Wow. What a great job you did. I mean they are the best AI generated portraits I have seen since a while. The problem with some others was that they were mass generated. Here we can see that you spent some time to make them differ between each other. I can't see the typical "one face" syndrome. My only doubts are:
- Imoen's hair should be more clearly pink/violet, whatever this color in the original is
- Korgan should be more grim. He looks too friendly
- Okay, Anomen and Edwin are little similar. If you could make Anomen's nose little different (for example not so long) it would be perfect.
Are you going to play with the Beamdog NPCs as well? They also stand out. Just saying :-P
Wow. What a great job you did. I mean they are the best AI generated portraits I have seen since a while. The problem with some others was that they were mass generated. Here we can see that you spent some time to make them differ between each other. I can't see the typical "one face" syndrome. My only doubts are:
- Imoen's hair should be more clearly pink/violet, whatever this color in the original is
- Korgan should be more grim. He looks too friendly
- Okay, Anomen and Edwin are little similar. If you could make Anomen's nose little different (for example not so long) it would be perfect.
Are you going to play with the Beamdog NPCs as well? They also stand out. Just saying :-P
I think Imoen's hair could be either way based on her portrait in 2. I went with a lighter color to make her look less like Nalia. The rest I'll think about it. I've been looking at these portraits too much for the past few days so I don't even know what looks right or odd anymore.
As for the Beamdog NPCs, it's a no. As a matter of fact, I won't be releasing any new portraits. I might retouch some of the existing ones but that's going to be it.
The whole AI thing has soured things for me, but maybe it's more like it opened my eyes. I would say something but at this point, I really have no interest in starting the witchhunt game and again putting myself in a position where I might have to explain myself. The same thread about this mod got nuked on the BG subreddit because a bunch of people accused me of posting AI. I guess I did brought it on myself because I was the one that posted it and made a certain claim, so the burden of proof was on me. That's pretty fair.
Although, I didn't change. I didn't reinvent the wheel. I'm doing the exact same thing that I've been doing for all these years.
One of the messages I got was that Minsc's sword was clearly AI. Well, I guess they definitely ran it on Randy Couture 20 years ago to make him hold that crappy sword.
I see how you just straight up called them AI generated. And you weren't trying to be malicious or anything like that, nor do I take it that way, I get it, it's merely descriptive. But it's one of those things that made me realize that this aspect of the world has moved passed me. I still remember back in the day, posting and looking through Deviantart, where the thought of something made by AI didn't even exist. But things really have changed. I can't operate like it's a decade ago.
Anybody can just fire up Stable Diffusion or whatever and get hundreds of images in an hour. Anybody can write prompts. There's no longer prestige in being a 3D technician and rendering, or seamlessly comping an element from one image to another, or stuff like that. Even worse, mistakes and oddities are no longer looked at as quirks, but evidence of AI. That finger is longer than the other, AI. His eye is off by a bit, AI. His armor is not symmetrical, AI.
It's just not fun anymore for an old fart like me. I knew I was heading into murky waters with this kind of content but I really didn't think I was going to get ripped up like that. It's all good though. The world has moved on, and it is what it is. It has been a nice break but I'm definitely done. I'll be back to making my other content.
@Wombat
For the first, avoid reddit. This is the most toxic and brainless society I have experienced in the internet and I am here since many years (I had my time on 4chan/b as well). Just leave those assholes alone there.
For the second, I'm really sorry for assuming that is AI generated. I can imagine that I would also get pieced off when someone would say something like this for the music I compose, but this is how the things look like today.
For the third, but most important: don't stop making portraits. For Christ's sake! They are really good! If you stop, all of you, great portrait makers are the same! You tease people with some great work which is never finished! :-P. There will be the 30th anniversary for BG1 relatively soon. How beautiful would be to make EET a consistent experience - with refreshed UI, new quality content, CONSISTENT portraits etc! I was hoping that you could do also some <charname> potraits afterwards... Doesn't this beautiful game deserve it?
Best are - Minsk, Nalia, Yoshimo.
