A.I. Assisted Art (Game Posters)

[Einar Saukas]

A recent thread called "Using A.I. to recreate ZX Spectrum loading screens" is showing impressive examples of images generated by AI. However these results are mostly impressive in the sense of "Wow it actually works!" but not really in the sense of "Wow it actually looks amazing!"

I mean, images generated by AI works, but very few of these images are artistically great, and even those few are considerably flawed somehow.

Based on my own experiments, right now A.I. is (still) not good enough to do all the work by itself. The best approach is using AI to generate a few images as "raw material" for whatever scene you have in mind, afterwards do all the rest of the work yourself (using Photoshop, GIMP or something similar).

I have been using this method recently to produce posters for my own Speccy games. This is what I managed so far...

[Einar Saukas]

ZEN is a very relaxing puzzle game. The hero in this poster is exactly the same woman that appeared in the Speccy game's loading screen:

[R-Tape]

Very cool. Any chance of a bit more info on the method? Prompts, engine, how close did the AI get, what did you change?

[ParadigmShifter]

ZEN is a very relaxing puzzle game. The hero in this poster is exactly the same woman that appeared in the Speccy game's loading screen:

Samus Aran you mean then?

[Ralf]

Well, relaxation and meditation in some stiff and tight metal armour feels a bit contradictory to me

Think a while - priests, gurus or philosophers in many cultures usually wear loose clothes. It must be not a chance

But it's certainly a nice picture !

[ParadigmShifter]

It was specially made by the Chozo and stuff though so it's proper comfy apparently.

Probably hard to go to the bathroom inbetween fights though. Especially with a big gun attached to one of your arms.

[hikoki]

try this at bing and tell me which one you prefer "muscular women practicing zen meditation and fitness dressed in green"

[Einar Saukas]

Very cool. Any chance of a bit more info on the method? Prompts, engine, how close did the AI get, what did you change?

Sorry I'm not keeping track of prompts...

I'm mostly using DALL-E 3. I tried lots of other AIs, sometimes they produce interesting results but overall DALL-E 3 is the best free generator by far.

My method is basically to plan in advance the exact scene I want, then generate an initial image with AI providing a very detailed description, and try to refine this description a couple times. Afterwards I use GIMP to edit the generated image (GIMP doesn't have a great user interface but there are many tutorials online). I usually change lots of details manually, using move/resize/rotate and taking advantage of layers/transparency to rearrange and combine scene elements. Also I learned to reuse textures from one part of the image in order to make changes to another (mainly using pencil/clone/heal), this way I can change anything while preserving the original drawing style. If a certain part of the image requires too many changes, sometimes I simply use AI to generate a replacement in a separate image, then use the same techniques to "merge" them.

This particular poster required lots of little changes. For instance, in the original AI image, she had only 4 fingers in each hand, and a "broken" leg. Apparently arms, legs and fingers are the most common mistakes with AIs, because they manipulates images without any understanding about physics or anatomy. Next time you see an AI generated image, take a closer look at them!

[Einar Saukas]

Samus Aran you mean then?

Exactly.

[Einar Saukas]

Well, relaxation and meditation in some stiff and tight metal armour feels a bit contradictory to me

Of course it doesn't make sense! But that's intentional.

A little bit of subtle humor is an effective way to make a poster look more interesting.

For a larger dose of humor, see my next image...

[Einar Saukas]

Cosmic Commerce (also available in English) is an Elite inspired game. You must travel between planets to trade tons of products between different federations in the solar system:

[R-Tape]

This one is superb. It has an retro inlay art feel and it has the humour of the old MTV astronaut. More than anything - the lemonade stall gag is such a great idea, and presumably that's the part you can take most credit for!

[Einar Saukas]

Snake Escape is an award winning multicolor puzzle game:

[Einar Saukas]

JAWS: The Text Adventure recreates the classic movie from the point of view of the shark. This image is a homage to the famous original poster:

[R-Tape]

The Jaws image definitely does the job

Snake Escape is a great picture. I can't decide if I'd like to see something more cartoony to match the game though.



I tried a few things in Midjourney, and they are either too 'Pixar' or too crap. Having said that, BITD, if you were lucky enough to afford an inlay artist, you'd have been given this and damn well been happy with it!

[Einar Saukas]

Snakes with detached tail, hands, a rounded body or shaped like a donut... These kinds of mistakes don't look so bad in a cartoony style, but I got them too in every realistic image I requested!

[Einar Saukas]

War of the Worlds is a "tech demo" from WOOT 2023, that displays the entire text from the classic sci-fi book (by H. G. Wells) while loading it from tape: