AI images?

[Ardail]

Idk the cover art just screams AI art can't help but wonder

[◢ k r i s ◤]

I don't particularly think so, but what's the premise for this question if you don't mind me asking?

[KlausZheng]

I feel that such comments are a bit too extreme and somewhat disrespectful to our artists. Every aspect of the game, from the initial sketches to coloring and modeling, goes through a complete process.

[AyeItsMike]

Originally posted by KlausZheng:

I feel that such comments are a bit too extreme and somewhat disrespectful to our artists. Every aspect of the game, from the initial sketches to coloring and modeling, goes through a complete process.

If I were you I'd take that as a compliment, your artists did such a good job that some people confuse it with ai.

[Anustart]

they absolutely are and are lying about it:
https://www.reddit.com/r/CozyGamers/comments/19a5461/comment/kijwp6r/

[◢ k r i s ◤]

I keep seeing people complain about AI being utilized for production art and I genuinely don't understand why that's being frowned upon, especially in cases where artists and designers are using AI to assist a creative workflow rather than outright replacing any sense of creativity or even originality. Could somebody please explain this to me? And NOT the Luddite-argument of "Artists will eventually be replaced by AI almost completely" because that applies to nearly every profession out there today where you get payed to sit at a computer.

Back on topic, I admit it's not a good look if we're being lied to, but I genuinely don't believe any of the art was just generated from an AI lazily. If it's a matter of minor touch-ups to original work then that really should be a grey-area instead of an excuse to reach for your pitchfork or whatever. You're not talking about involuntary art theft here if you think the line work in a bunch of roses got smudged to look more painterly and some dandy-bird OC glowed-up with extra eyelashes. That it remains a hypothesis instead of obvious evidence is itself indicative of how minor an adjustment you might be talking about. The concept is still original and if AI was used then it's barely a step-up from running the Topaz filter (or any filter, for that matter) over a photograph - which is not what most people would really consider as AI generated art and even less the theft of Intellectual Property, which is the real issue that exists with AI generated art right now and is recognized as an issue universally because you can't simply trace the source material that lead to an AI generated piece.

[Anustart]

The luddite argument is a legitimate one as they were a labor rights movement. The biggest problem with AI is all of the datasets are ill gotten, they're built off of actual living artists work and competing with them in the market... this is already have an effect and many artists are struggling as they are being replaced with a product that used their own work. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2024/01/04/leaked-names-of-16000-artists-used-to-train-midjourney-ai If you don't see the issue here I don't think I can convince you otherwise.

The LAION-5B dataset which is the one multiple of these models are built off of data laundered and not only that but there was some pretty nefarious stuff (child abuse material) in the dataset that got it permanently taken down... although many of these tech companies still use it. https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/20/24009418/generative-ai-image-laion-csam-google-stability-stanford In short it's an exploitative labor practice.

I just believe they need to be truthful, if people still want to support the game they can but it's clear to me that they are withholding this information because they know many people wouldn't support the game otherwise. Given that the rest of the character designs don't have the same level of competency as the bird one and look far more painted over it looks like they possibly relied on AI image generation much more for these other designs. there's a lot of strange discrepancies. If they have an explanation for this I'm willing to listen but even their former game is full of AI illustrations... it's a lot more obvious there however. This isn't a witch hunt but they should absolutely be disclosing their use of AI image generators.

beyond that not disclosing AI use for a kickstarter project is against their policy, they could literally have their project suspended for this: https://updates.kickstarter.com/introducing-our-new-ai-policy/#:~:text=If%20any%20use%20of%20AI,Kickstarter%20project%20in%20the%20future.

[◢ k r i s ◤]

It's explanations like that why I fail to see how this is the problem here. You argue deep-rooted ethical issues in response to "Dear AI, paint eyelashes on my bird." Not only is it rhetorical, it does nothing to say how this change was significant enough to undermine the originality of the work and surrender it as property of an AI generator.

You also say this isn't a witch hunt, but the developers already stated AI was not used and for all you really know, has yet to ever been used for anything in this project. You've taken creative liberty of your own in calling the developers a liar over insubstantial evidence that is not strictly indicative of AI processing artifacts.

Speaking of Kickstarter - report them on Kickstarter and see what happens. Kickstarter isn't asinine; they even wrote a blog post to accompany their policy change because they knew not everyone would be using AI for significant manipulations to original work. They focused on identifying when materials are generated significantly from prompts alone; they won't stamp your project as "Use of AI" over a small edit like this because they know anyone lacking artistic talent could do this in Photoshop with the pentool and 10 minutes and trying to make a fuss over that is not worth anybody's time. It's when you take that concept and get carried away with generating significant substitutions while refusing to admit the work isn't completely original anymore that Kickstarter's review team considers suspending a project. https://updates.kickstarter.com/introducing-our-new-ai-policy. The exact word Kickstarter uses is "misrepresentation" - and even if AI was used to add eyelashes, does not change whose original work is being represented in that picture.

Unless you have evidence that the art was entirely generated from an AI prompt to begin with or changed significantly in a way the artist themselves could not reproduce, I don't see how you're going to convince Kickstarter of this proposed fraud. If "other" projects on Kickstarter by this developer can be proven so, then report those projects as Kickstarter will restrict future use by persons who abusively use AI with "misrepresentation" whether it be this project or the last.

[Anustart]

Again I'm not hoping to convince you, you've made up your mind which is fine.

