Considering Freepik

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I've been playing around with AI images for a while, mostly in DALL-E, but more recently using Freepik's AI. I've been experimenting with the stock images available in FreePik and the various transforms you can do.

As a result, I am considering taking a Premium subscription to FreePik and using it to create a complete set of graphic images for Aurora, including ships, stations, races, flags, etc, plus probably the main toolbar buttons and maybe even pictures for commanders, although the last one is tricky given the potential variety in race customisation and number of commanders, so maybe it would be above a certain rank, or for player-selected commanders, etc.

For the ships and stations, it is possible to have them with and without backgrounds, allowing more interesting race hull pictures including the ship and a background, but displaying only the ship itself as an icon on the map. I am sure there would be lot of other options once I got used to it.

All the images, either generated or downloaded, come with a licence.

So, before I embark on what is likely to be a time-consuming exercise, I am interested to hear opinions on FreePik, the value of the credits you get, any pitfalls I should be aware of, etc., plus any thoughts on the graphics ideas mentioned above.

[Louella]

That would be interesting.

My thought would be that AI has a tendency towards looking kind of generic, unless given particularly distinct instructions, so maybe something that needs a bit of experimentation. You might get some interesting pictures if you give the AI more instructions. Like, instead of "futuristic" or "military", try more outlandish things like "baroque space station", "gothic alien space ship" and so on. Something to play about with.

I'm not sure about commander pictures, because one of the other things with AI generated art, is consistency and reproducibility. Like, for commanders you'd maybe want a couple hundred portraits. For each species and theme combination. And I think it'd be difficult to get a sufficient amount of pictures with a consistent look to them.

[nuclearslurpee]

Personally, I wouldn't use it, as I tend to either acquire, make, or reuse graphical assets specific to my campaign settings, plus I never like the look of AI art anyways. That said, this sounds nice for players who don't put that much work into their roleplay settings as the current set of images can be hit or miss.

[Panopticon]

In general I feel like AI generated stuff is morally bankrupt and contributing to the destruction of the environment. OTOH, so is the entire tech infrastructure and you wouldn't be using it for profit so go for it.

I do have a knee-jerk "Who needs pretty pictures" response, but I assume that is because I am old now. I am not sure if the improvements, such as they are, from using it would be worth the time you spend figuring it out, but you are the only judge of that of course.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

That would be interesting.

My thought would be that AI has a tendency towards looking kind of generic, unless given particularly distinct instructions, so maybe something that needs a bit of experimentation. You might get some interesting pictures if you give the AI more instructions. Like, instead of "futuristic" or "military", try more outlandish things like "baroque space station", "gothic alien space ship" and so on. Something to play about with.

I'm not sure about commander pictures, because one of the other things with AI generated art, is consistency and reproducibility. Like, for commanders you'd maybe want a couple hundred portraits. For each species and theme combination. And I think it'd be difficult to get a sufficient amount of pictures with a consistent look to them.

Yes, I thought so too about the AI pictures. However, the benefit of Freepik is access to millions of images generated by other people, with some amazing premium images created by graphic artists - including thousands of existing ship pictures, which are extremely varied - unlike my own initial attempts which all looked rather similar in style. It was this vast library of images that made me consider the potential.

If I decide to go with this idea, I will post some on here - but don't want to do that without the licence.

Agree commanders will be tricky. However, there is a tool that allows a lot of variations on a common theme, so I will play around with that,

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

In general I feel like AI generated stuff is morally bankrupt and contributing to the destruction of the environment. OTOH, so is the entire tech infrastructure and you wouldn't be using it for profit so go for it.

I do have a knee-jerk "Who needs pretty pictures" response, but I assume that is because I am old now. I am not sure if the improvements, such as they are, from using it would be worth the time you spend figuring it out, but you are the only judge of that of course.

AI is here to stay now. I use it for work in a lot of different ways (I am doing some consulting while travelling), whether searching, analysis, getting programming tips, etc., it is very useful as a competent assistant that does a lot of grunt work. It is still wrong sometimes (and confident when wrong, until you point it out and it suddenly pretends it knew that all along).

In terms of graphics, there is still a human element in making it work well. I imagine people who used to do tech drawing were not a fan of computer-aided design, or photographers didn't like photoshop, etc. Technology moves on and its usually the people adopting the technology that benefit. Every time there is new tech, old jobs disappear and new jobs are created.

[Kaiser]

Hi Steve, if I understood correctly, you do not want/cannot use these images to replace the dot on the main map?

If not, do you have any plan to do that? I back with this request once again, replacing fleet dots with standard high quality tiny images would be absolutely cool, missiles as well and maybe planets asteroid and stars.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Hi Steve, if I understood correctly, you do not want/cannot use these images to replace the dot on the main map?

