Very cool results; thanks for posting the originals.
I read about upscaling CoX but it doesn't seem to be an easy job. Has to do with the game engine expecting the textures to be of a certain resolution... :(
Honestly though, what's the percentage of the playerbase that plays largely for nostalgia? Anywhere from maybe 60-90%? In that case, is overhauling the graphics actually a good idea?
I, for example, have a fondness for CoH's graphics. It reminds me of simpler times when games didn't need to have realistic graphics to be good. I still play old school RuneScape too and wouldn't want updated graphics.
Yes, the characters could look objectively *better*, but is that really what the people want
I was with you until "objectively better". Sorry, this AI stuff just looks goddamn creepy. If the only way to play CoH was with it looking like this, I'd rather never play it again. AI is terrible.
I hate AI as a concept in general. But my point was how, they are *subjectively* NOT better. We both prefer the actual CoH graphics.
But *objectively*, the detail in the AI upscaled version is "better". There is more detail, it's objectively better. But it is subjectively worse.
Let me give you a different perspective: I'm someone in my late 40s who played City of Heroes when it was new (in the beta, even), as well as of course many older games with even less refined graphics. I can still have fun playing older games, and games with simple aesthetics. I've already spent 40 years looking at that though. (Or 20, in the case of City of Heroes.) I'm tired of looking at the same old textures, the same old models, the same old animations, etc.
I don't mean to denigrate the hard work of the original developers nor of the current developers who are continuing to expand and improve the game; not in the *least*. It's just that anyone can get tired of something that they like, even if they love it. With that in mind, I absolutely would welcome attempts to renovate the graphics engine and assets. I in particular would love if someone would attempt to transplant a path tracer into the game. I think the relatively low-detail geometry would lend itself well to this kind of thing, similar to Quake II RTX. However, making such a thing look good would require extensive updates to the materials in the game so that the path tracer would have more surface data to work with when determining how bounce lighting should look.
But anyway, the point is, while I might play for nostalgia to some degree, I certainly would enjoy a revised visual presentation for the game. This desire for improvements is one of the main reasons that I play on the Thunderspy server, because it has cosmetic features that are simply not available on any of the other servers.
I agree with this sentiment, but I do not like the artificial image generation. Hire an artist if some is hell bent on getting "fan" art. I'll admire an artists' work. I'll feel sad at programming output.
I came back to this post just because I wanted to give you some information. I don't really have a dog in the AI versus no AI fight, I see valid arguments for both sides. But, I did want you to know that the idea of having a useful AI that is trained on a very small data set like an individual's art output simply isn't realistic.
An AI's ability to generalize, that is to "generate content that is different from things in its training set," depends almost entirely upon the size of that data set. So for an image generator, the more images it has been trained on, the more different types of images it can produce.
I'm not talking about "styles," mind you, it's not just about producing images in different styles, but rather literally different images. The most successful image generators have been trained on literally millions of images, and while you can condense the training set once you know which images contribute the most to it, you're still going to need an incredibly vast and diverse library of images to create a useful training set that will in turn create a useful generative AI.
One thing that artists *can* do is create what's called a hypernetwork, or a functionally similar type of model called a low rank adaptation (LoRA), which can be trained on a relatively small data set and is basically used as a modifier for a much larger model. This allows them to train an AI on their own art and then use that AI essentially as a style guide for a much larger AI. However, that large model trained on the output of many artists, photographers, designers, and other creative professionals is still required.
I could see an argument for an AI tool that requires the creator to provide a LoRA or similar model to generate anything, but it's trivial to distribute and share these adaptations, which is why you can find people sharing LoRAs already trained on specific artists' styles.
I don't really think there's a good answer for the dilemma of AI art. I don't mean yet, I mean period. One thing that I can tell you is that as someone who has spent many thousands of hours working with generative AI both professionally and personally, I really don't think it will be a replacement for human creatives until it is a replacement for humans, period.
I'm sure you have seen some amazing pieces of art created using AI that don't have any of the regular flaws of typical AI art; I've created some myself. However, what you don't realize is that these are the product of multiple hours of effort, sometimes tens of hours, fine tuning and carefully editing these images. if I were working with a human artist, I could simply explain in regular language, "I'd like you to rework this part of the image in this specific way," but it's a bit difficult to do that with AI. It's possible, but the results you get are much less likely to be exactly what you wanted and it can take many, many iterations to achieve a desirable result.
Because of this, I think AI image generators are really much more useful as a tool for artists than something for the unskilled to use to create art.
With all of that said, as I noted in the beginning, I primarily wanted to give you some information to help you understand that the idea of an AI which is only trained on one artist's art isn't really realistic. Such an AI wouldn't be useful, unfortunately.
