First debate of 2025 - AI image or not ?

[DustBunny]

I fall vaguely on the yes side and play around with AI on and off.
However, I also know that 'discussions' about the subject can get very nasty very quickly, so I can see the need to try and walk a tightrope here.

Anyways....

I like what you put out Joël in regards to the prompt being put in as well, and I'm mostly in agreement.

The tricky part is that may be okay for basic 'press the button' AI programs from things like Bing, ChatGPT, Midjourney and so on, where there is a basic prompt, maybe the generation seed and not much else. I'll cover this in your next point.

But definitely don't accept the rubbish level stuff flooding everywhere these days. If I have to see "AI anime girl #94743" again when looking for a pose control net tutorial......

But there's another thing I'd really like to add, and it's about the glossy sheen of AI artwork. The lighting is so off that it draws me out of the image and it's so clearly AI because of how glossy it is. If there's any way to fix that, it would be really appreciated. Same with stuff like the clothes blending into themselves and buildings in background images too.

There is. Same with all the faces being clones, standard poses, different lighting sources, focal lengths, and so on. But these are not the 'press a button' things and require a lot of fiddling with to make work. And even then getting the machine to understand what you want can be frustratingly hard (No you box of junk! I want RIM lighting, not Back lighting! No! Not God rays...arrrgrhhh!)

So the 'prompt' can quickly turn into a paragraph or two. The throw in a list of control nets, loras, lightboxes, VAE encoders, and other plugins which were used and the list it gets even bigger. And that's not including taking the output, tweak features in photoshop, feeding it back in... so what comes out the end may barely resemble the original prompt, and now you no longer have a prompt but a multi-page work through.

At what point does it go from 'AI made' to 'AI with human transformation' to 'Human with AI assistance'?

[Speedwagon]

I fall vaguely on the yes side and play around with AI on and off.
However, I also know that 'discussions' about the subject can get very nasty very quickly, so I can see the need to try and walk a tightrope here.

These threads can indeed get quite nasty, so I'm appreciative that so far things have been handled in a civil manner.

I like what you put out Joël in regards to the prompt being put in as well, and I'm mostly in agreement.

But there's another thing I'd really like to add, and it's about the glossy sheen of AI artwork. The lighting is so off that it draws me out of the image and it's so clearly AI because of how glossy it is. If there's any way to fix that, it would be really appreciated. Same with stuff like the clothes blending into themselves and buildings in background images too.

There is. Same with all the faces being clones, standard poses, different lighting sources, focal lengths, and so on. But these are not the 'press a button' things and require a lot of fiddling with to make work. And even then getting the machine to understand what you want can be frustratingly hard (No you box of junk! I want RIM lighting, not Back lighting! No! Not God rays...arrrgrhhh!)

So the 'prompt' can quickly turn into a paragraph or two. The throw in a list of control nets, loras, lightboxes, VAE encoders, and other plugins which were used and the list it gets even bigger. And that's not including taking the output, tweak features in photoshop, feeding it back in... so what comes out the end may barely resemble the original prompt, and now you no longer have a prompt but a multi-page work through.

At what point does it go from 'AI made' to 'AI with human transformation' to 'Human with AI assistance'?

That's a good point, but I would encourage that level of effort if people are going to use AI. I find that level of prompt-engineering to be acceptable and worth the effort if it results in far more "good quality" (subjective as it may be) artwork than basic five-to-eight word slop.

[DustBunny]

These threads can indeed get quite nasty, so I'm appreciative that so far things have been handled in a civil manner.

Something else I appreciaite about FOS.

...but I would encourage that level of effort if people are going to use AI. I find that level of prompt-engineering to be acceptable and worth the effort if it results in far more "good quality" (subjective as it may be) artwork than basic five-to-eight word slop.