It's not a witchhunt, they're just lying which is unethical... there will be plenty of people still interested in backing this.... They're clearly using some form of AI, I just want them to disclose that so people can make an informed decision when backing or not

I did report them but their content moderation isn't always the best. I recognize that AI is allowed on there I just once again think they should be open. The portraits look majority AI generated besides the bird one... the style jump was the give away but I'm happy to be proven wrong. They're telling people they're not using AI at all which is deceptive, they could easily just mention they are using ai assisted artworks and it would clear the air.

This is very clearly AI:

https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/2330870/ss_efc7972105dbc56dc9f3175f7e23ef4a9ffb8d34.600x338.jpg?t=1702451975

https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/2330870/ss_14bb61152efcb82f630d5b910aba72f375770533.1920x1080.jpg?t=1702451975

https://assets-prd.ignimgs.com/2023/08/29/cd2trapmaster-thumb-1693275973187.jpg?width=1280

many people don't want to support any games utilizing AI generated artwork they should be allowed to make an informed choice.

[Reminant]

Edit 1: Attempting to answer the original question.
Edit 2: Removing original first portion as it's largely irrelevant and though not meaning to be might seem antagonistic.
Edit 3: Mentioning because it was only in the original that I come from a family of artist and have 20+ years of experience with art. (This does not make me a savant nor a master. I just want people who might not be well versed to know I have an idea of what I am saying)
Edit 4 and final: Adding this link as the resource used to generate the words below. https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fanyone-know-anything-about-this-game-tales-of-seikyu-looks-v0-z5fpd8m47cdc1.jpeg%3Fwidth%3D1503%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D88dd24a419b5704fab49742e28716a5a66b6617d I came to the realization that some people might not have even seen it and would have no idea what I was referencing.

I'd like to say that the original question of the thread was if this game was using ai and the prompt for the "Yes" answer was a reddit thread looking at concept art. I can say after having looked back at the art it is not ai art. The only improvements to the art in question was:
>Color washing to make the colors blend better
>A softer brush was used which is what made it looked possibly "Smudged" to the op, this lends to the feather texture they were going for.
>The shadows were blended and the outlines were made less jagged.
>A better side profile.
>And of course the eyes and eye lashes were changed to a much better outcome. She doesn't look like she wants to eat the person she's looking at anymore.

But if you are really convinced that this is ai generative I urge anyone with the notion to look at the design on the characters shirt. It was mirrored in the second image and is almost exactly identical. We are only missing some because less of her lower proportions were added to the image. Ai would have no idea what to do with that design. It would change or exclude it.

I've no idea of the dev's have ever used ai generation in any of their works as they are new to me. But I can say this image is not as per the original question.

[Anustart]

it's img2img AI upsacling (I'm really familiar with it I've seen a bunch of scammers use it to pass off things as their own art) which is why it has those weird mistakes lol they are clearly also copying and pasting things so the pattern thing is moot. The dead give away is the the flowers and collar bits. It's sad that they've convinced people this well but I get that not everyone has an eye for this stuff. Hope they come clean. There's also far more images than that one that give it away

The original has so much more personality I feel bad for the artist, I wonder if they know they did this to their artwork.

[Death KarnEvil]

Originally posted by Anustart:

it's img2img AI upsacling (I'm really familiar with it I've seen a bunch of scammers use it to pass off things as their own art) which is why it has those weird mistakes lol they are clearly also copying and pasting things so the pattern thing is moot. The dead give away is the the flowers and collar bits. It's sad that they've convinced people this well but I get that not everyone has an eye for this stuff. Hope they come clean. There's also far more images than that one that give it away

The original has so much more personality I feel bad for the artist, I wonder if they know they did this to their artwork.

sadly the og artist probly has no idea. look at some of the fakemons on deviant allot of them got recolored and added to palworld. a.i steals art. ai does not make art

[Anustart]

Originally posted by Death KarnEvil:

Originally posted by Anustart:

it's img2img AI upsacling (I'm really familiar with it I've seen a bunch of scammers use it to pass off things as their own art) which is why it has those weird mistakes lol they are clearly also copying and pasting things so the pattern thing is moot. The dead give away is the the flowers and collar bits. It's sad that they've convinced people this well but I get that not everyone has an eye for this stuff. Hope they come clean. There's also far more images than that one that give it away

The original has so much more personality I feel bad for the artist, I wonder if they know they did this to their artwork.

sadly the og artist probly has no idea. look at some of the fakemons on deviant allot of them got recolored and added to palworld. a.i steals art. ai does not make art

Wait forreal? Do you have a source on that I couldn't find anything googling.

[Foxhood]

I just saw the game today for the first time and the images immediately stood out to me in having a rather "off" look. Mostly in the form of having errors that an artist of the apparent skills wouldn't make, but an AI would.

Like the male protagonist portrait on the main banner has that really specific AI issue where the noise introduced by hair in front of an eye tends to cause eyes to deviate. Or in this case has one looking to the left and one looking-ahead (Misalignment). Plus there are those nonsensical garbling of patterns like flowers and decals in various portraits, some that look highly "AI Amalgamation" in style and a notable inconsistency between the various images regarding shading. Beyond what i could normally chalk up to different Artists working on a project as artists would normally try to align and partially settle on a shared style for a specific production.

To me it definitely seems like generative AI has been fielded to some degree. Ideally such images would just be decried as placeholders for the sake of showing off, but till then or a detailed clarification. i am going to ignore this.

[Ardail]

I was just asking a simple question, but all the defensiveness and denial yet apparently people presenting that the devs are lying about it isn't a good look
didn't go into some big huge rant about how I feel about AI and how it's theft
just asked "this looks like AI is it?" apparently that warrants the devs getting aggravated about it
so ya, they probably are just trying to hide it

[Awaken]

KlausZheng what is your response? Seems like you guys have been AI-ing after all.