details is important too when determing if something is AI generated - like how in the first image the screaming woman is looking above the car rather than at it, and how her expression is empty and devoid of real emotion. Or, how the man in the second image has a weird mutant stretchy left hand. Those details matter, but keep in mind that artists can just as easily mess those things up.

Context matters in identification too.

These images were all supposedly drawn by the same artist who drew the original Baldspot and Kate main-menu art, and the Baldspot/Spiffo standing on a car art.

Isn't it weird that after 10 years, that artist developed a style that just so happens to be a very generic style that is predominantly seen in AI art? Isn't it weird that he traded in his very unique illustrated painting style for a faux-realistic digital art style that you see everywhere in AI "art"? That he just happens to be bad at perspective, composition, consistency, anatomy, and expressions now? Especially in regards to hands (which feature predominantly in the OG art)?

Yeah, I feel like that's a bit ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. TIS got scammed by this particular artist - and I feel safe in saying so until I see evidence otherwise.

Now some of you might say "who cares? It's just a loading screen!"

Using AI to help in your workflow isn't a bad thing - but using AI slop in a very meticulously-crafted art project (like Project Zomboid) has a very real effect. It cheapens the experience and the tone. It devalues the artistic intention behind the rest of the game. Worst of all for a game as good as Project Zomboid, it can scare away new potential players who have very legitimate concerns about the ethics of AI in art and games, and makes the game look like a cheap slop cash-grab to others.

Okay, rant over. Just felt like I had to say all of this.

For folks who are not scared of Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/projectzomboid/comments/1hgtg7h/yall_are_all_missing_the_forest_for_the_trees/