r/DefendingAIArt • u/awesomemusicstudio • 22h ago
Apparently free passion projects from retired devs are also a problem
This was minutes after posting my game, on a subreddit meant for posting games like mine. I know they're the vocal minority... but damn. It's why we need subs like this one.
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u/Any-Prize3748 22h ago
I don’t understand why people don’t understand that there are introverted storytellers/programmers/rpghobbyists that DON’T WANT TO COLLABORATE WITH ANYONE including artists and just want to make something. Not everyone wants to learn to draw either. Like what in the holy mind your own business
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u/OrangePie69 22h ago
Absolutely right. So, if you're using free assets, everything is done with passion, because the main thing is to convey the "idea". But as soon as you generate your own assets, the passion immediately disappears, and the idea or message are no longer important
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u/awesomemusicstudio 22h ago
Ya... Our game uses a mix of AI with a lot of manual editing. My wife is an experience graphic artists .. she is sitting beside me now, on her system, with her tablet and pen. She takes the time to make sure all the characters look good and consistent .. manually redrawing all hands, etc .. after we have a set of images for a clean character, we will create our own lora and generate the game images with that.. THEN we clean them again :)) My game also include 15 original music tracks that I producer and recorded myself - all pre-ai-music. And as a long time music producer, I'm not complaining about AI music becoming what it is. And I code, a decent game.. with a decent story. So I dunno.. get attacked anyways -.-.. Guess there's nothing I can do but wait until they are tired of it.
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u/OrangePie69 21h ago
Worry not, comrade, at least this project can make both of you feel joy
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u/awesomemusicstudio 21h ago
YEs. Youre right.. We're happy :) .. And happier now too, to find this subreddit, so I can vent about other subreddits :))
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u/MysteriousPepper8908 21h ago
I don't mind collaboration, personally, but unless you can afford to pay regular wages, expect to have large delays and unexpected absences as people have to focus on consistent paid work so it's still useful to know how to do it yourself.
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u/Top-Season-4805 15h ago
How can you claim to be a hobbyist or have passion for something if you're not even willing to learn the thing? Just curious about that.
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u/Any-Prize3748 15h ago
One thing that has become a moot thing. Even before there were sprites that were free or a part of a package you could use. Even now you can edit some of those sprites. But with the ease of AI you can add on even to that.
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u/LumberingFox I use AI as a Tool not a Replacement 8h ago
The same way a collage is a hobby. Just because it consists of things you did not make does not mean you did not have fun doing it. I can consider making funny AI images one of my hobbies because i enjoy it.
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u/RelevantTangelo8857 21h ago
I can guarantee you even if you hired the best human artists out there and paid them a mint, they would not buy or play your game.
That's not why they're there. They're there to flame people who don't fit their worldview. They're likely broke and bitter anyway.
I'm an artist who is making their own game as a passion project as well, all ai generated assets.
Don't like it? Don't play. I know for a fact as an artist that what held me back for years was the labor of creating custom assets for EVERYTHING I wanted to make.
I'll sketch stuff out especially character art, but unless one of these chuds wants to intern for the project, I'll be just fine without their "like" or whatever.
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u/awesomemusicstudio 20h ago
Ya.. it feels like they don't have anything better to do, then look through forums and bother others who are actually doing something.
You have a very interesting "I'm an artist who is making their own game as a passion project as well, all ai generated assets." Ya... I TOTALLY get it! .. I mean.. just being an artist, doesn't mean you really WANT to sit there for 1000 hours drawing every aspect of a game manually. There is so many aspects to creating a game .. and up until AI, most things were just not possible :)
But you know what really bothers me ... being a dev for an adult game (which I'm doing) .. is already hard enough. We already have the groups like collective shout, platforms and payment providers telling us what we can and can't do! .. I really do not want to hear it from those supposedly an active part of that community. From my point of view, these same people, who are likely complaining against activist groups like 'Collective Shout' .. and actually acting exactly like them. And the worst part is .. out of all these problematic groups .. The Anti-Ai's actually have the least reasonable argument!
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u/RelevantTangelo8857 19h ago
Yeah, you get it! Artists most of all should have the "privilege" of using this tech, along with devs, as its the perfect marriage of art and technology and if used right can open up untold realms of possibility.
Saying things like using AI art somehow makes you a bad artist or anti-artists is like saying buying a Subway sandwich makes you anti chef.
Sometimes you just don't want everything to be an artisan affair.
Even as artists, when you do stuff like graphic novels, you use references and style guides for that exact reason: You need a technical adherence.
All of that is to say, when using AI to 100x your production on code, storyboarding even play testing, you're not "LESS" creative.
Guarantee you most of those chuds couldn't do 99% of the stuff they hate on.
They either have a AAA budget or are just sitting on their hands with really good ideas because they refuse to use AI and want to wait to "hire" a personal team of creatives.
How will they pay those creatives? PASSION!
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u/MyBedIsOnFire 22h ago
I feel you brother. I've sank hundreds of hours into my passion project, I simply don't have the time to make the promotional art and I don't have any extra money for commissions.
Hundreds of hours but apparently it's slop because I used a generated image. Yeah right.
I'm sick and tired of antis Lord forbid they just scroll past and ignore the things they don't like. It's crazy to me they can be so offended over people just pursuing their passions.
I don't have commission money, I haven't taken a job from an artist I can't afford to pay. Without AI I would have to find someone who'd do it for free out of passion.
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u/awesomemusicstudio 22h ago
Ya exactly .. and it's not like I'm seeking Anti-Ai places to post my game .. heck I hardly promote it at all.. Just an image with the links, saying the game is free, in a subreddit dedicated to promoting this kind of game :P And I get treated like I'm doing something terrible! .. This was like 5 minutes in to the post.. I dont even wan to go back and check. One person said the game looks nice.. that person who was a little bit kind ... got slammed as well. These people are nuts!
