I’m not very experienced with Text-to-Image KI. I tried it but was not happy.
I’m asking if it is possible to upload an image to a KI and then change the image with the text to KI. Is it possible? Is there a image creater KI which can create the different animations frame of a 2D character too? What is the best KI for it?
I’m asking me too if I can create intro/outro-scenes pictures with KI. How can I make it possible that the characters look at all the different pictures in the same look?
…do you mean AI? And no, you’re not going to be generating character animation sets with AI, even for 2D characters.
I’ll assume you’re talking about AI and not chinese mystical principle.
There are networks that can do that, but they’re extremely limited. One approach is instruct pix2pix, other one is control net + Stable Diffusion.
you’ll have VERY hard time generating animation frames. The amount of work will balloon to the point where it is faster to just do it yourself.
It is extremely difficult advanced use. Basically you’d need to design character you need, train a LoRA or Lycoris addon with it, then use it with the network. It is time consuming, and once again doing it yourself may be faster.
The issue here is that image generators work best for initial draft, or quick test of an idea, not for a final product. If you’re trying to use them to create final product image, I recommend to reconsider. Neural Network images have very recognizable visual style, especially when drawing faces, and using AI images in your game creates impression of it being “cheap”.
From what I know, some last steps are missing unfortunately to allow using AI to full on make a consistent, playable character for a game. Midjourney recently presented a feature that will help in that direction: x.com
If it does not need to be animated, that may be enough and worth giving a try.
Best to ask this in an AI focused forum! I feel like many forum-active devs here in particular are not all that open to the new tech.
P.s. note that AI may help non-artistically inclined people a lot, but it’s not without a learning curve. Hence why “prompt writer” is a new professional job description (albeit currently most of those positions are likely to be covered by traditional artists who were quick to adapt since the background does help).
Not searching anymore with the German abbreviation for AI is a first step on that curve btw. 
They aren’t missing. They are simply not easy (lora + control net), not worth the effort and require advanced knowledge of neural networks. For example, to TRY making a consistent characters, you need several samples, and then your PC will have to work for a while in liftoff mode. If it fails, you start over. Which can eat hours. So It is not an easy thing to do, and it is faster to do it by hand. By using AI you do not save time, and it can reduce perceived value of the work. AI art creates impression of “cheap” once you learn how to spot it.
In creative fields value comes from human effort. No human effort, no perceived value. AI art has recognizable style, and even if took insane amount of time to produce image, user will assume it was a prompt. No effort, hence no value. RPG maker effect (when RPG maker looks “cheap” by default) and negative reaction to asset flips follow the same logic.
Try out Unity‘s Muse texture and sprite solutions.
There is no information showing that animation frames can be made, so this is likely bad advice. There is a preview of an animation tool that sets up animations for humanoids, but again nothing about 2d sprite based frame by frame animation.
Thanks for the answers.
Of course I mean with the word “KI” (German word) the “AI”.
That are bad new for me. Maybe someone will create such AI, there would be a good market for this.
It’s not that simple, as explained. If you want art, hire an artist.
It will be possible in this decade, no doubt.
Sora does it with photorealistic results already, just that it’s not publicly available yet.
And then it’ll become another RPG maker/DAZ immediately.
You also need to think about the genre and audience for the work. In some genres, like Sci-fi and games, once the fans realize AI was used, it’s a death blow. I would imagine because some fans are creative/artists and want to support productions that value artists. If it’s an ad-driven, mobile game, I don’t think those folks care as much how the art was made.
With AI generated images, from what I’ve seen, people predominantly focus just on characters. However, that is only one thing, and AI models can generate far, far, far more things than just that. If we ignore AI generated characters, are people still likely to turn away a project because it has non-character AI generated assets? Or, a better question to ask is: if AI is used in a game, where does the line get drawn between acceptable use (i.e. “I will play this”) and unacceptable use (i.e. “I won’t play this”)?
