Using Ai to update the old world

[Sauredfangs]

I hear Blizz is interested in using Ai to create art for games. I wonder if that includes ingame graphics like models for trees and buildings.

What do you think of the idea? Would you support them doing that or do you want them to manually create new graphic assets?

[Stickiler]

I hear Blizz is interested in using Ai to create art for games. I wonder if that includes ingame graphics like models for trees and buildings.

What do you think of the idea? Would you support them doing that or do you want them to manually create new graphic assets?

Where did you hear that?


The current AI systems are no good for generating 3D models, but there's a space in future for speciality AI that are trained on the models already used in game, and then used to generate more.

[Lochton]

I hear Blizz is interested in using Ai to create art for games. I wonder if that includes ingame graphics like models for trees and buildings.

What do you think of the idea? Would you support them doing that or do you want them to manually create new graphic assets?

You are sorta wrong and wrong.

They are going to apply AI for world filling, the areas where they before wasted staff to copy and fill the gaps might soon be filled by AI so employees can focus on other things instead of clipping in landscapes or copying. Freeing up artists who were else before stuck with that duty.

[Biomega]

EVERY tech business is "interested" in AI, who wouldn't be when it's likely the #1 disruptive technology on the horizon.

That means nothing.

Are they going to use AI in the future to help with stuff? Probably. Everyone will. Will it replace artists completely in the short term? No. It won't. It'll supplement them, and possibly increase their production output, but you'll still need a LOT of manual selection and adjustment.

Keep in mind that for every AI picture you see that people put out there as a masterpiece, a human probably went through 100s that didn't cut it and manually selected the one that did. That's still a lot of work, and it's even worse when it comes to 3D modeling.

AI is going to change the game, but it won't do so tomorrow or this year and it won't replace humans anytime soon, it'll only become another tool in their toolbox, helping them save time and effort.

[Sauredfangs]

Where did you hear that?


The current AI systems are no good for generating 3D models, but there's a space in future for speciality AI that are trained on the models already used in game, and then used to generate more.

I believe I heard it from Jesse cox or Bellular. It's one or the other.

They didnt exactly say 3d modeling but they said "Art Assets". Which could possibly include 3d assets, I wouldn't know though. Just curious what people think if it included 3d assets.

[Berndorf]

Eventually Wow will need to adopt ai because if it doesn't the games that are created with it or do adopt it will leave wow in the dust.

[jeezusisacasual]

Eventually Wow will need to adopt ai because if it doesn't the games that are created with it or do adopt it will leave wow in the dust.

This exactly, in the finance industry we are looking at predictive models using growth trading on a level that is faster then we can do, yes its in its infancy but we are looking at a period in the future which the finance industry is automated which i can see with the mundane tasks that is need in wow like adding a flower or tree here or there.

Assuming we do not lose the core bits and bobs that people add ( like that dev who had the entire idea of the withered army training ) i would be a bit more receptive of it in total.

[Tiwack]

Sure, why not? Anything AI generated is all about the initial prompt and whatever was used to train the AI in the first place. You can do some fun and amazing stuff with it, if you experiment and touch up the results you get yourself, but it still all comes down to that initial idea and example of interpretation. It allows for fast iteration and visuals of any concept they might be playing around with, even if AI-generated it's still art all the way down.

[Biomega]

I find it a pity. It would be strange to think that such and such an element was made by an AI and not a human artist who put all his love into it.

That's pretty much the argument people made against printed books hundreds of years ago. Worked out well then, too.

No one is talking of completely replacing artists with AI - not yet anyway. It'll be a tool that'll allow artists to create a lot more stuff in a lot shorter time.

And do keep in mind that while we refer to these people as "artists" there's a big difference between someone employed to create assets for a video game using a preset art style and color scheme, and someone creating art for no other reason than they can and want to. That's not to belittle the creative achievements of people who produce assets, illustrations, etc. but that's not the same thing, and let's not overdo it on the mysticism. Heck even for "free" art let's tone down the mysticism, there's no magical force that flows from humans into objects to somehow make them beautiful. It's a complex process but it's not supernatural, and while AI can't emulate it yet, there's no reason it wouldn't be able to eventually. There's nothing "special" about humans, they're just really really good at some things and computers aren't... yet.