Worst - Jan,Aerie, Korgan
I wish someone create portraits of BG companions in style from IWD - full body.
With one additional demand, let this be the pose , the posture from the moment when protagonist is meeting a joinabble character for the first time.
@Wombat your work is beautiful. No doubt this is difficult time to be in the arts. And as another said, Reddit is toxic. But I think you’ll find many appreciative viewers here. A lot of gamers appreciate this skillful use of the original style, to get something different.
AI can be a great tool for those of us with no artistic talent! But it can’t compete with actual skill.
More I look at the portraits, more I like them. Previously I have pointed three problems, but actually the only REAL one is that Korgan looking too friendly. It should be written on his face, that he is eager to decapitate you if you are not willing to pay.
@Wombat
For the first, avoid reddit. This is the most toxic and brainless society I have experienced in the internet and I am here since many years (I had my time on 4chan/b as well). Just leave those assholes alone there.
For the second, I'm really sorry for assuming that is AI generated. I can imagine that I would also get pieced off when someone would say something like this for the music I compose, but this is how the things look like today.
For the third, but most important: don't stop making portraits. For Christ's sake! They are really good! If you stop, all of you, great portrait makers are the same! You tease people with some great work which is never finished! :-P. There will be the 30th anniversary for BG1 relatively soon. How beautiful would be to make EET a consistent experience - with refreshed UI, new quality content, CONSISTENT portraits etc! I was hoping that you could do also some <charname> potraits afterwards... Doesn't this beautiful game deserve it?
Well, I don't tease. I only talk about stuff that's either already released or definitely coming. I did put out the whole set. And I think it's fair to say that a full set for all 17 characters is already the extra mile plus more.
I appreciate it but there's really no need to apologize. Like I said, it's just descriptive. And hell, chances are you were probably right. That background image I used in Yoshimo could have been AI, I don't know. The earlier Mazzy iteration had this blade with these interesting engravings. Then later on I found out that it's actually AI, so I ended up just whiting the whole thing out. I mean, many of the elements I comped in could have from AI images. Truthfully, I really don't know anymore, looking back in hindsight.
You mentioned that you do music. I'm sure you've experienced this in some way. Many things can be inspiring. Oh, that's an interesting hook. That's a nice sound. Oh that's clever, why didn't I think of that. It's something that perhaps you might want to sample or incorporate in your own work in the future. And then you find out it's AI. It's a little deflating, isn't it? I mean the sound is still good, it's still the same sound, but it's just not the same as in the past, when you didn't have to even question such a thing. For me, it's a weird feeling, something that I'm still pondering.
@Wombat your work is beautiful. No doubt this is difficult time to be in the arts. And as another said, Reddit is toxic. But I think you’ll find many appreciative viewers here. A lot of gamers appreciate this skillful use of the original style, to get something different.
AI can be a great tool for those of us with no artistic talent! But it can’t compete with actual skill.
Thank you for posting!
Well, AI absolutely can compete. Perhaps compete is not the right word, but it is powerful, extremely so if you know how to use it. I could run AI and easily quadruple my output. Think about it. Under the same amount of time for me to hunt down that one specific picture of the Last Samurai action figure, I could have generated hundreds if not thousands of armored Samurai pictures to choose from, all passively might I add. Looking for pictures is something that takes mental real estate, something that I got to actively do, or at the very least keep an eye out for when I'm just browsing normally.
I could have prompted "give me dude holding sword next to his face", instead of butchering the Randy Couture picture. Notice how Minsc's arm seems pretty short because I literally just shifted his forearm over. It's out of frame enough that you won't notice it, but now that I've pointed it out and you seen the source picture, it's not something you can unsee. With AI these days, it'll get it right most of time. So it's both faster and has a higher potential to produce more workable material, at least in this one instance.
Like I said, I've aged out, at least for this particular thing that I do. Right now, it's a matter of am I going to get with the times and keep up, or be left behind.