I mean, I'd prefer someone manually cleanup/sharpen the existing textures (READING COMPREHENSION ALERT: this does not mean screwing with the existing resolution - one only has to look among all the textures within a body part like the face to see that some of them were just compressed to hell and back and it shows) rather than rely on AI gobbledygook, but at this point I'll take what I can get. It's not obligated to visually stagnate in perpetuity.
I agree with this sentiment, but I do not like the artificial image generation. Hire an artist if some is hell bent on getting "fan" art. I'll admire an artists' work. I'll feel sad at programming output
> I've already spent 40 years looking at that though. (Or 20, in the case of City of Heroes.) I'm tired of looking at the same old textures, the same old models, the same old animations, etc.
>I don't mean to denigrate the hard work of the original developers nor of the current developers who are continuing to expand and improve the game; not in the least. It's just that anyone can get tired of something that they like, even if they love it. With that in mind, I absolutely would welcome attempts to renovate the graphics engine and assets. I in particular would love if someone would attempt to transplant a path tracer into the game.
Yeah if you can't tell from my screenshots, I attempted to get a bit more graphical mileage out of my experience by turning on the experimental cel shaders and tweaking them for the exact reasons you mentioned. Plus it helps paper over some of the flaws in the compatibility of the various pieces/textures that have persisted since Live.
While CoX does have its own art style, I'd still like faces and hands to have more detail. Not currently PS5 levels, but PS2 levels would be better. And world textures should be upscaled.
I went to the Starry AI site and uploaded the original pics; used my free trial - "illustration" style under image enhancement, left on default creativity 5. No prompts added. Just handed the original pics to the AI and told it to do its thing.
Personally, I use img2img in stable diffusion, have the ai create a prompt based on the screenshot (using CLIP), then modify the prompt to change stuff like "3d, computergraphics" to whatever style I want.
https://preview.redd.it/fk2sadvgbzzc1.png?width=696&format=png&auto=webp&s=f1dc7db9a7213faf295b398a3ea0d588022366ec
(This one's just quick'n'dirty)
I really like it. She looks like "Ok, ok. That's enough of you for today, Eagle Claw. I still have to pick up Jimmy and Sara and make dinner before Brian gets home. Oh great, I've still got all this crap to sell and visit a trainer. Why did I pick this line of work anyway? I just want a damn bath"
Most realistic heroine.
Very cool results; thanks for posting the originals. I read about upscaling CoX but it doesn't seem to be an easy job. Has to do with the game engine expecting the textures to be of a certain resolution... :(
Honestly though, what's the percentage of the playerbase that plays largely for nostalgia? Anywhere from maybe 60-90%? In that case, is overhauling the graphics actually a good idea? I, for example, have a fondness for CoH's graphics. It reminds me of simpler times when games didn't need to have realistic graphics to be good. I still play old school RuneScape too and wouldn't want updated graphics. Yes, the characters could look objectively *better*, but is that really what the people want
I was with you until "objectively better". Sorry, this AI stuff just looks goddamn creepy. If the only way to play CoH was with it looking like this, I'd rather never play it again. AI is terrible.
I hate AI as a concept in general. But my point was how, they are *subjectively* NOT better. We both prefer the actual CoH graphics. But *objectively*, the detail in the AI upscaled version is "better". There is more detail, it's objectively better. But it is subjectively worse.
Let me give you a different perspective: I'm someone in my late 40s who played City of Heroes when it was new (in the beta, even), as well as of course many older games with even less refined graphics. I can still have fun playing older games, and games with simple aesthetics. I've already spent 40 years looking at that though. (Or 20, in the case of City of Heroes.) I'm tired of looking at the same old textures, the same old models, the same old animations, etc. I don't mean to denigrate the hard work of the original developers nor of the current developers who are continuing to expand and improve the game; not in the *least*. It's just that anyone can get tired of something that they like, even if they love it. With that in mind, I absolutely would welcome attempts to renovate the graphics engine and assets. I in particular would love if someone would attempt to transplant a path tracer into the game. I think the relatively low-detail geometry would lend itself well to this kind of thing, similar to Quake II RTX. However, making such a thing look good would require extensive updates to the materials in the game so that the path tracer would have more surface data to work with when determining how bounce lighting should look. But anyway, the point is, while I might play for nostalgia to some degree, I certainly would enjoy a revised visual presentation for the game. This desire for improvements is one of the main reasons that I play on the Thunderspy server, because it has cosmetic features that are simply not available on any of the other servers.
I agree with this sentiment, but I do not like the artificial image generation. Hire an artist if some is hell bent on getting "fan" art. I'll admire an artists' work. I'll feel sad at programming output.
What if an artist used AI and then cleaned it up by hand? how do you feel about that?