There's nothing wrong with enjoying AI-created art, either, and it's not "worth less" than human-created art. If you find it beautiful, that's all that matters - whether a human held the brush, or an elephant, or a servo arm.

[Amnaught]

That's pretty much the argument people made against printed books hundreds of years ago. Worked out well then, too.

No one is talking of completely replacing artists with AI - not yet anyway. It'll be a tool that'll allow artists to create a lot more stuff in a lot shorter time.

And do keep in mind that while we refer to these people as "artists" there's a big difference between someone employed to create assets for a video game using a preset art style and color scheme, and someone creating art for no other reason than they can and want to. That's not to belittle the creative achievements of people who produce assets, illustrations, etc. but that's not the same thing, and let's not overdo it on the mysticism. Heck even for "free" art let's tone down the mysticism, there's no magical force that flows from humans into objects to somehow make them beautiful. It's a complex process but it's not supernatural, and while AI can't emulate it yet, there's no reason it wouldn't be able to eventually. There's nothing "special" about humans, they're just really really good at some things and computers aren't... yet.

There's nothing wrong with enjoying AI-created art, either, and it's not "worth less" than human-created art. If you find it beautiful, that's all that matters - whether a human held the brush, or an elephant, or a servo arm.

It's worth less it its current state because the AI models are being fed art that doesn't belong to them. Stolen. Someone is painting a house, and then the AI is reorganizing that existing art into a differently shaped house and the one who commanded it is taking credit for the art as original. Cutting the eyes off of Mona Lisa and putting them onto a different face isn't the same as painting an original face.

That fact can easily get misconstrued as "AI art is terrible", but what I'm saying is that if Blizzard exclusively fed an AI art that was produced by Blizzard employees for Blizzard purposes, that would be fine.

But it's not an artist, any more than a Minecraft server is an artist for procedurally generating worlds. A real artist still had to do the work. And that wont ever change.

It's not a "not yet anyway" thing, because the "replacing artists" idea is literally just actually "stealing art that was already made and using it differently to fit new needs without having to pay them a second time"

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You are sorta wrong and wrong.

They are going to apply AI for world filling, the areas where they before wasted staff to copy and fill the gaps might soon be filled by AI so employees can focus on other things instead of clipping in landscapes or copying. Freeing up artists who were else before stuck with that duty.

Except all of those pieces of AI generated art will need to be combed through and approved by actual artists anyway. Sure you can cut some corners with it, but it's less of "Im going to let the robot do the work" and more "Im gonna get my work done faster because the robot can help me"

[Berndorf]

This exactly, in the finance industry we are looking at predictive models using growth trading on a level that is faster then we can do, yes its in its infancy but we are looking at a period in the future which the finance industry is automated which i can see with the mundane tasks that is need in wow like adding a flower or tree here or there.

Assuming we do not lose the core bits and bobs that people add ( like that dev who had the entire idea of the withered army training ) i would be a bit more receptive of it in total.

I think we could be looking at games in the future where each server has its own form of ai that can role play as npcs and create content within certain parameters on a weekly if not daily basis. I think technology is what is going to change the gaming world. We thought it would just be people coming up with some new idea but technology will be at the core of it.

[jeezusisacasual]

I think we could be looking at games in the future where each server has its own form of ai that can role play as npcs and create content within certain parameters on a weekly if not daily basis. I think technology is what is going to change the gaming world. We thought it would just be people coming up with some new idea but technology will be at the core of it.

I would love to see various pop up events that are completely AI driven. Think of the outcomes of something as that in not just the MMO gaming space but every gaming space. Mundane tasks that are quickly created on a decent to high level of polish sign me the hell up. I would liken them to scenarios from MOP but in the more open world.

[Berndorf]

I would love to see various pop up events that are completely AI driven. Think of the outcomes of something as that in not just the MMO gaming space but every gaming space. Mundane tasks that are quickly created on a decent to high level of polish sign me the hell up. I would liken them to scenarios from MOP but in the more open world.

At some point its going to swing from 'how do I get x y z to prove my leetness' to 'this game's ai is better and makes a funner game to play'. That will be the death knell of all the games which are still saying 'do these same dungeons or raids every week for 6 months to get your loot' imo.

[iamthedevil]

I find it a pity. It would be strange to think that such and such an element was made by an AI and not a human artist who put all his love into it.

well, the AI is an amalgamation of human effort so you can look at it that way instead.