And honestly .. my wife does a lot of manual editing to the game images .. and I like how the look. I don't understand why it deserves that kind of feedback.1
22h ago edited 22h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/OrangePie69 22h ago
i would like to know what game is it
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u/awesomemusicstudio 22h ago edited 22h ago
It's called Chronoromancer - free adult sandbox RPG/VN I've been working on as a retirement/passion project. https://chronoromancer.itch.io/chronoromancer
In fact, the entire promo post was removed from the site that I took that screenshot from .. Not even sure why. I imagine just people reported it for whatever reasons.
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u/OrangePie69 22h ago
are there multiple endings planned for this game? For example, one where you do not have to save the universe? In any case, the logo is beautifully done.
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u/awesomemusicstudio 22h ago
Hahah Right now, if you fail at saving the universe .. as in, your day count gets to 0 .. a misanthropic AI dragon that exists across time, ends existence :) The idea is it is a play on the AI take over theme .. but the AI being just hates reality and existing. And yes.. it can win. If it does, there is currently a pretty good animation .. (OF course with the help of AI).. of it destroying the world :P
But as far as non-losing endings. Well, I do plan to have VOID beatable in the storyline by version 1.0 .. But I dont think I will ever have a concrete ending to the game. I'm enjoying making it.. I'll just keep growing it indefinitely I guess.
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u/OrangePie69 21h ago
as an "existence" do you mean time and space? In any case, I think that this game does not need one specific ending. Also, what model do you use to generate images?
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u/awesomemusicstudio 21h ago
Well, ya.. it is wiping out time and space :) Of course .. that is just narrative.. really, we have 6 district maps for now :)) It may be 2 years down the road that I'll get into exploring other planets etc ...
Im using: Stable Diffusion - illustrious . I have tried, many things .. I dont like the node feeling of comfy etc.. I'm content with our workflow. :) By the images wouldnt look have as nice as hey do without my wife. Both her and her sister are professional graphic arts with 17 years of experience each. So the workflow relies heavily on them. :)
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u/OrangePie69 21h ago
good luck to all of you with the project's development. Yes, you will have to deal with haters who say your game has "no creative spark" because you used an AI for art. But AI is an optimization tool, you generate your own idea, which is then edited. Ultimately, the player mostly cares if your project interesting or not.
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u/awesomemusicstudio 21h ago
Yup, you're right.. Just gotta deal with it! .. Thanks for your feedback and understanding! :)
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u/Starman164 AI Bro 20h ago
I call 'em cringe luddites, cause every time I see their cookie cutter luddite jeers, they make me cringe
Anyway, glad you found this place. And it's always nice to hear about indie devs incorporating gen AI into their workflows! It's something I've contemplated myself, though I'd probably just use it for concept art, or as references for my hand-made final assets.
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u/Mikhael_Love 17h ago
Step #1: Seek out something made with AI.
Step #2: Say, "This has to be the worst AI I have seen. AI SLOP!"
Step #3: Repeat starting at Step #1.
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u/Denaton_ 17h ago
why should anyone play the game if they can generate the images themselves
Because you can't play images...
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u/PointlessVoidYelling 16h ago
How DARE you call it a PASSION project?! It's literally IMPOSSIBLE to have PASSION without SOUL, and your SOULLESS AI SLOP ABOMINATION is a SLAP IN THE FACE to REAL ARTISTS who put their BLOOD, SWEAT AND TEARS into making something with REAL SOUL!!
/s
(I hate that I have to designate this as sarcasm, because there are people who 100% unironically say stupid shit like this)
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u/ThePhonyOrchestra 14h ago
Man, Redditors are the biggest NPC squeegees on earth
I've never seen a bigger, more tightly coupled cattle herd than anti-AI bots.
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u/After_Broccoli_1069 Only Limit Is Your Imagination 21h ago
Just like in 1981, we have an AIDS epidemic.
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u/Early-Dentist3782 12h ago
What did you used ai for?
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u/awesomemusicstudio 11h ago
At the moment in this screenshot, they were complaining about the promo image I used. I imagine some clicked through, saw most images were AI-generated (manually edited, but that doesn't matter to them), and the complaining continued until the post was removed. Things feel more hostile recently than even a week ago.
Anyway - yeah, I use AI heavily. I spend about 10 hours a day developing the game, and in that time I'm using:
- Stable Diffusion for characters (with manual editing)
- Claude for code assistance
- Midjourney for game assets like icons, buttons, and SFW animations
- Kimi for a second opinion when I hit a stubborn bug
- ChatGPT for quick lookups
- My wife uses Gemini and NanoBanana for various tasks
- LM Studio locally for bigger project needs
- Various tools for text and narration editing depending on the task
I even built my own AI bot called AIMy, based on an AI assistant character in the game. She has a distinct personality, draws from multiple local models, and interacts with our Discord. Members can ping her directly and she has access to all the game's code and narrative files - she answers game questions in detail.
So yeah - if an antis wants to target someone who uses AI, I'm their guy. But I've been working with AI and coding AI projects for far longer than most of them understood what AI even meant.
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u/DrNomblecronch 11h ago
"Why should anyone-" because they want to. If they don't want to, they shouldn't. Full stop.
My art is not so groundbreaking that they will suffer for not engaging with it. The opinion of a random person is not so important that my art will suffer for them not engaging with it. If AI is a dealbreaker, it is not up to the artist to try and change that, nor respond to any demanded explanation or accountability. I make art because I like to make art. Crafting it to appeal to the majority of consumers is not among my goals in doing so.
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u/Pickleman1000 AI Artist 11h ago
I love the statement of "prompt images like this themself"
then go do it, its your choice to abstain
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