If I were to make more content for Baldur's Gate, I would work on areas that get me away from the murky waters, like I'd probably do character sprites instead. I've always liked how Planescape Torment had unique sprites for each companion. That's super cool. Or BG1 style sprites. That's another thing that I thought was a bit of a downgrade in BG2 also.
@Wombat
sorry for me being monothematic, but I really see a rare chance we are missing. With release of new HPS Portraits Project, the original BG2 NPCs portraits feel really off. Your work solves this problem so great - through whole BG1 and BG2 we have one style for playable NPCs and second for the rest. This is an acceptable consensus versus having 1 style for playable BG1 ones, another for playable BG2 ones, another for playable Beamdog ones etc.
I understand your frustration, I understand that my idiot post could even make it bigger. I don't really care of in what proportions AI was involved in your work, intentionally or not. Really, this doesn't matter, because the effect is outstanding. You are so close to be a legend - there are only few beamdog portraits on the way :-P.
Look at the responses on this forum - they are all positive and enthusiastic.
Of course I can't force you if you already made up your mind. I want you just to know that it would be appreciated.
@Wombat yeah I shouldn’t have used the word “Compete”. My wife is also in the arts and I know exactly what AI has done to her work. (As in “out of…”)
And I do my own AI portraits to do things to my own taste. Which I deliberate push *away* from the BG style.
As you say, it can generate decent quality stuff very fast. But it also can be maddening and stupid, and often simply will not do things we might want. All things considered, AI is still in its infancy and it will continue to get better at replicating a range of looks and styles, while growing in its understanding of user inputs. So from a professional art perspective it will rock that world.
On the other hand, it is plain looking at much of your work that YOU have a better understanding of getting a particular look you may want than I do. That is a difference I see between a real artist and AI in the hands of a hack like me.
And BTW, I much preferred the original look of BG1 character sprites. That is a mod I would jump at. As I understand, it is a huge job because of the large number of poses needed to create fluid character movement (and that’s why they weren’t redrawn when the EEs came out). But the key issue was, no two-handed fighting style in BG1, so it was easier to re-use the BG2 sprites.
@Wombat
sorry for me being monothematic, but I really see a rare chance we are missing. With release of new HPS Portraits Project, the original BG2 NPCs portraits feel really off. Your work solves this problem so great - through whole BG1 and BG2 we have one style for playable NPCs and second for the rest. This is an acceptable consensus versus having 1 style for playable BG1 ones, another for playable BG2 ones, another for playable Beamdog ones etc.
I understand your frustration, I understand that my idiot post could even make it bigger. I don't really care of in what proportions AI was involved in your work, intentionally or not. Really, this doesn't matter, because the effect is outstanding. You are so close to be a legend - there are only few beamdog portraits on the way :-P.
Look at the responses on this forum - they are all positive and enthusiastic.
Of course I can't force you if you already made up your mind. I want you just to know that it would be appreciated.
Well, positive responses from two people. It's cool though, don't get me wrong.
I tell you what, I'll think about it. I'll leave the door open.
@Wombat yeah I shouldn’t have used the word “Compete”. My wife is also in the arts and I know exactly what AI has done to her work. (As in “out of…”)
And I do my own AI portraits to do things to my own taste. Which I deliberate push *away* from the BG style.
As you say, it can generate decent quality stuff very fast. But it also can be maddening and stupid, and often simply will not do things we might want. All things considered, AI is still in its infancy and it will continue to get better at replicating a range of looks and styles, while growing in its understanding of user inputs. So from a professional art perspective it will rock that world.
On the other hand, it is plain looking at much of your work that YOU have a better understanding of getting a particular look you may want than I do. That is a difference I see between a real artist and AI in the hands of a hack like me.
And BTW, I much preferred the original look of BG1 character sprites. That is a mod I would jump at. As I understand, it is a huge job because of the large number of poses needed to create fluid character movement (and that’s why they weren’t redrawn when the EEs came out). But the key issue was, no two-handed fighting style in BG1, so it was easier to re-use the BG2 sprites.
