Artist vs AI

[TheSelf]

I'm a CG character artist in the game industry, 

Though it's still not a big of deal like 2D, but it's getting more serious day by day and advancements in the related tools is super fast, one day in a very near future AI will be able to create full production ready 3d models be it characters, environments, object etc, from scratch just by a few prompts, 

I've spend many years gain mastery in my art and create a career out of it and the last year was the shitiest year in terms of aboubdance of projects. you could see so many studios that did lots of lay-offs.

Any thoughts and advices into this other than corporating AI tools into my workflow?

Edited April 5 by TheSelf

[Leo Gura]

AI is extremely limited in making usable game art. And the AI companies will simply not have enough raw data to make powerful enough AI for that for a long time.

AI is not magic. It's only as good as the training data. And game training data is very limited. It's not like text, stock photographs, or stock videos.

Game artists will have work for a long time to come. But, yes, you will need to incorporate some AI tools in your workflow.

Edited April 5 by Leo Gura

[lina]

I am in a similar position but not a game artist yet. I finished art school over 2 years ago and ever since I have been facing difficulty in choosing an area to specialize in with arts for income generation out of fear that the time investment would eventually go down the drain with A.I slowly taking over most of it. I am currently just doing arts as a hobby and not for living. 

6 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

AI is extremely limited in making usable game art. And the AI companies will simply not have enough raw data to make powerful enough AI for that for a long time.

 But couldn't this just a matter of time? and eventually it will catch up to replace 95% of artists out there and leaving only art directors to oversee the work?

[Leo Gura]

8 minutes ago, lina said:

But couldn't this just a matter of time? and eventually it will catch up to replace 95% of artists out there and leaving only art directors to oversee the work?

Realistically AI will only replace low-level artists. You just have to adapt to doing art at a higher level. Design vs drawing lines.

All work is gonna become less technical and more creative and abstract in the long run.

Edited April 5 by Leo Gura

[ExplorerMystic]

@TheSelf It wouldn't be right for me to paint a picture of rainbows and sunshine. AI has already made its mark in music and various art forms. The caliber of its output is causing ripples among those in the industry. Rather than dwelling on tasks easily handled by AI, it's time to explore what you can do which AI is not able to accomplish at the moment. Look beyond the mundane and discover where you can inject creativity. When it comes to your professional resume, focus less on what AI can accomplish effortlessly and more on the innovative creativity with its assistance / apart from it. That's the key to staying ahead in sectors like gaming / other industry, where AI has infiltrated.

[TheSelf]

@Leo Gura Are you aware of the reasons why studios begin to shrink down one by one from the past year and continue?

Isn't a big part of it related to AI?

I've spoken to some other veteran artists and all of them confirmed that they're receiving much much less job offers,

I guess there's some AI advancements that we still aren't aware of their existence and probably studios are utilizing them,

thou you are right that AI doesn't have enough raw data to train with in public, but giant corporations like Ubisoft, EA, Sony etc can easily provide game asset data's from their own past productions to train their own AI with.

 

Edited April 5 by TheSelf

[TheSelf]

1 hour ago, lina said:

But couldn't this just a matter of time? and eventually it will catch up to replace 95% of artists out there and leaving only art directors to oversee the work?

Yes I can see that this is a possibility of a near future concidering how fast AI is advancing.

[Extreme Z7]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Realistically AI will only replace low-level artists.

I think you mean mid-level artists.

Low-level artists or amateurs are usually people who are just doing art as a hobby and don't have an art job to be replaced from.

[TheSelf]

41 minutes ago, ExplorerMystic said:

Rather than dwelling on tasks easily handled by AI, it's time to explore what you can do which AI is not able to accomplish at the moment

The problem is AI shows to be super super creative when it comes to creative parts too, yes if it was just technical aspects you'd say just learn the new tools adapt and go with the flow.

But just compare what the midjourney was capable to create just in the last year versus it's todays outputs, it's unbelievable.

Edited April 5 by TheSelf

[TheSelf]

Think about it, in a future AI can easily analyse a 3d asset like a character and based on a few guides texture the whole character and you might just tweak a few things around, so it'll take much less time and effort to make production ready characters as the foundations and basic technical asspests also being handled by AI like UV, and also the need for texture artists will be gone or just one lead texture artist that oversee the consistency of the quality of all assets.

