I really like the theme, but character art is obviously AI assisted

[Ria 'qiwi' Word]

I'd like to support a game, but AI art is clearly ripping off SamDoesArt style. If it's not AI, then you should find art direction consistency not to scare away potential players. All chars look like they are drawn by different artists and it's not right
I am not bying a game while it's art smell like an AI ripoff

[Nacon]

Publicado originalmente por Ria 'qiwi' Word:

I'd like to support a game, but AI art is clearly ripping off SamDoesArt style. If it's not AI, then you should find art direction consistency not to scare away potential players. All chars look like they are drawn by different artists and it's not right
I am not bying a game while it's art smell like an AI ripoff

Hello! Our artists didn't use AI to design the characters. I invite you to watch our video on this subject:

https://twitter.com/GardenLifeGame/status/1713941519537692735

[Bobby]

It's a game. Lay off the social media aspect and enjoy it. AI is invading your life -clearly.

[Tarmon Gai'don]

As an artist I understand better than anyone how AI has been slowly taking over creative jobs. However, it still needs people like us to refine the outcome. This has already happened in many industries for over a decade. I see nothing wrong unless the AI is stealing from another artist and then again is debatable because every artist is influenced by someone else. I support artists but there will come a time when we will have to work with AI. Unless, the young man who's art is supposedly being copied speaks up we will never know . The game developers did explain there process. We don't always have to buy it, we don't have to agree, and people don't always have to explain everything in detail to reveal there artist process. But, this developer did explain how they came up with the idea and who's behind the art. Let's just keep moving forward with the game without making accusations without all the facts. - Disclaimer. These are the opinions of the this players tag name on the account. I just happen to enjoy a few games in his library but my opinion matters just like everybody else who has made a comment. - The Gamers Wife

[Malloway]

I watched the linked video, and while it does feature the development of the beautiful 3D models featured in the game, it does not address the issue of the 2d Character portraits, loading screens, and the bus stop advertisements looking like ai art generated photos using the style of SamDoesArts as reference material.
Personally, the slight differences in consistency of the brunette character's face in each illustration were uncanny and gave me a sense of dread that the art was possibly ai generated as I was playing the game.

I think the demo would have been better without character portraits, I would have been perfectly happy buying my seeds from the cute frog.

[tekmeria]

Publicado originalmente por Ria 'qiwi' Word:

I'd like to support a game, but AI art is clearly ripping off SamDoesArt style. If it's not AI, then you should find art direction consistency not to scare away potential players. All chars look like they are drawn by different artists and it's not right
I am not bying a game while it's art smell like an AI ripoff

yeah im sure that sam guy invented this ultra generic godawful pixar big face artstyle
not

[Dapper Raptor]

So there was another thread about this where the developer (flynt_1) gave some responses that seemed a little like they DO use AI art, at least early on in the concepting stage, though they didn't address the actual concern the user had as it was about a different part of the artwork for the game, and really it only sort of made it look like they DO use AI art... Long story short the user said this and they got banned... The publisher posted, saying they did indeed ban the person (after I questioned it) saying that they were saying hurtful things... and that the developer (again flynt_1) would respond to the AI concerns soon... Now that post has just been deleted... great look haha.

Just curious if we are actually going to get some sort of meaningful response about AI usage like the publisher said we were or if the developer is just going to hide and pretend it didn't happen lol

For the record - I don't have any opinion about the SamDoesArt stuff specifically... this just seemed an appropriate place to post given the actual thread I was posting in got deleted lol

[Nacon]

Publicado originalmente por Dapper Raptor:

So there was another thread about this where the developer (flynt_1) gave some responses that seemed a little like they DO use AI art, at least early on in the concepting stage, though they didn't address the actual concern the user had as it was about a different part of the artwork for the game, and really it only sort of made it look like they DO use AI art... Long story short the user said this and they got banned... The publisher posted, saying they did indeed ban the person (after I questioned it) saying that they were saying hurtful things... and that the developer (again flynt_1) would respond to the AI concerns soon... Now that post has just been deleted... great look haha.

Just curious if we are actually going to get some sort of meaningful response about AI usage like the publisher said we were or if the developer is just going to hide and pretend it didn't happen lol

For the record - I don't have any opinion about the SamDoesArt stuff specifically... this just seemed an appropriate place to post given the actual thread I was posting in got deleted lol

Hello everyone, Hello @Dapper Raptor,

(Reposting my answer because thread was deleted by... Valve ?! We are investigating!)