Over 9000 agree points to SpeedWagonDore

If it's AI generated, say it is, maybe watermark it as such. If it was AI and you tweaked it, say so.
People can and will pick it up, people will criticise (for better or worse). But if you get caught lying ...well... lets not go there.
So put your (and computers) best foot forward if you post/use it and not just 'Spooky <generic image> of <vampire/werewolf> at <time of day>'.

If someone thinks it is actually good, they will want to know how you did it, so include the base prompt (ethier in text or the image exif).
They can then take it apart and see how it was done. Maybe experiment with it. Learn what those fancy words like 'volumetic', 'cowboy shot', 'f8', 'Leica M10' are/do.

I learnt far far more about practical cinematic/photographic/graphical terminolgy by examining good prompts and tinkering and seeing what different 'effects' did to exactly the same scene and how much a simple thing like shifting a light source slightly to one side can completely change the tone of an image. I'm not any sort of artist/filmographer/photographer by any measure -- give me a box of crayons and a camera, the news report next day would be 'death by unusual circumstances. Authorities baffled.' -- but's it's interesting to see what/why/how things are done and then observe those in more traditional art styles.

I dont like the 'flood of Slop' either, but AI generators are here. The best that can be done is to show people how go beyond that with worked examples, and bap them on the nose with a newspaper if they don't.

[brothersale]

Additionally, I know that DeviantArt was brought up already, but I have to also say some very positive things about ArtStation (https://www.artstation.com/). If there's any video game or concept art from a film or book or whatever that you thought fits Ravenloft, you can use ArtStation to find those and plug them into your games. In my case, I go find concept art or level design from developers on Art Station of games that I think fit Ravenloft. I need pics for Pharazia? Good thing all the concept art, game art, level design, environmental assets and more for Assassin's Creed: Mirage came out not too long ago, so I can just take those JPEGs and port them over to Roll20 and voila! Or put them in my "Campaign Relevant Images" channel on my Ravenloft player/party Discord server, easy peasy. Other sites that do very similarly to ArtStation would be CreativeUncut (https://www.creativeuncut.com/) FZDSchool (https://fzdschool.com/galleries), and probably more.

I don't know that's potentially worse if you use them in articals, as that would be straight up using the art in a manner not intended by the artist (and without payment) and some of those DeviantArt people get very agressive over that. i've seen them over react on another board (where the artist was even credited) and launch a full on flame war, threatening legal action because the build using their art did not match their vision of the character. And using art lifted from games that seem to be equal murky given the current status of the gaming industry in terms of needing money, it seems unwise to poke the bear, so i would only recomend them for personal stuff and not for articals

[Speedwagon]

Additionally, I know that DeviantArt was brought up already, but I have to also say some very positive things about ArtStation (https://www.artstation.com/). If there's any video game or concept art from a film or book or whatever that you thought fits Ravenloft, you can use ArtStation to find those and plug them into your games. In my case, I go find concept art or level design from developers on Art Station of games that I think fit Ravenloft. I need pics for Pharazia? Good thing all the concept art, game art, level design, environmental assets and more for Assassin's Creed: Mirage came out not too long ago, so I can just take those JPEGs and port them over to Roll20 and voila! Or put them in my "Campaign Relevant Images" channel on my Ravenloft player/party Discord server, easy peasy. Other sites that do very similarly to ArtStation would be CreativeUncut (https://www.creativeuncut.com/) FZDSchool (https://fzdschool.com/galleries), and probably more.

I don't know that's potentially worse if you use them in articals, as that would be straight up using the art in a manner not intended by the artist (and without payment) and some of those DeviantArt people get very agressive over that. i've seen them over react on another board (where the artist was even credited) and launch a full on flame war, threatening legal action because the build using their art did not match their vision of the character. And using art lifted from games that seem to be equal murky given the current status of the gaming industry in terms of needing money, it seems unwise to poke the bear, so i would only recomend them for personal stuff and not for articals