If not, do you have any plan to do that? I back with this request once again, replacing fleet dots with standard high quality tiny images would be absolutely cool, missiles as well and maybe planets asteroid and stars.

I've done it in the past, replacing the dots with NATO standard icons similar to the old harpoon computer games. It's far too crowded, and virtually unreadable, so I went back to dots.

[Louella]

However, the benefit of Freepik is access to millions of images generated by other people, with some amazing premium images created by graphic artists - including thousands of existing ship pictures, which are extremely varied - unlike my own initial attempts which all looked rather similar in style. It was this vast library of images that made me consider the potential.

Ooo, interesting. That should make it quite a bit easier to have distinct variations for ships&stations for many different species and themes.

Agree commanders will be tricky. However, there is a tool that allows a lot of variations on a common theme, so I will play around with that,

That does sound useful.

My thought there is that you'd still need rather a lot of images. Like... for commander portraits, you'd need several dozen so that there'd be low incidences of repeats. And people would probably want several distinct themes for human commanders alone. Plus the question of having different portraits for Navy, Army, Scientist, Administrator characters.

Like... say you want just 100 distinct alien species (compared to the 300 or so ingame currently). And then say 40 character portraits for each species - just 10 for each character type. that's 4000 images, just for a very limited selection. Seems like a thing that could easily balloon to difficult-to-manage proportions.

Another thought that occurs, is that with portraits, then the currently trivial issue with commanders being male/female would need sorted. I can easily ignore when it refers to a female character with the message such as "medical problem forcing him to retire". It's less easy to ignore when portraits don't match.

[Froggiest1982]

I support the idea, especially regarding commander faces. In my opinion, Shadow Empire does an excellent job, even if some people have recently criticized the approach. They feel it’s obvious that content is generated and rightly expect more from corporations or paid games in general.

However, I don’t think you should be concerned about this. After all, it's a free-to-use project, and you’re not doing this full-time. Anything that can enhance Aurora without requiring too much of your time on coding new features and fixing bugs is a positive development.

Off-Topic: show

If I may suggest since you’re exploring this direction, I wonder how feasible it would be to integrate nice features like a random flag generator or any other randomly generated content, with or without AI assistance.

From my perspective, while there may be a steeper learning curve in coding at the beginning, once implemented, you could simply add a folder with AI-generated content, such as hairstyles, eyes, and more. You could start with basic assets, and like other folders, the community could contribute by creating or modifying existing assets. The same applies to the flags.

Ultimately, my only concern is that even if you’re using AI to enhance the existing base models, as others have mentioned, there’s a wealth of content already being released or utilized by many of us. It might be worth your time to explore integrating this content directly into the main folders or partnering with creators to develop something for you, following your guidance and requirements.

[Panopticon]

In general I feel like AI generated stuff is morally bankrupt and contributing to the destruction of the environment. OTOH, so is the entire tech infrastructure and you wouldn't be using it for profit so go for it.

I do have a knee-jerk "Who needs pretty pictures" response, but I assume that is because I am old now. I am not sure if the improvements, such as they are, from using it would be worth the time you spend figuring it out, but you are the only judge of that of course.

AI is here to stay now. I use it for work in a lot of different ways (I am doing some consulting while travelling), whether searching, analysis, getting programming tips, etc., it is very useful as a competent assistant that does a lot of grunt work. It is still wrong sometimes (and confident when wrong, until you point it out and it suddenly pretends it knew that all along).

In terms of graphics, there is still a human element in making it work well. I imagine people who used to do tech drawing were not a fan of computer-aided design, or photographers didn't like photoshop, etc. Technology moves on and its usually the people adopting the technology that benefit. Every time there is new tech, old jobs disappear and new jobs are created.

No arguments there. Using it for something like this is kind of almost an ideal use case, for the various reasons stated already.

[Amos Burton]

Hi Steve, longtime player/lurker, first time poster.

I personally think this would be a terrible idea. AI art actively turns me off of projects that use it. I was critical of the original graphics of Shadow Empire, but somehow the AI portraits made it even worse. I was on the edge about buying Sins of a Solar Empire 2, and what ultimately made me hold off is the awful AI art they threw in everywhere. For me it just feels bad to spend time looking at images that nobody spent the time creating. Just soulless remixes of art that actually was created by human hands with intent. If you went through with this, I would be desperate for an option to restore the original graphics.

But beyond my personal preferences, I also just don't really see the practicality here. I don't think anyone is playing Aurora for the graphics, they're playing it for the amazing simulation and the gameplay that creates. You can already do so much with the existing customization options. I'm curious what benefit you're looking for here beyond going down the AI road for the sake of it.

