Improving games Scaleability - AI generated assets.

[Ath192]

This game obviously has become a lot of work in regards to assets. I wonder how feasible it would be to train an AI to generate armor and costume sets for the game for all races. Afterwards the artists would only focus on making sure they look good or touching up rough parts.

If they expect the game to keep growing and if they ever hope to add new races (even though they said they wouldn’t) maybe investing in scalability would be welcome.


Sure beats that NFT investment doesn’t it?

Also who would be against this if it meant all our gear would no longer be reused and recolored assets and it would all be dyeable.

Just spitballing ideas here. I’m sure they no longer like designing armor sets for this game as often (if the amount of reskinned armor is any indication) because they have to do it from the ground up. From imagining it, to art concept, to piecing it together, to all the job variations and weaponry and how it fits each race…

Wouldn’t typing a prompt and fine tuning things really improve productivity? Worth looking into. At the very least it would provide ideas and inspiration.

[Mikey_R]

I don't think such a thing exists yet, so it really isn't a feasible idea.

This is ignoring the fact there will likely be many many 'failed' attempts as the armour just doesn't look good or it would be a pain to try and fix anything the AI potentially generated.

So, at the moment, I would say this idea is not feasible.

[Larirawiel]

AI generated content ist full of flaws. It generates things like humans with seven fingers or skin, which looks like rubber etc. I do not think, that this is a huge help for the developers.


Cheers

[Jeeqbit]

What you suggest is generating models with AI. I haven't heard of this before.

But my understanding is they already used AI to increase the resolution of the user interface and hotbar icons ahead of the release of the PS5 version, then adjusted any that looked flawed on their own. I don't know if they used it for some textures in ARR, but I noticed a difference before flying released.

https://blog.playstation.com/2021/04...-need-to-know/

Final Fantasy XIV’s UI was originally intended for a 720p display, so we worked to up-res those original images for the PS5 version. Naturally, going through each and every item, equipment, and ability icon by hand would have been impossible to achieve in a short amount of time, so we incorporated a few tricks to find ways to be efficient; for example, we utilized AI tools to boost the resolution and tweaked any parts of the icons that needed it by hand.

Aside from the UI elements, things like the font has a higher resolution now as well, so overall these elements will look a lot smoother.”

We are thinking of eventually upgrading in-game textures in phases and are starting initial preparations for that update.

However, we do need to keep in mind that other platforms, including the PlayStation 4 version, are still in service. Since FFXIV is an MMO, we need to place some emphasis on being able to simultaneously render player characters and their equipment, while still ensuring everything works smoothly. We do need to take care when planning major updates like this and start with testing and verifying it all works well.

Plus, assets that we created nearly ten years ago didn’t factor in the possibility of being displayed at the high resolutions available to us today, so we have to think about how to revise quite a massive amount of assets efficiently.

So look forward to more AI work in 7.0.

[Kaurhz]

This is one of those things where you could argue that the assets would give more scalability and allow devs to focus on other resources, but these assets would still need to go through QA/QC regardless.

This is also one of those where the AI-generated assets still wouldn't be flawless, potentially requiring significant input regardless to maintain similar or better quality.

There's no real point in incorporating something if it still cannot live up to that benchmark, it would reflect just as poorly if those assets were never to exist in the first place, frankly

[NekoMataMata]

What you suggest is generating models with AI. I haven't heard of this before.

But my understanding is they already used AI to increase the resolution of the user interface and hotbar icons ahead of the release of the PS5 version, then adjusted any that looked flawed on their own. I don't know if they used it for some textures in ARR, but I noticed a difference before flying released.

https://blog.playstation.com/2021/04...-need-to-know/





So look forward to more AI work in 7.0.

I really am looking forward to it though. There's so many textures on different items that I absolutely hate.

[Seraphor]

AI generated content ist full of flaws. It generates things like humans with seven fingers or skin, which looks like rubber etc. I do not think, that this is a huge help for the developers.


Cheers

Definitely a host of limitations, but what about autogenerating natural environments? Foliage, rocks, etc. I realise there are already methods to expedite these as it is, but there's room for improvement.

[Larirawiel]

Definitely a host of limitations, but what about autogenerating natural environments? Foliage, rocks, etc. I realise there are already methods to expedite these as it is, but there's room for improvement.

Yes. But on the other hand, there are literary tons of assets for natural environments. They can simply reuse them. The more difficult part are assets for non-natural environments because there are no natural templates for them. If they want new things then they have to start from scratch because you cannot train an AI on something, which does not exist.


Cheers

[Ath192]

Yes. But on the other hand, there are literary tons of assets for natural environments. They can simply reuse them. The more difficult part are assets for non-natural environments because there are no natural templates for them. If they want new things then they have to start from scratch because you cannot train an AI on something, which does not exist.


Cheers

You can definitely train an AI on all current existing assets art wise and then also use images from all fashion available in general on the internet and be able to spew out themes. No different than what AI generators do.

Now if the major bottleneck is inspiring all class sets and all 19 weapons then a simple art generator would be beneficial because they can just translate most of them into game items while modifying parts they don't like. If the bottleneck is not designing them and actually building them then that is where my knowledge starts to lack because I don't know the process they use to do so. However it should not be impossible. If things like no mans sky have been procedurally generating assets for the game it's not inconceivable.

"Most of the universe in No Man's Sky is procedurally generated, including solar systems, planets, weather systems, flora and fauna on these planets, the behaviour of these creatures, and artificial structures like buildings and spacecraft."

This is a title that released August 9, 2016

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I'm not saying that I don't appreciate handcrafted things, I really do, and honestly they would be free to do so when they feel like it, but its clear they don't have the manpower to handcraft every outfit or they wouldn't be reusing a ton of armor sets.

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

AI generated content ist full of flaws. It generates things like humans with seven fingers or skin, which looks like rubber etc. I do not think, that this is a huge help for the developers.


Cheers

The thing is, such flaws would be irrelevant when used the right way.

If the purpose is to have an AI design armor/outfits for implementation into the game, it doesn't matter what imperfections exist in the generation - you simply fix them when you create the models. Concept art as a whole is rapidly getting replaced by AI in the gaming industry due to how insanely useful it is for generating a ton of different ideas extremely quickly and picking the idea that looks best without having to wait days/weeks for a concept artist to get back to you. Need an idea for a castle? have the AI generate about 100 different castle concept drawings over the next hour and pick the one that looks best and refine the design manually.

We already see games like High on Life using tons of AI assets (including voice acting AI) and the average player would never be able to tell the difference, and most people attuned to AI wouldn't be able to tell the difference unless they stopped playing just to look up close at that poster on the wall. The power of AI in game development is massive, and will only get more massive as AI continues to get better.

For FF14, there'd be a ton of uses for AI to create starting concepts that can be refined manually. Concept art generation being a huge one, Upscaling AI to create the much needed HD texture pack, etc.