Ah, yeah. That's a good point, that I failed to consider since I'm used to using those sorts of resources for my own personal games (and I do make sure to credit the artist---both for the sake of general giving credit where it is due, and so my PCs and I can find their work/portfolios much more easily than doing something like reverse Google Image searching or scouring the web for something similar to it). Though I do think that those resources can still be of use, in terms of being venues to reach out to artists whose portfolios might be interesting and asking for permission to use art for certain stuff (not even commissioning them as much as approaching them on their portfolio pages). But I wouldn't want to jeopardize the FoS with legal action----in QtR 31, my cowriter (Ian Fordam) and I agreed to create our own map of the Shadowlands via mapping software like Wonderdraft. We did this precisely because, while we appreciated using a photoshop-annotated version of GonzoRon's own annotated map of the Shadowlands (itself based on the maps found within 3e's Ravenloft Campaign Setting Sourcebook and Ravenloft Dungeon Master's Guide), we didn't want to risk any potential legal action by WotC and/or White Wolf/Arthaus since those maps were theirs.

Is it not possible or just not feasible for the FoS to contact prior artists that they worked with? There's all the people with their work showcased at the FoS Portrait Hall, like Nicholas Burke/The Undead Cabbage and Eleanor Ferron/Isabella. Were they contracted/commissioned financially for their work or did they volunteer for the art process? Is there still contact with them? I have no idea how the actual process of creating stuff like the Paridon Survey or the Nocturnal Sea Survey went, so forgive me if my questions are un-insightful or misguided. And if one reaches out and they don't feel like participating in another art commission, then that's totally fine---I don't want to sound like I'm advocating for forcing anyone to do anything they don't want to.

There's also the Balcony section of the FoS website that might be useful. It has all manner of useful tidbits under the "Historic" section. There's even three links for art, including Talon Dunning! (EDIT: I tried the other two and they seem to be suffering from link-rot :/. Actually, I've learned the best way to actually get mileage out of the Balcony and avoid link-rot is to put the Balcony's URL into the Wayback Machine and then proceed from there).

[Speedwagon]

Over 9000 agree points to SpeedWagonDore

Thanks! I always appreciate internet points and internet cookies

If it's AI generated, say it is, maybe watermark it as such. If it was AI and you tweaked it, say so.
People can and will pick it up, people will criticise (for better or worse). But if you get caught lying ...well... lets not go there.
So put your (and computers) best foot forward if you post/use it and not just 'Spooky <generic image> of <vampire/werewolf> at <time of day>'.

If someone thinks it is actually good, they will want to know how you did it, so include the base prompt (ethier in text or the image exif).
They can then take it apart and see how it was done. Maybe experiment with it. Learn what those fancy words like 'volumetic', 'cowboy shot', 'f8', 'Leica M10' are/do.

I learnt far far more about practical cinematic/photographic/graphical terminolgy by examining good prompts and tinkering and seeing what different 'effects' did to exactly the same scene and how much a simple thing like shifting a light source slightly to one side can completely change the tone of an image. I'm not any sort of artist/filmographer/photographer by any measure -- give me a box of crayons and a camera, the news report next day would be 'death by unusual circumstances. Authorities baffled.' -- but's it's interesting to see what/why/how things are done and then observe those in more traditional art styles.

I dont like the 'flood of Slop' either, but AI generators are here. The best that can be done is to show people how go beyond that with worked examples, and bap them on the nose with a newspaper if they don't.

Yeah, I agree with the idea of watermarking and generally engaging in "full disclosure" with disclaimers and what not. And I had no idea about the learning of all of that graphical terminology. Stuff like that, with the full use of those terms and manipulating of the photo, is the sort of stuff that I *do* find really interesting and noteworthy, and something that I'd like to learn how to do on my own (even if I dislike AI art for the reasons that I've said before and echo the sentiments of the other "nays" within the thread).

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

As usual, I'm of two (or more) minds on this.

