Denied Change the AI Art in the new Lobby with ACTUAL art.

This suggestion has been denied and will not receive development.
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Shaunpai

Shaunpai

Trial Game Master
Trial Game Master
One Year Club Advent 2024 Conversation Starter Advent 2025
Mar 5, 2024
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What does this suggestion change/add/remove:
The portraits in the lobby above the reception are made with AI and generally look terrible. Please replace them with art by real artists.

Has something similar been suggested before? If so, why is your suggestion different?
no.

Possible Positives of the suggestion (At least 2):
- Removes the use of AI Slop in an otherwise fantastic update.
- Gives members of the community a way to contribute to the legacy of CN.

Possible Negatives of the suggestion:
- None.

Based on the Positives & Negatives, why should this suggestion be accepted:

Why in the love of God did we decide to go for AI art instead of asking one of the several talented artists in this community to contribute art for this section of the map?

I believe that this should be done and that the AI art should be completely removed and replaced with ACTUAL paintings made by ACTUAL artists. The fact this even got past testing is a bit of a farce.
 
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"but can you do good artwork?"
Anyways on the real note:

=Fully Neutral: While yes, AI artwork is bad and loses good people for artwork. But those are just portraits? If they were foundation welcoming in non info breach or an foundation propaganda then i would be making this an +support but mad for some portraits which are just for no meaning?
Come on.

So yeah, i was not gonna lie, shocked when i saw those portaits but they have no meaning if someone saw it, they are just portraits which have no meaning execpt that "AI art bad, Human art good".
 
+ support

PLEASE, this community is BASED on artists, the SCP foundation is created by talented writers, roleplay within itself is an art. You don't (usually) roleplay by typing a prompt into a bot. It's human, let's keep it that way.

While they may be just portraits, stairs are just stairs, you step up them, they can't cook you a meal but you still wouldn't want a set of stairs if it was crooked. Or at least you'd be wary of walking up them fast.
Portraits are still something you see, something you look at every time you enter the lobby. Is the first impression you want to give when entering the foundation that of AI? Of cold, mechanised hands? Or something actually made by a community.
 
ResidentSkooter said:
While they may be just portraits, stairs are just stairs, you step up them, they can't cook you a meal but you still wouldn't want a set of stairs if it was crooked. Or at least you'd be wary of walking up them fast.
Portraits are still something you see, something you look at every time you enter the lobby. Is the first impression you want to give when entering the foundation that of AI? Of cold, mechanised hands? Or something actually made by a community.
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Could use HL2 models but we don't care about that right?
 
+ support

I see no argument for the use of AI art anywhere especially when there are stock images free to use online of people sitting. You can also just take screenshots a rando in a suit is not an info breach and as long as the guy has no identifiers with the foundation that's just a dude who runs the place. The portraits could have been a very good way to show of people who work hard to get into SA and climb to roles like Site Director and Site Manager but instead they are slop.
 
Yeah Idk why AI was used when they could have either found an actual image out there like they did for the F3 posters, or even better used the previous paintings from F3 on the portraits in lobby.

Just makes the detail effort feel kinda slop, even considering how long the update actually took. There was enough time to get actual images and not AI generated slop.
 
Have you contacted any of the talented artists to see if they have the time or the desire to want to commission art for this new map update before coming to the forums and asking for content to do it?

Knitpicking this out of one of the larger map updates that we've had in a while looks kinda childish to be honest and shows a lack of appreciation for what has actually been provided to you.
 
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James Dingle said:
Have you contacted any of the talented artists to see if they have the time or the desire to want to commission art for this new map update before coming to the forums and asking for content to do it?

Knitpicking this out of one of the larger map updates that we've had in a while looks kinda childish to be honest and shows a lack of appreciation for what has actually been provided to you.
Click to expand...

Hey Dingle, thanks for your reply.

I have mentioned something like this in the discord earlier and a lot of people, especially some artists in the community expressed their displeasure with the use of AI in this specific section of the map. Furthermore, why does it lie on me, a member of the community, to reach out to the artists within the community, and not the members of the Server Leadership team and beyond?

This isn't nitpicking, because I am not de-valuing entire update over its inclusion, in my post I even refer to it as "fantastic" because it is, the hard work the mapping team has put into it cannot be overstated. I am very glad we finally got the update and my appreciation for the work put in cannot entirely be contextualized into words.

But in a community and roleplay environment that prides itself on creativity, it feels especially disheartening and cheap to use AI in an area where royalty free imagery or commissioned art could have been put up. I take this issue to the content team because it will get the relevant eyes on it to assess and review whether or not this change needs to happen.

I hope my reply better frames my point of view and I open the floor to discuss any solutions that content or SSL/NL might have in this thread.
 
James Dingle said:
Have you contacted any of the talented artists to see if they have the time or the desire to want to commission art for this new map update before coming to the forums and asking for content to do it?

Knitpicking this out of one of the larger map updates that we've had in a while looks kinda childish to be honest and shows a lack of appreciation for what has actually been provided to you.
Click to expand...
1766929109521.png
search "stock image of man in suit sitting" in google, would have been better than using AI in this way on a server built upon peoples creativity
 
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Hi, I would just like to provide some context on this from Network Leadership.