AI gets a lot of flak but I think much of it is an emotional response. We don't really want it to be good. We all love to say, "AI can't do this, AI can't do that", which is a fair point, but what if we judge it on the things it can do, who in the world can compete with that? This is not something that a lot of people, including myself, would want to admit, but it's true.
What if the studio director comes in and goes, "I wonder what John and Joe boxing in the Amazon jungle would look like." Prompt it and it comes out in seconds. Then he goes, "what if John had blue pants and Joe was jacked?" Boom, done. What concept artist can outperform that?
Sure, it has its blind spots. Like if it's something that the AI hasn't been trained on or understand, it won't produce the right results. But this is like trying to drive a car in the lake and then complaining that it is a bad boat. The tool wasn't used the right way.
In a fair fight, AI would smoke everybody. And it wouldn't even be close.
As for the sprites, yes, stuff like dual-wielding, bastard sword and flail sprites, are all things that I would like to look into. And don't worry about me, I don't talk about things I can't do. Like I said, I don't tease. It would no doubt still be a big project, but it's light work compared to some of the other projects I've put out.
@Wombat yeah I’ve run into a lot of those walls. Even with character art it’s obvious most of the existing renderers don’t actually know what a bow is, and forget crossbow. But yes, for so many things it can give beautiful results lightning fast. I have had a complete blast doing illustrated runs through IWD and BG series (I just finished IWD here). The growing capability in just the last few months is amazing.
I’m officially excited that you are up to making that sprite mod. I would look forward to that one!
... but actually the only REAL one is that Korgan looking too friendly. It should be written on his face, that he is eager to decapitate you if you are not willing to pay.
And scar on nose is missing. The most fresh scar from all faces. And the mustache shouldn't be present.
- Imoen's hair should be more clearly pink/violet, whatever this color in the original is
Well, I decided to look up the old non-EE BG2. I think it's pretty clear that her hair really shouldn't be blonde, so I made some adjustments to her portrait.
I guess another issue I had was it seemed a bit unnatural, but at the same time I didn't want to keep it dark like BG1.
Just wanted to say excellent work mr. Wombat. Remember sawing this pack getting nuked on reddit, pretty sad accusations of AI. Discrediting the hours on hours of work you probably did on this is kind of fucked up, but at least I and other people really appreciate your work. Thanks to your pack I can enjoy BG2 again a lot more since I love this style and my own custom BG portrait finally matches the NPC ones with this.
Wow. What a great job you did. I mean they are the best AI generated portraits I have seen since a while. The problem with some others was that they were mass generated. Here we can see that you spent some time to make them differ between each other. I can't see the typical "one face" syndrome. My only doubts are:
- Imoen's hair should be more clearly pink/violet, whatever this color in the original is
- Korgan should be more grim. He looks too friendly
- Okay, Anomen and Edwin are little similar. If you could make Anomen's nose little different (for example not so long) it would be perfect.
Are you going to play with the Beamdog NPCs as well? They also stand out. Just saying :-P
If mr. Wombat doesn't feel like doing it I might try my hand at them, I've done Neera today.
Comments
- Imoen's hair should be more clearly pink/violet, whatever this color in the original is
- Korgan should be more grim. He looks too friendly
- Okay, Anomen and Edwin are little similar. If you could make Anomen's nose little different (for example not so long) it would be perfect.
Are you going to play with the Beamdog NPCs as well? They also stand out. Just saying :-P
Tanks for the mod.
I think Imoen's hair could be either way based on her portrait in 2. I went with a lighter color to make her look less like Nalia. The rest I'll think about it. I've been looking at these portraits too much for the past few days so I don't even know what looks right or odd anymore.
As for the Beamdog NPCs, it's a no. As a matter of fact, I won't be releasing any new portraits. I might retouch some of the existing ones but that's going to be it.
The whole AI thing has soured things for me, but maybe it's more like it opened my eyes. I would say something but at this point, I really have no interest in starting the witchhunt game and again putting myself in a position where I might have to explain myself. The same thread about this mod got nuked on the BG subreddit because a bunch of people accused me of posting AI. I guess I did brought it on myself because I was the one that posted it and made a certain claim, so the burden of proof was on me. That's pretty fair.