I look back on a lot of what I did for my own campaign, via using existing art, or photoshopping existing art, and I'm sure the artists involved would absolutely hate it. I didn't ask them, I didn't pay them, and if it was just for purposes of showing my players in-game, that's one thing, but then I went and put up campaign journals for all to read, and didn't want them looking like walls of text, so I put the pics there too. I didn't make a dime on it (and in fact, it costs me money to keep my site up, as it does for us here at the FoS), but I know it's not strictly 100% legal. I tried to credit the artists wherever possible, and noted how exactly I butchered all their hard work to suit my purposes. But still... am I any different than the "AI artist" that scrapes the web for what it cobbles together?

I have massive respect for artists. I wish I could do what they do, and they deserve to be paid for it. When I paid Talon Dunning to draw my PC party, I felt honored and lucky to be able to do so. But there's no way I could do that for every NPC in my game. There's definitely a line between inspiration and plagiarism, but I'm not sure where it is. An AI takes bits and pieces from everything it's seen and melds together something that fits the prompt. But so does a professional artist, no? It only seems to be a problem when the bits and pieces are large enough to be recognized, but not large enough to be an obvious homage. (See the controversy around the "Trouble in Pairs" Magic card, for example. But then they're about to release this: )

And then there's the inevitability aspect. The genie is out of the bottle and isn't going away. And it's only going to get harder and harder to spot. The extra fingers and such aren't going to be in the next generation of these bots.

And there's the idea of "What exactly is the point of what we're doing here?" We make QTR, for free, for the purpose of inspiring people who want to play a game that we love. We're deliberately taking bits and pieces of the setting material, written by human writers who likewise deserve to be paid for their work. Is what we do on our best day any different from asking ChatGPT, "Write me a D&D adventure where Vlad Drakov invades Dementlieu to re-capture escaped slaves. Mood should evoke the horror of war." ? Is the difference the effort involved? Is the AI the creator or a tool?

I don't have any great answers, just rambling and musing....

[alhoon]

Again, a looot of "traditional, pencil and paper" artists were making the exact same complains about photoshop and digital art.

[Mephisto of the FoS]

Also I have to object to the idea of "real artist", people have debated here about AI stealing the art of real people etc. or talk about traditional drawing and painting. Art nowadays is not just drawing and painting and definitely it doesn't have to be the artist's own drawing and painting. What is important nowadays is the idea of something that makes it art. For example Jeff Koons one of the most popular American artists produces his work using a method known as art fabrication. Until 2019, Koons had a 1,500 m2 (16,000 sq ft) studio factory near the old Hudson rail yards in Chelsea employing 90 to 120 assistants to produce his work. The only difference between this and an AI is that these artists are getting payed (though it is more like labour work than creativity) for producing an idea by Koons, which is then being sold by an extraordinary amount of money while the AI produces something for free vaguely based on an idea someone has (using a large data base of images uploaded on the internet), what can be viewed as unethical in my opinion is if someone sells that AI produced work. As far as copyright is concerned I never heard of anyone complaining about instagram owning copyright license for anything posted on that platform.

[Jeremy16]

Again, a looot of "traditional, pencil and paper" artists were making the exact same complains about photoshop and digital art.

Just because people said it a long time ago doesn't make it not true. Look where it led us - right to the same dang debate from 20-30 years ago! In the end, digital art or photoshopped images are still created by people. AI art is not.

In my opinion, AI art is not created at all because to create something you have to have creativity. The bots that respond to the prompts are just running thru a pre-set program. There is absolutely no creativity involved there. Rather, I would say AI is manufactured. And that seems utterly antithetical to real art.

[alhoon]

May so, but creating those AI bots takes creativity. Good prompts take creativity. Having an idea about something and being unable to draw it, takes creativity. You just don't have the skill/talent to put it to image. Check Mephisto's example about the Artist that pays 120 assistants to turn his idea and vision to something that then sells as art.

And allow me to go to the "Invisible art" thing: https://www.newsweek.com/italian-artist ... 00-1596608

If someone saying "here is a statue that you cannot see or touch" and sell it for 18,000$ and then a few years later sell a similar invisible, intangible (i.e. non-existing) art object for another absurd amount of money is art or creativity... then Creating an AI bot or the prompts that bot uses is more artful.