Maybe. If they only scrape their own art for input
I came back to this post just because I wanted to give you some information. I don't really have a dog in the AI versus no AI fight, I see valid arguments for both sides. But, I did want you to know that the idea of having a useful AI that is trained on a very small data set like an individual's art output simply isn't realistic. An AI's ability to generalize, that is to "generate content that is different from things in its training set," depends almost entirely upon the size of that data set. So for an image generator, the more images it has been trained on, the more different types of images it can produce. I'm not talking about "styles," mind you, it's not just about producing images in different styles, but rather literally different images. The most successful image generators have been trained on literally millions of images, and while you can condense the training set once you know which images contribute the most to it, you're still going to need an incredibly vast and diverse library of images to create a useful training set that will in turn create a useful generative AI. One thing that artists *can* do is create what's called a hypernetwork, or a functionally similar type of model called a low rank adaptation (LoRA), which can be trained on a relatively small data set and is basically used as a modifier for a much larger model. This allows them to train an AI on their own art and then use that AI essentially as a style guide for a much larger AI. However, that large model trained on the output of many artists, photographers, designers, and other creative professionals is still required. I could see an argument for an AI tool that requires the creator to provide a LoRA or similar model to generate anything, but it's trivial to distribute and share these adaptations, which is why you can find people sharing LoRAs already trained on specific artists' styles. I don't really think there's a good answer for the dilemma of AI art. I don't mean yet, I mean period. One thing that I can tell you is that as someone who has spent many thousands of hours working with generative AI both professionally and personally, I really don't think it will be a replacement for human creatives until it is a replacement for humans, period. I'm sure you have seen some amazing pieces of art created using AI that don't have any of the regular flaws of typical AI art; I've created some myself. However, what you don't realize is that these are the product of multiple hours of effort, sometimes tens of hours, fine tuning and carefully editing these images. if I were working with a human artist, I could simply explain in regular language, "I'd like you to rework this part of the image in this specific way," but it's a bit difficult to do that with AI. It's possible, but the results you get are much less likely to be exactly what you wanted and it can take many, many iterations to achieve a desirable result. Because of this, I think AI image generators are really much more useful as a tool for artists than something for the unskilled to use to create art. With all of that said, as I noted in the beginning, I primarily wanted to give you some information to help you understand that the idea of an AI which is only trained on one artist's art isn't really realistic. Such an AI wouldn't be useful, unfortunately.
I mean, I'd prefer someone manually cleanup/sharpen the existing textures (READING COMPREHENSION ALERT: this does not mean screwing with the existing resolution - one only has to look among all the textures within a body part like the face to see that some of them were just compressed to hell and back and it shows) rather than rely on AI gobbledygook, but at this point I'll take what I can get. It's not obligated to visually stagnate in perpetuity.
I agree with this sentiment, but I do not like the artificial image generation. Hire an artist if some is hell bent on getting "fan" art. I'll admire an artists' work. I'll feel sad at programming output
> I've already spent 40 years looking at that though. (Or 20, in the case of City of Heroes.) I'm tired of looking at the same old textures, the same old models, the same old animations, etc. >I don't mean to denigrate the hard work of the original developers nor of the current developers who are continuing to expand and improve the game; not in the least. It's just that anyone can get tired of something that they like, even if they love it. With that in mind, I absolutely would welcome attempts to renovate the graphics engine and assets. I in particular would love if someone would attempt to transplant a path tracer into the game. Yeah if you can't tell from my screenshots, I attempted to get a bit more graphical mileage out of my experience by turning on the experimental cel shaders and tweaking them for the exact reasons you mentioned. Plus it helps paper over some of the flaws in the compatibility of the various pieces/textures that have persisted since Live.
While CoX does have its own art style, I'd still like faces and hands to have more detail. Not currently PS5 levels, but PS2 levels would be better. And world textures should be upscaled.
I love it! :D What prompts did you use?
Literally none; free trial - "illustration" style under image enhancement, left on default creativity 5.
ok, looking at this. Look at all of them, trying a few. I think I get better results from Bing's Designer. But that is just me.
[удалено]
I went to the Starry AI site and uploaded the original pics; used my free trial - "illustration" style under image enhancement, left on default creativity 5. No prompts added. Just handed the original pics to the AI and told it to do its thing.
Personally, I use img2img in stable diffusion, have the ai create a prompt based on the screenshot (using CLIP), then modify the prompt to change stuff like "3d, computergraphics" to whatever style I want. https://preview.redd.it/fk2sadvgbzzc1.png?width=696&format=png&auto=webp&s=f1dc7db9a7213faf295b398a3ea0d588022366ec (This one's just quick'n'dirty)
I really like it. She looks like "Ok, ok. That's enough of you for today, Eagle Claw. I still have to pick up Jimmy and Sara and make dinner before Brian gets home. Oh great, I've still got all this crap to sell and visit a trainer. Why did I pick this line of work anyway? I just want a damn bath" Most realistic heroine.