Although, I didn't change. I didn't reinvent the wheel. I'm doing the exact same thing that I've been doing for all these years.
One of the messages I got was that Minsc's sword was clearly AI. Well, I guess they definitely ran it on Randy Couture 20 years ago to make him hold that crappy sword.
I see how you just straight up called them AI generated. And you weren't trying to be malicious or anything like that, nor do I take it that way, I get it, it's merely descriptive. But it's one of those things that made me realize that this aspect of the world has moved passed me. I still remember back in the day, posting and looking through Deviantart, where the thought of something made by AI didn't even exist. But things really have changed. I can't operate like it's a decade ago.
Anybody can just fire up Stable Diffusion or whatever and get hundreds of images in an hour. Anybody can write prompts. There's no longer prestige in being a 3D technician and rendering, or seamlessly comping an element from one image to another, or stuff like that. Even worse, mistakes and oddities are no longer looked at as quirks, but evidence of AI. That finger is longer than the other, AI. His eye is off by a bit, AI. His armor is not symmetrical, AI.
It's just not fun anymore for an old fart like me. I knew I was heading into murky waters with this kind of content but I really didn't think I was going to get ripped up like that. It's all good though. The world has moved on, and it is what it is. It has been a nice break but I'm definitely done. I'll be back to making my other content.
For the first, avoid reddit. This is the most toxic and brainless society I have experienced in the internet and I am here since many years (I had my time on 4chan/b as well). Just leave those assholes alone there.
For the second, I'm really sorry for assuming that is AI generated. I can imagine that I would also get pieced off when someone would say something like this for the music I compose, but this is how the things look like today.
For the third, but most important: don't stop making portraits. For Christ's sake! They are really good! If you stop, all of you, great portrait makers are the same! You tease people with some great work which is never finished! :-P. There will be the 30th anniversary for BG1 relatively soon. How beautiful would be to make EET a consistent experience - with refreshed UI, new quality content, CONSISTENT portraits etc! I was hoping that you could do also some <charname> potraits afterwards... Doesn't this beautiful game deserve it?
Worst - Jan,Aerie, Korgan
I wish someone create portraits of BG companions in style from IWD - full body.
With one additional demand, let this be the pose , the posture from the moment when protagonist is meeting a joinabble character for the first time.
AI can be a great tool for those of us with no artistic talent! But it can’t compete with actual skill.
Thank you for posting!
Well, I don't tease. I only talk about stuff that's either already released or definitely coming. I did put out the whole set. And I think it's fair to say that a full set for all 17 characters is already the extra mile plus more.
I appreciate it but there's really no need to apologize. Like I said, it's just descriptive. And hell, chances are you were probably right. That background image I used in Yoshimo could have been AI, I don't know. The earlier Mazzy iteration had this blade with these interesting engravings. Then later on I found out that it's actually AI, so I ended up just whiting the whole thing out. I mean, many of the elements I comped in could have from AI images. Truthfully, I really don't know anymore, looking back in hindsight.
You mentioned that you do music. I'm sure you've experienced this in some way. Many things can be inspiring. Oh, that's an interesting hook. That's a nice sound. Oh that's clever, why didn't I think of that. It's something that perhaps you might want to sample or incorporate in your own work in the future. And then you find out it's AI. It's a little deflating, isn't it? I mean the sound is still good, it's still the same sound, but it's just not the same as in the past, when you didn't have to even question such a thing. For me, it's a weird feeling, something that I'm still pondering.
Well, AI absolutely can compete. Perhaps compete is not the right word, but it is powerful, extremely so if you know how to use it. I could run AI and easily quadruple my output. Think about it. Under the same amount of time for me to hunt down that one specific picture of the Last Samurai action figure, I could have generated hundreds if not thousands of armored Samurai pictures to choose from, all passively might I add. Looking for pictures is something that takes mental real estate, something that I got to actively do, or at the very least keep an eye out for when I'm just browsing normally.