The user "Pinkie ♥" was indeed banned from the forum. We listened to them, and we discussed with them, but what we can't accept is the lack of respect towards the people from Stillalive studios and Nacon that work hard every day for Garden Life. Whilst we understand that, as fans, you may have questions and concerns, we're all humans behind our computers and words can hurt those people working hard to develop Garden Life.

My role here is to protect this space and keep a healthy atmosphere for everyone. We welcome any question and encourage discussion as long as it's done with respect.

@Flint_6, working at Stillalive Studios will be answering under this message about the IA!

See you soon :)

[stillalive studios]

Publicado originalmente por Dapper Raptor:

The publisher posted, saying they did indeed ban the person (after I questioned it) saying that they were saying hurtful things... and that the developer (again flynt_1) would respond to the AI concerns soon... Now that post has just been deleted... great look haha.

Hey Dapper Raptor. We're looking into it. I have to say I don't know why the thread you mentioned was deleted. I agree this is a bad look :-/ As far as I see it was neither deleted by us nor by our publisher. We contacted Valve to ask what is going on.

[stillalive studios]

Hey again. I'd like to respond to questions and critique in this thread. I'm sorry to see comments get heated. AI is a polarizing technology.

At stillalive studios, we’re fully aware that AI has serious copyright issues. Which is why we decided not to use AI image generation in our games as long as this issue persists.

I appreciate your comments, @Ria, @Malloway, @Dapper Raptor. I hear your concerns. We've gotten rightfully used to double checking everything. However, I can assure you there was no AI involved in the generation of these characters. We use traditional methods that are industry standard like gathering mood boards, references, sketching and painting.

The reason why the style is inconsistent or fingers look funky is that the game is still in production. At the time we had to wrap up the demo for Next Fest, the characters were still unfinished. They are in different stages of their production process, hence inconsistent visuals. That's also why we only used Jasmine and Leslie in the demo, as they were the most progressed ones. At the same time we wanted to show that there is more than just these 2 characters, more content and story to explore, and have people excited for the full release. So we packed the characters in their different unfinished states into the menu. They're still being worked on.

If you have any further questions or I misunderstood yours, let's keep our discussion going. We have no intent of ripping anybody off or harming our industry and I hope I could shed some light on our process.

[Cherrycat]

Nobody really cares if the art is AI assisted or not, the people complaining were never going to buy the game in the first place and were just agenda pushing. This is as important to the general audience as saying how dare you make artwork in photoshop.

99.9999% of people really do not care.

[RileyX]

Publicado originalmente por Cherrycat:

Nobody really cares if the art is AI assisted or not, the people complaining were never going to buy the game in the first place and were just agenda pushing. This is as important to the general audience as saying how dare you make artwork in photoshop.

99.9999% of people really do not care.

fully agree.

I personally do ai art and dont see a point to argue about this in here. even if theres ai been used, it still takes hours of work.

[Glitch Witch]

Publicado originalmente por Cherrycat:

Nobody really cares if the art is AI assisted or not, the people complaining were never going to buy the game in the first place and were just agenda pushing. This is as important to the general audience as saying how dare you make artwork in photoshop.

99.9999% of people really do not care.

There's a difference between ripping off art from actual artists to claim it as your own, and artists using software or tools to create their art. That's like saying a programmer using an IDE to code in is the same thing as using AI to generate code. If you don't see the flaw in your reasoning I don't know what to tell you.

[ENAK]

I don't understand what you said about styles being different. Perhaps you mean some different game?

Also... even if it's all AI generated. So? A long time ago there were a lot of jobs that got replaced by machines. Now it's time for artists, tomorrow, us programmers will lose our jobs. One day, doctors will be obsolete, then poets, film makers and every other job afterwards. We started the process by constructing our first machines. There's no stopping it now. It's just the way things are and there's nothing that can be done about it.

[Bobby]

“Hello, I’m copilot. Ask me anything”

[Playful Pear]

I love the art style of this game and to me it seems to be Ghibli inspired. As a Ghibli fan this is what attracted me the most about Garden Life.