Our mapping devs are artists. Their work takes time and effort. But that does not mean they are a jack of all trades. Illustrative art is not Judge's field of expertise, and will never be unless he chooses to spend the time and effort to develop that skill. As of writing this message, CN does not have an illustrative art developer on the team.

This leaves the mapping devs in a tricky spot, with some difficult decisions to make. They can either commission work from artists (which can be expensive at this scale and incurs cost which would come out of Judges own pocket), leave the map empty, or use tools available to him to create artwork to fill the blank spaces.

I understand that AI use is very contentious at the moment, with its effects on the environment and people's livelihoods an important factor that should not be ignored. I agree with these sentiments and try to cut down on my use of generative AI in my own personal projects. However, that doesn't change the fact that these tools exist and people will use them, regardless of your personal opinion on it. Judge is not you. If Judge wants to use AI, that is his decision to do so. If it significantly impacts the quality of his work Ventz will take notice, but a few decals are not enough for that conversation to be had.

If people who have the skills to perform this work are happy to provide replacement art/decals in the style of what is currently on the map (and are comfortable agreeing with our Terms of Service), I am sure Judge would be more than happy to replace the images in the next version of the map (He is not obligated to do this, the decision to replace the art is with Ventz and Judge).

Regards,
Auburn
 
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Shaunpai said:
Furthermore, why does it lie on me, a member of the community, to reach out to the artists within the community, and not the members of the Server Leadership team and beyond?
Click to expand...
I understand what you're saying here, and you're right it is something that we can and probably should do. My point with this comment was really to stress that it is a community project, and that if there is something that you'd like to see then you or any other collective could also make the effort to reach out to our talented community members and submit these to SL+ for review.
The fact this even got past testing is a bit of a farce.
Click to expand...
But when you use langauge like this, this is where I say that the sense of knitpicking comes from. The amount of effort that goes into mapping, compiling, testing and also re-setting up areas that are impacted by map changes is no small feat and this comes across as dis-regarding that effort because of a few posters that can quite easily be replaced if they are decals.

If some of the talented artists see this post and feel inspired to create something, that is amazing and once again re-enforces the sense of community and creativity that CN has.
 
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Auburn said:
Hi, I would just like to provide some context on this from Network Leadership.

Our mapping devs are artists. Their work takes time and effort. But that does not mean they are a jack of all trades. Illustrative art is not Judge's field of expertise, and will never be unless he chooses to spend the time and effort to develop that skill. As of writing this message, CN does not have an illustrative art developer on the team.

This leaves the mapping devs in a tricky spot, with some difficult decisions to make. They can either commission work from artists (which can be expensive at this scale and incurs cost which would come out of Judges own pocket), leave the map empty, or use tools available to him to create artwork to fill the blank spaces.

I understand that AI use is very contentious at the moment, with its effects on the environment and people's livelihoods an important factor that should not be ignored. I agree with these sentiments and try to cut down on my use of generative AI in my own personal projects. However, that doesn't change the fact that these tools exist and people will use them, regardless of your personal opinion on it. Judge is not you. If Judge wants to use AI, that is his decision to do so. If it significantly impacts the quality of his work Ventz will take notice, but a few decals are not enough for that conversation to be had.

If people who have the skills to perform this work are happy to provide replacement art/decals in the style of what is currently on the map (and are comfortable agreeing with our Terms of Service), I am sure Judge would be more than happy to replace the images in the next version of the map.

Regards,
Auburn
Click to expand...
Hello Auburn, thanks for you reply.

You really framed this in a way that made it easier for me and hopefully the rest of the community to understand why this decision was made. While I do not necessarily agree with the route Judge end up choosing in regards to these paintings, I do understand why he used Generative AI for them as you mentioned that CN does not have an illustrator on the team currently.

I do think the best way to approach this is to petition the community to submit art to be featured on the map (granted they agree with the TOS). It allows the players to have a hand in making a piece of CN's legacy, CN gets to keep the art and a backlog of pieces in their reserve for future endeavours, and it addresses the concerns with the use of AI art on the map.

I would personally go out of my way to commission the art to replace the portraits but as you had mentioned, that gets expensive with scale and ends up eating into my own finances as well.
 
James Dingle said:
I understand what you're saying here, and you're right it is something that we can and probably should do. My point with this comment was really to stress that it is a community project, and that if there is something that you'd like to see then you or any other collective could also make the effort to reach out to our talented community members and submit these to SL+ for review.

But when you use langauge like this, this is where I say that the sense of knitpicking comes from. The amount of effort that goes into mapping, compiling, testing and also re-setting up areas that are impacted by map changes is no small feat and this comes across as dis-regarding that effort because of a few posters that can quite easily be replaced if they are decals.

If some of the talented artists see this post and feel inspired to create something, that is amazing and once again re-enforces the sense of community and creativity that CN has.
Click to expand...

Some points:

1. If it remains on me to make the effort to rally the community then I would not object to doing so provided that the message this is happening would be amplified.
2. They are not decals (at least not upon first inspection), they are physically modeled and textured into the map.
 
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