[Speedwagon]

And there's the idea of "What exactly is the point of what we're doing here?" We make QTR, for free, for the purpose of inspiring people who want to play a game that we love. We're deliberately taking bits and pieces of the setting material, written by human writers who likewise deserve to be paid for their work. Is what we do on our best day any different from asking ChatGPT, "Write me a D&D adventure where Vlad Drakov invades Dementlieu to re-capture escaped slaves. Mood should evoke the horror of war." ? Is the difference the effort involved? Is the AI the creator or a tool?

I don't have any great answers, just rambling and musing....

To give my own answer to those questions you asked at the bottom, I would say that the difference is indeed in the effort involved. I would 100% take a FoS adventure or something on DMsGuild (or even from subreddits like r/DnDBehindTheScreen) than something that was written by ChatGPT with no editing. Of course, that last part is the caveat---I'm sure you can bounce some ideas off an LLM to get inspiration and even make a general rough outline of things, but all the cool and fun bits of writing an adventure, as a DM, tend to be letting your own creativity shine through, as opposed to outsourcing the work to the LLM. So Ai is the tool, and never the creator to me. And even then, it's a tool that gives "eh" returns unless there's a lot of effort involved in prompt-engineering, as I discussed with DustBunny above. And even then, there's still something about AI that makes me feel that it's a whole different ballpark than prior technological advancements and discussions of "democratization of art". I'm aware that art used to be a highly gatekept realm, with wealthy patrons financing certain artists and then that changed. And then photography came around and there was a crisis. But this holds a different feel to me.

[Teravala]

I think the important thing when using AI generated images is honesty and transparency. Personally, I have less of an ethical issue with it than others in this discussion seem to, which is fine. You're entitled to a difference of perspective and opinion than me, when respectfully maintained of course. That said, art is subjective, and the medium of art can only be dictated by the artist, not the critical observer. If compiling images into a collage, or a photo mosaic can be considered art, then so can wielding the power of language, subtlety, and technology to create something. You can say that AI is trained off of artists images, but who isn't? Artists hone their skills from practice of course, but they also are studying, emulating, and often straight up copying the work of others. The AI just does it to a degree and at speeds a human never could. As an aside, I also find the notion that AI image generation, and those who utilize it, are not "real" art or artists to be close minded, defensive thinking at best, if not a straw man argument. Modern art revolves around concept, not whether you physically made something with your own two hands, as I think was already mentioned by others in this discourse.

[Isolde]

I would suggest no. But it can be useful as a previewer you can mix some genres and aesthetics and see how it would in general be.

AI is a fine tool but should be used for quantitative issues.
Qualitative issues should be done by humans.

If its an AI image, just state its made from an AI.

[Agne]

You bring up some really important points about the ethical concerns surrounding AI, especially in relation to artists. The lack of permission for using content to train AI is a serious issue. It’s frustrating to see how companies and individuals can exploit artists’ work without proper compensation or respect. It's disheartening to hear about situations where AI is used to mimic an artist's style and undercut their livelihood, especially when AI is being marketed as a cheaper alternative to human creativity.

The example you shared of the artist being pressured to lower their prices because of cheaper AI-generated work is particularly troubling. It reflects a growing issue where the value of human-created art is being undermined, even though creating original artwork takes years of dedication and skill.

As for the argument over what constitutes “art,” it’s frustrating when people don’t understand the difference between human creativity and something produced by an algorithm. The comparison to using a pencil misses the mark entirely. The artist is still the one making decisions and choices throughout the process, while AI relies on data and patterns that it has been trained on.

It’s clear that the challenges for artists are only going to increase as AI continues to evolve. At the same time, I think it's important for artists to continue advocating for their rights and pushing for more regulations that protect their work. Technology can be a tool, but it shouldn't replace the value of human creativity.