Edited April 5 by TheSelf

[Schizophonia]

Ultimately AI will destroy the work of all digital artists.

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Realistically AI will only replace low-level artists. You just have to adapt to doing art at a higher level. Design vs drawing lines.

All work is gonna become less technical and more creative and abstract in the long run.

Cope as much as you want, when the time comes, I'm going to troll you by ordering an AI a video game that surpasses those you made in your corner independently, with all the work that it required.
And all that in a few lines.

[ExplorerMystic]

30 minutes ago, TheSelf said:

Think about it, in a future AI can easily analyse a 3d asset like a cg character and based on a few guides texture the whole character and you might just tweak a few things around, so it'll take much less time and effort to make production ready characters as the foundations and basic technical asspests also being handled by AI, and also the need for texture artists will be gone or just one lead texture artist that oversee the consistency of the quality of all assets.

Yup agree. Was little soft on my previous post because doesn't wanted to overwhelm you. The way it has progress in last 2-3 years which everyone in industry has underestimated.

We need to go out of box and see where we can pitch in here . Find it in gaming industry ; if it seems there no way or that creative spark is not coming ; Find some other stream where you can show your talent with AI.

Reverse the thought process . AI is in its 1st generation . Where i can pitch in and make a impact instead of waiting . A good research topic here : how "internet" denier & people who had accepted it knowing that it got the power that will impact life in 1990's.

Edited April 5 by ExplorerMystic

[Ash55]

2 hours ago, lina said:

I am in a similar position but not a game artist yet. I finished art school over 2 years ago and ever since I have been facing difficulty in choosing an area to specialize in with arts for income generation out of fear that the time investment would eventually go down the drain with A.I slowly taking over most of it. I am currently just doing arts as a hobby and not for living. 

i do game art my self, but am also a tech artist, you can be a tech artist an environment artist, a character artists you can pick any of that but what most people dont realize wanna make it in the entertainment industry as an artist that the skill required is way up there and their skill set is maybe 5-15% of what is required but they might see that they cant get a job because of AI, where in reality they are too lazy to learn a program like zbrush and maybe maya and also maybe nuke and having 6 software that they are good at in their resume + very good skill

s in something witch is quite rare in this industry only the top actually secured a good job  the rest are just scarping on small opportunity that is not even worth it for someone like me who does houdini

 

2 hours ago, lina said:

But couldn't this just a matter of time? and eventually it will catch up to replace 95% of artists out there and leaving only art directors to oversee the work?

AI doesn't have intuitive capacity AI can't create something that doesn't exist in its data in someway or another, also on the content level you might think AI can actually replace artist and programmers but on the structure level unless AI can literal do what 100% what we can do, it can't really replace, ai will effect indeed the lowest level artist and programmers but that should never happen to you if you are serious about your career  and read tons of books and took courses and had tons of knowledge and practice, what everyone is doing is trying to take shortcuts and AI is praying on that too 

i just wanna add more point here the complexity of the environment artist job or a technical artist is not gonna be automated by AI anytime soon because it requires either the singularity (AI can do what humans can do basically AGI ) or insane data set that could cost literally billions of dollars, what used to be hard now much easier before even AI but now you need to know how to be efferent, you need to have the project well managed and you need optimization so you can actually be valuable in the market place

so yeah that is another blind spot in artist that they can't see how complex an environment artist job actually or how much code there is in a game like lets say skyrim, and they only focus on very narrow thing like aesthetics, where as they maybe need to understand game designer more to make art that suits that or maybe they need to understand a bit of the code so they can make art that fit the game better

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Realistically AI will only replace low-level artists

even before AI i didn't really see a future to so many artist in the industry, because the industry requires a high level specialized skill set that takes sometime to build, and many artist dont understand that drawing is only maybe 10%-5% or maybe 20% if you are concept artist, you need communication skills and some networking, design skills computer skills, 3d skills , game engine skills, or maybe understanding how you fit in your pipeline then companies will pick you up

but like most artist just draw and not even design and expect to have a job even if you wanna sell your drawing you need much much more than merely drawing so that is what most artist is blinded off