Of course at the end of the day this is your project that you have blessed us all with, so if working with image generating algorithms is just something that makes you happy then who am I to tell you it's a bad idea. I just personally believe that sometimes less is more, and for me Aurora is already a pretty game to look at.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Hi Steve, longtime player/lurker, first time poster.

I personally think this would be a terrible idea. AI art actively turns me off of projects that use it. I was critical of the original graphics of Shadow Empire, but somehow the AI portraits made it even worse. I was on the edge about buying Sins of a Solar Empire 2, and what ultimately made me hold off is the awful AI art they threw in everywhere. For me it just feels bad to spend time looking at images that nobody spent the time creating. Just soulless remixes of art that actually was created by human hands with intent. If you went through with this, I would be desperate for an option to restore the original graphics.

But beyond my personal preferences, I also just don't really see the practicality here. I don't think anyone is playing Aurora for the graphics, they're playing it for the amazing simulation and the gameplay that creates. You can already do so much with the existing customization options. I'm curious what benefit you're looking for here beyond going down the AI road for the sake of it.

Of course at the end of the day this is your project that you have blessed us all with, so if working with image generating algorithms is just something that makes you happy then who am I to tell you it's a bad idea. I just personally believe that sometimes less is more, and for me Aurora is already a pretty game to look at.

Nothing I add would prevent you using the existing art if that is preferable, or using your own creations. People already create their own art for all the things I am considering changing, plus commander portraits - if added - would be optional.

In terms of benefit (for me personally), I am already using some AI images in my current campaign - some created by me and some free content - so I am looking to improve the quality of images by accessing premium content and transforms.

For example, here is one of the AI images I generated myself using a free AI for ships of a potential Arachnid spoiler race I am considering.



Below are a few quick *low quality* example screenshots of some of the available content I am considering purchasing (there are thousands of them and they can be modified). For these types of images, you can use a better quality image than the picture above on various windows, but I can lift the ship only (removing the background and making it transparent), so you can use it as an icon on the Galactic map. For that matter, I can take a ship and create a completely different background, although that is more expensive in terms of processing cost. Theoretically, I could use the icons for all races on the tactical map, but I am concerned about clutter - maybe an optional popup icon if moused-over. I could also look to create related images, so they can be used a set for different classes.

As this technology progresses, imagination is going to be the limiting factor. For someone like me, who is terrible at graphics, the option to explain to an AI how to create and modify images, is going to be a game-changer. Obviously, its not good for graphic artists who don't want to use AI, but for those who do adopt it, their output is going to massively increase. If I decide to go ahead and pay for content, rather than tinkering as I have done so far, the creator of each image I download will receive a small amount (and from everyone else who uses it too).

[King-Salomon]

I like the pictures

@ commander-pictures:

my dream would be a layer of parts that would create a commander-picture (like a very simplyfied 2D version of Crusader Kings 2 porträts), something like this:

- Uniform/Body (navy/army/admin - male/female - different ranks 1-10 or 1-X)
- faces (male/female - european/african/asian/polynesian etc - different faces - mayyyyyybe even 3 different ages per face)
- Hair (male/female - different hairstyles - different colors)
- Beards
- assessoirs (glases, ziggar...)

the commander picture would be generated with creation of the commander - like Uniformtype f15 - face asianf41-1 - hair f43

- the uniform layer would be updated with promotion
(- face would be updated with age of 40 & 80)

with this a lot of different commander portraits could be automatical disigned - the player could select/copy the Uniform/faces etc he prefers from different folders into a game folder - Steve wouldn't have to create the graphics, this could be done by the community - if Aurora would provide the mechanics for it

no idea if something like this would be doable with a manageable effort but I guess for commander portraits it whould provide the biggest diversity

[paolot]

Maybe I am "art-blind", but these images seem to me all the same.
The second with the fourth, and all the rest together.
Some details try to let them appear different. But I feel in them the same "underlying philosophy", even with their variability.
So, unfortunately, I don't like them (as for the images AI generated that I have seen until now (or, at least, the ones I knew were AI generated)).
If they will be implemented in the game, I hope we could choose to stay with traditional graphics and images.

Off-Topic: show

Off topic, maybe.
Look at these planes:
P-38, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_P-38_Lightning
U-2, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_U-2
F-104, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_F-104_Starfighter
SR-71, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird
They were all designed and drawn by the same person: Kelly Johnson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Johnson_(engineer)).
In my opinion, they prove how strong and adaptable the imagination of humanity can be.
I feel the actual state of AI (and I fear for many years to come still) is far, far away from this, because its development is driven by little or no artistic awareness.