I could have prompted "give me dude holding sword next to his face", instead of butchering the Randy Couture picture. Notice how Minsc's arm seems pretty short because I literally just shifted his forearm over. It's out of frame enough that you won't notice it, but now that I've pointed it out and you seen the source picture, it's not something you can unsee. With AI these days, it'll get it right most of time. So it's both faster and has a higher potential to produce more workable material, at least in this one instance.
Like I said, I've aged out, at least for this particular thing that I do. Right now, it's a matter of am I going to get with the times and keep up, or be left behind.
If I were to make more content for Baldur's Gate, I would work on areas that get me away from the murky waters, like I'd probably do character sprites instead. I've always liked how Planescape Torment had unique sprites for each companion. That's super cool. Or BG1 style sprites. That's another thing that I thought was a bit of a downgrade in BG2 also.
sorry for me being monothematic, but I really see a rare chance we are missing. With release of new HPS Portraits Project, the original BG2 NPCs portraits feel really off. Your work solves this problem so great - through whole BG1 and BG2 we have one style for playable NPCs and second for the rest. This is an acceptable consensus versus having 1 style for playable BG1 ones, another for playable BG2 ones, another for playable Beamdog ones etc.
I understand your frustration, I understand that my idiot post could even make it bigger. I don't really care of in what proportions AI was involved in your work, intentionally or not. Really, this doesn't matter, because the effect is outstanding. You are so close to be a legend - there are only few beamdog portraits on the way :-P.
Look at the responses on this forum - they are all positive and enthusiastic.
Of course I can't force you if you already made up your mind. I want you just to know that it would be appreciated.
And I do my own AI portraits to do things to my own taste. Which I deliberate push *away* from the BG style.
As you say, it can generate decent quality stuff very fast. But it also can be maddening and stupid, and often simply will not do things we might want. All things considered, AI is still in its infancy and it will continue to get better at replicating a range of looks and styles, while growing in its understanding of user inputs. So from a professional art perspective it will rock that world.
On the other hand, it is plain looking at much of your work that YOU have a better understanding of getting a particular look you may want than I do. That is a difference I see between a real artist and AI in the hands of a hack like me.
And BTW, I much preferred the original look of BG1 character sprites. That is a mod I would jump at. As I understand, it is a huge job because of the large number of poses needed to create fluid character movement (and that’s why they weren’t redrawn when the EEs came out). But the key issue was, no two-handed fighting style in BG1, so it was easier to re-use the BG2 sprites.
Well, positive responses from two people. It's cool though, don't get me wrong.
I tell you what, I'll think about it. I'll leave the door open.
AI gets a lot of flak but I think much of it is an emotional response. We don't really want it to be good. We all love to say, "AI can't do this, AI can't do that", which is a fair point, but what if we judge it on the things it can do, who in the world can compete with that? This is not something that a lot of people, including myself, would want to admit, but it's true.
What if the studio director comes in and goes, "I wonder what John and Joe boxing in the Amazon jungle would look like." Prompt it and it comes out in seconds. Then he goes, "what if John had blue pants and Joe was jacked?" Boom, done. What concept artist can outperform that?
Sure, it has its blind spots. Like if it's something that the AI hasn't been trained on or understand, it won't produce the right results. But this is like trying to drive a car in the lake and then complaining that it is a bad boat. The tool wasn't used the right way.
In a fair fight, AI would smoke everybody. And it wouldn't even be close.
As for the sprites, yes, stuff like dual-wielding, bastard sword and flail sprites, are all things that I would like to look into. And don't worry about me, I don't talk about things I can't do. Like I said, I don't tease. It would no doubt still be a big project, but it's light work compared to some of the other projects I've put out.
I’m officially excited that you are up to making that sprite mod. I would look forward to that one!
Well, I decided to look up the old non-EE BG2. I think it's pretty clear that her hair really shouldn't be blonde, so I made some adjustments to her portrait.
I guess another issue I had was it seemed a bit unnatural, but at the same time I didn't want to keep it dark like BG1.
If mr. Wombat doesn't feel like doing it I might try my hand at them, I've done Neera today.