Gabriel_H wrote: »

Syldras wrote: »

Or, to put it courtly: If it's truly about "But the original artist didn't intend it to look like that!", then some random Barbie beauty mod for Skyrim would do the exactly same thing as a beautifying AI mode - destroying the original meaning, intention and vision. It's interesting, to say the least, that I usually never see complaints about the former. And now the original artist's idea suddenly matters?

Skyrim, quite famously, has had several major modding controversies. From stolen ideas, to monetization, to AI being used to simulate voice actors - a couple of them in pretty explicit and disturbing ways.

I know that, but it has nothing to do with being against altering the original visuals how the artist imagined them to something else , which is what we were discussing here. There are Skyrim mods, masses of them, that change female fighters in heavy armor to bikini babes with anime hair and breasts twice the size of their heads, for example, and there has never been a big outcry "That's not how the artists designed the women in Skyrim to look!" - usually it's "To each their own" or something like that (I personally also think it's not mine to decide how others mod their game, even if I find it stupid).

There are lots of things to criticize when it comes to AI. But, sorry, if people never cared about the original artists' ideas before, and found it normal for graphics to be distorted to bizarre levels, without even thinking for one second about what the original artists' vision could have been, then I do not believe people suddenly find it important now. Or if they suddenly do, it's quite interesting they only care for it when AI does it, but not if someone manually alters the original, which is an alteration all the same.

BretonMage wrote: »

I will also be honest here, fwiw since I'm probably in the minority, but all the mods for Skyrim and Oblivion have cooled my interest in those games. Every time I tried looking for interesting mods, I saw mainly ***-style mods, and it's just really put me off those games. Whatever is out there has become part of the games' image.

I can understand that. But what's the solution to it? I think heavily regulating modding isn't really the way either, as it becomes restrictive and will also impede the creation of mods that are really interesting, creative and artfully done. But if a game is freely and fully mod-able, people will do all kinds of things with it, including tacky things, and if they do it, they will likely share them somewhere.

I personally barely use mods in general, by the way, and even still play TES 3 Morrowind mostly unmodded. I enjoy if games have a clear artistic vision and style, and want to experiece them exactly that way.

BretonMage wrote: »

I think that gaming companies need to really think about what's happening to their artistic vision, now with increasing numbers of people able to modify digital assets.

The question to me is honestly, how much artistic vision there even is. How much care goes to that, or are games seen more as a commercial product to consume that can be arbitrarily altered to fit the consumers' wishes?

As I've written in another thread, I'm also very sceptical about ESO turning from a more subdued look where any unordinary glowy environmental effect had a meaning, to a laser show with exploding horses, something originally narratively and visually powerful such as dolmens becoming a mundane fast-travel animation, and all kinds of polymorphs of special creatures that then roam the cities of Tamriel, despite it completely breaking the logic of the world and with that, its immersion (a Soulrazer Knight or Molag Bal using the bank just makes no sense, if one thinks of what we see in game as the, hopefully coherent, depiction of a fictional world). And that's not modding, but official changes by the studio. It did make me wonder: Is there an artistic vision? I'd personally think if there is, then changes would need to be done subtly and true to the original style, which I didn't see happening here.

BretonMage wrote: »

I think a big difference between AI and mods is the scale at which it can be done, and all automatically too. I haven't followed the DLSS controversy that closely, but I'd completely understand if people are concerned it would open the floodgates to increased AI content.

I think the topic of AI needs an extensive, honest and factual discussion. The thing is: It won't go away again. Technological progress doesn't just stop or get inverted again because some number of people dislike it. It's out there now and the wise thing to do would be to discuss how to handle that fact, and to define rules for its ethical use, so it will cause as little harm as possible. So, yes, we should discuss usage regulations (like bans to alter depictions of real humans without their consent, for example), aspects like copyright (including the usage ot "training data"), etc.

Which I rarely see happening, by the way. 99% of "discussions" I see online is some people praising AI to the heavens (often overestimating it because they don't really understand what it can do and what not), and some people just yelling "Slop!" (and often also not truly understanding it fully, but painting it the end of the world), but not really contributing to a discussion about how to handle this topic ethically either. Then again I don't know of course if people truly are interested in a solution - I just see the current discussions leading to nothing, really.

And one thing I'm especially critical about (which, yes, might also be related to my personal history) is how often in such discussions (not specifically in this forum, but generally, in different places online) people suddenly care for "artistic vision". And if you look at those people's profiles, you'll see they likely never cared for artists before. They use the most absurds mods without caring for "artistic vision", they randomly share artwork without even giving info about the source, but as soon as the AI topic comes up, they're the biggest supporters of artists ever. Sure. People can dislike, even hate, AI all they want, but suddenly acting as the defenders of "artistic vision" looks insincere to me. I understand that some people actually care and have always cared. But not the thousands of people who suddenly claim to care now.