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. you could see so many studios that did lots of lay-offs.

we are going throw a global resection, that is probably the main reason why
 

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I've spend many years gain mastery in my art and create a career out of it and the last year was the shitiest year in terms of aboubdance of projects. you could see so many studios that did lots of lay-offs.

i see that all around me and in my life too and i dont think its AI fault lol

Edited April 5 by Ash55

[TheSelf]

55 minutes ago, Ash55 said:

we are going throw a global resection, that is probably the main reason why
 

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I've spend many years gain mastery in my art and create a career out of it and the last year was the shitiest year in terms of aboubdance of projects. you could see so many studios that did lots of lay-offs.

i see that all around me and in my life too and i dont think its AI fault lol

I'm aware of that, but you can't say it has nothing to do with the rise of AI.

[Ash55]

16 minutes ago, TheSelf said:

I'm aware of that, but you can't say it has nothing to do with the rise of AI.

AI will definitely have an impact, but i think the much grater cause the economy , am in touch with so many professional in my field, most of them think ai is a joke now dont get me wrong ai can be use in many things  and can effect many jobs but having a solid career i dont think you will be effected on the long term, also ai been banned by steam and may companies decided to train their own version  instead of using what is on the market before they jump in, in other job people are using it as a complementary tool like in my case i use it to push my art or write some code, but the over all point am making the sheer complicity of our jobs cant actually be done by current ai
here is a cactus system i made : there is few sub networks too

dont forget that AI companies have a great incentive to market that their tool is much better than it is, and people might buy on that for the short term billions of dollars on the line "and getting real data from jobs wont be as easy or accurate in the first period too i assume" so we need to  ,  also AI saves me tons of time already with programming and automation it was net positive for me mostly

i really hope future artist and designer focus on them self work really hard on their skills instead of worrying about AI

[Leo Gura]

3 hours ago, TheSelf said:

@Leo Gura Are you aware of the reasons why studios begin to shrink down one by one from the past year and continue?

Isn't a big part of it related to AI?

I've spoken to some other veteran artists and all of them confirmed that they're receiving much much less job offers,

That's not related to AI. Game studios are always doing layoffs and closures. Then they reform and rehire. That's just the nature of the industry. There are cycles.

Lays lately have probably been from the marker crash and the end of 0% interest rates on capital. Capital is much tighter now so every company is tightening its velt.

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thou you are right that AI doesn't have enough raw data to train with in public, but giant corporations like Ubisoft, EA, Sony etc can easily provide game asset data's from their own past productions to train their own AI with.

No game company has enough data to train the kind of AI that would make game artists obsolete.

What these large companies will do is create narrow, specialized AI tools. Like there could be tool that generates texture for you to use on the models. Or a tool that helps with certain repetitive animation tasks, etc.

Companies who get too lazy and try to rely too much on AI to make games will end up making bad games, like Starfield, and soon go out of business. Games live off uniqueness and creativity, not cookie-cutter stuff.

Edited April 5 by Leo Gura

[Basman]

11 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

AI is extremely limited in making usable game art. And the AI companies will simply not have enough raw data to make powerful enough AI for that for a long time.

AI is not magic. It's only as good as the training data. And game training data is very limited. It's not like text, stock photographs, or stock videos.

Game artists will have work for a long time to come. But, yes, you will need to incorporate some AI tools in your workflow.

What are your thoughts relative to 2D art and illustration as a career relative to AI?

[Leo Gura]

56 minutes ago, Basman said:

What are your thoughts relative to 2D art and illustration as a career relative to AI?

It's hard to say. I have a lot of experience using AI to make game art, and what I found is that it's so limited I still needed to hire concept artists. There is no way an AI can replace a good concept artist at this point. But who knows how it will be in 10 years.

I suspect that there isn't enough data in the world to make seriously creative art AIs. It will take a lot of time to create that data. And until then AI art will be very basic and derivative.

Edited April 5 by Leo Gura

[TheSelf]

@Leo Gura are you still in the video game industry? Do you make your own games?

[Leo Gura]

15 minutes ago, TheSelf said:

@Leo Gura are you still in the video game industry? Do you make your own games?

I dabble in it. I make prototypes.

Edited April 5 by Leo Gura