[Biomega]

It's worth less it its current state because the AI models are being fed art that doesn't belong to them.

That's how regular art works, too - people look at other people's art, and then make their own with that knowledge. AI just makes that process more apparent, and easier to do in conjunction with the internet.

That's not an art problem, that's a monetization and IP rights problem. That problem exists for regular art, too - humans can AND DO also do this, it's just more cumbersome and smaller-scale.

It's a problem that should be solved to be sure, but it's not something that wouldn't exist without AI. It would, and does.

But it's not an artist, any more than a Minecraft server is an artist for procedurally generating worlds. A real artist still had to do the work.

That's a matter of definition only. "Real artists" also learned how to do what they're doing. People don't magically find art - this is a process that involves them interacting with the world and what's in it. AI does the same thing, just in a more focused, more controlled setting. Someone going to art school for a couple of years or AI running through training sets is at its core a very similar process. Heck, even autodidacts and trial-and-error processes aren't really any different.

We just have inherent biases that value human achievements of that sort more, that's all.

[Mecheon]

AI does the same thing, just in a more focused, more controlled setting. Someone going to art school for a couple of years or AI running through training sets is at its core a very similar process. Heck, even autodidacts and trial-and-error processes aren't really any different.

No it doesn't? AI art is basically just copy and pasting on a grand scale, just with so many copy/pastes we can't see the details and the source material being the data its 'learning' from. Models do occaisonally spit back out the signatures of art they've scraped for data, if you keep poking them enough.

It is nothing like how people learn to make art because no matter how hard you try, the AI isn't going to come up with something original that's not based on what its already eaten into its data, whereas an actual artist can just, y'know. Draw whatever they want.

[Biomega]

It is nothing like how people learn to make art because no matter how hard you try, the AI isn't going to come up with something original that's not based on what its already eaten into its data, whereas an actual artist can just, y'know. Draw whatever they want.

That's a difference of scale, not of kind. Humans work the same way, just on a farm more complex, far more expansive level. We're capable of combining the "input" of our experiences in much more encompassing ways, but ultimately that's still all we're doing. And we run into the same limitations of our experiences as well, which is why you can't really imagine a new color or a completely unknown taste or smell, you can only logically abstract them.

This is only the very beginning of AI. Don't make the mistake of thinking that what present-day systems are capable of is the limits of what AI can do in principle.

[Lochton]

Except all of those pieces of AI generated art will need to be combed through and approved by actual artists anyway. Sure you can cut some corners with it, but it's less of "Im going to let the robot do the work" and more "Im gonna get my work done faster because the robot can help me"

Yes? It still saves time and freedom for artists? Artists who does this work already, STILL has to be combed through and approved anyways.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I hear Blizz is interested in using Ai to create art for games. I wonder if that includes ingame graphics like models for trees and buildings.

What do you think of the idea? Would you support them doing that or do you want them to manually create new graphic assets?

I would only support it if the intent was to enlarge the old world by 10x or 100x, far beyond what can be reasonably handcrafted within a few years. Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms are supposed to be huge continents inhabited by many different nations, but ingame you can fly from one end to another within only a few minutes, under the same sun or moon phase. When Dragonriding is implemented, you will be able to fly from one kingdom to another within mere seconds. In order for the old world to feel like a huge world, it needs to be 10x or 100x larger, so you are spending at least several minutes travelling to a neighboring country, and perhaps upwards of an hour or more travelling from one end to a continent to the other. Furthermore, an hourly day/night cycle would have to be implemented to help give the sense that journeying across a vast continent cannot be done within a single afternoon.

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The current AI systems are no good for generating 3D models

Have you seen the Unreal Engine 5 demo of autogenerated environments? Panel @19:39

[Kurivaim]

Can't seem to be able to link images nor links yet, however, you could google Blizzard AI Patent to find more info.

Here's a snippet of how it generally works:

The patent explains how would this technology work with video games. The main idea is that the AI ​​is able to emulate new images from an artistic style which has previously been designed by Blizzard. This means that the study would give some guidelines so that the technology build a 3D model from that concept. That would involve building a skeleton, textures, and other design details. Although it is not something definitive, it can create a debate for a possible substitution of human labor in the artistic section of video games.