M0ntie wrote: »

Hideous. I do not want ESO to look like Disney.

Are you aware this picture was a joke/meme?

Or, if they im

AlterBlika wrote: »

Tbh DLSS 5 would be huge for ESO if it even works at all. The game has ugly muddy characters and terrible lightning as of right now. If this is the so-called "artistic vision" then imo nothing of value will be lost. Besides it's completely optional

I kinda don't feel any artistic vibe about ESO, I just see 10-years old visuals which are due an upgrade. AI backlash is insane in this thread ngl

Especially seeing it's optional. More options the better. Not everyone is going to agree the artistic vision of a game is what they like, which is why we see mods all the time to change lighting or change graphics. Having an option to allow for a game to look different to a user is better than not having that option at all.

It does seem to be doing some very questionable things. as long as it's optional feature, then why not.

mocap wrote: »

Does anyone actually want this?

Did that actually change it from day to night? Lol

JimT722 wrote: »

It does seem to be doing some very questionable things. as long as it's optional feature, then why not.

Beacuse it's trained on other artists work who haven't been given the option for their work to be used?

mocap wrote: »

Does anyone actually want this?

yea lol, why would anyone want the left one? just out of habit

Does this actually use generative AI? I've read an article on it but don't remember if it mentioned it or not.

Not ALL AI destroys the environment. But generative AI is the problematic stuff, the theft of artwork aside (which is a big issue itself yeah but not the worst one).

Gabriel_H wrote: »

SkaiFaith wrote: »

My way to put it: between a potato family drawn by your daughter and a majestic family painting generated by AI, you should choose your daughter's drawing.
But you should also wish for your daughter to become a true artist and come to you 30 years later with a majestic family painting done by her hand, and not incentivize her to remain at potato level drawing clapping your hands when she later on presents herself to you with an AI generated wonderful family painting - "oh wow, how good you have become at prompting..."

So that 30 years later her majestic painting is used by AI to generate whatever you want and make her redundant.

XD it's a sad, sad world.

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Bguk wrote: »

mocap wrote: »

Does anyone actually want this?

Yes. I think the right looks better than the left. The armor looks amazing, background as well. Even the flower in the hair looks a million times better.

The main thing to pay attention to is the face. It isn't the same face at all. You can see this extremely vividly if you look at the Resident Evil 9 Grace comparison. The entire facial structure is different. She gains random makeup and ring-lighting. None of which matches how the character is written or acts.

This is seemingly trained on like top-follower Instagram/TikTok accounts and its output basically transmogs your character into the average of those those accounts. If your character is a guy, you turn into a generic Gigachad. If your character is a woman, you turn into a generic "influencer".

You might personally like that aesthetic but it is basically an "attractiveness filter" or, perhaps more accurately, a very specific determination of "attractiveness". But would you want every character in every game to take on this appearance?

The face to me looks better in this instance. There were some screenshots in another thread (could even be this one!) that listed screenshots from about 4 games. I like half of them, faces and all. It depends on the game and how it looks overall. And the technology will only get better with time. Right now DLSS 5 is taking the average and spitting it out. As the tech improves I can see a user stating what they want to use DLSS for, like saying only change the lighting, or faces, or background. DLSS is an option that can be turned on/off as a game supports it. I would rather have that option then not.

mocap wrote: »

Does anyone actually want this?

Kinda gross this was done to one of the most child-coded characters in the game. Minors aren't supposed to be sexy.

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Adhara wrote: »

mocap wrote: »

Does anyone actually want this?

Kinda gross this was done to one of the most child-coded characters in the game. Minors aren't supposed to be sexy.

I think the original artist giving the character breasts and a skin tight outfit did that.

Please feel free to show me where the NON skin-tight outfits in ESO are.

Adhara wrote: »

mocap wrote: »

Does anyone actually want this?

Kinda gross this was done to one of the most child-coded characters in the game. Minors aren't supposed to be sexy.

She's an adult though? A young adult but an adult nonetheless.

That aside, I do not think that AI should be used to homogenize the looks of NPCs.

Adhara wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Adhara wrote: »

mocap wrote: »

Does anyone actually want this?

Kinda gross this was done to one of the most child-coded characters in the game. Minors aren't supposed to be sexy.

I think the original artist giving the character breasts and a skin tight outfit did that.

Please feel free to show me where the NON skin-tight outfits in ESO are.

Doesn't matter whether or not there are any. The point is that DLSS 5, and/or the use of AI, had nothing to do with making the character in the example coming across as being what you'd call sexy.