Keep in mind that Newgrounds allows AI generated content, but (for our case) only in works where it’s not the subject of the work. Also, keep in mind that “AI” is a buzzword today, and that players have long already played games with procedurally generated content, which is fundamentally the same thing as (or at least, the predecessor to) AI generated content.
Yup. Also, the issue that value comes from human effort is not immediately obvious, and is very counterintutive.
Basically, someone is selling art and that’s AI generated? Its value is zero. A book, but you had an AI co-writer? It goes into trash can. Book cover, however, is acceptable, but then image is a placeholder because someone couldn’t afford an artist. When you’re in a (digital) book store where every book cover is ai generated, then even MS paint cover immediately stands out from the rest and draws attention.
This “value is human labor” principle does not apply to tools. If I want a car that moves me from point A to point B, I don’t care if it was made by an army of robots, designed by an AI and there was zero human involvement, as I need a tool. If I want a car that is work of art though, then handmade quality becomes valuable.
Another thing is, it is generally not a good idea to use an AI to clone someone’s style, while that person is still alive. It is incredibly likely to upset people.
I would say “this is likely”. Characters are immediate giveaway, but if there are no characters, there’s still recognizable styles, and then “handpainted > AI generated”
Another issue with AI art is that it generalizes meaning for any object you want it to draw and picks the most common form. For example, you ask it to draw a car, it will draw a car, but that car likely will infringe someone’s rights and is not safe to use. Because the network generalized and can draw about 5 cars total, slightly altering the base structure. Meaning every project using this network to make a car will have the same car. In time, this may become recognizable as well.
The same thing appears in all artworks. Like you in case character you’ll start to realize that you saw exact same armor layout before, this character is a spacemarine, this is master chef’s armor, and this girl is wearing evangelion plugsuit with elements from Gantz.
Safe topics seem to be landscapes, backgrounds, buildings, corridors and such, but then color and contrast may be a giveaway that something is not right and it was not made by a human.
There’s also the issue that the car on top has a different amount of lights per headlight.
Apologies for nuking images. I’ll repost that picture here, so people know what you spoke of.
Actually, I posted because I just heard about a publishing house that was burned by an AI cover. This was a new sci-fi author’s first book, which is a huge deal. If the first book does well, they will get another book, a better advance and be on their way.
In this case, the illustrator hired to make the cover used AI without telling the publisher. The fans caught it after publication, immediately tanking the book. This poor author, who did nothing wrong and was not involved in designing the cover will be unlikely to get another book. The publisher also gets a black eye, when they had no idea the artist was using AI.
The publisher now has a contract where the illustrators must state that AI was not used in the making of the cover art. I’m sure this issue is not the same for every genre, i.e. maybe romance or self-published books get a pass. But, this is not OK in the sci-fi world.
Those were obviously not fans.
Cancel culture runs still strong, I suppose…
Actually I meant “sci-fi fans”, the author was new so did not have a fan base yet. But, I think it speaks to ‘reading the room’ or knowing your audience. Sci-fi fans value creativity and originality, so I would not be surprised if an AI generated cover caused a backlash. I think the same could be argued for indie games, and so I would caution against using AI for characters or any of the creative part of a game.
Me and vast majority of my friends and family (after my private survey), the line for us is at zero. If we get to know (recognize or told, doesn’t matter) that AI was used, then that’s a no-play for us.
If the creator uses AI and doesn’t communicate it, or even lie about it, we simply put them on a lifetime ban (as soon as it becomes apparent, obviously).
I have a handful of friends who actually embraces the generative AI-crap. Those are the ones who share Midjourney garbage on Facebook and stuff, the rest of us consider them the “flat-earthers of the group”, don’t know why.
Anyway, we have enough games to not care about this too much, I wish any creator who uses AI to make code or art immediate bankruptcy, but no hard feelings.
I just hope there are or will be more people like us out there and the entire industry won’t degenerate into an AI-fest cesspool.