@MecicineStorm it's GoogleTranslate's joke. "Котелок" means cauldron, but Google knows better.
Edit: ok, to be fair, there is indeed a hat style known as "Котелок" (hat style that tries to follow the shape of a cauldron upside-down), and indeed "Котёл" would be a better word to use for cauldron, but still "Котелок" as a "small cauldron" is something that first comes to my mind.
@boredom you can use GIMP to cut those. It's free and in some cases even easier to use than Photoshop.
Just use "rectangle selection" roughtly around a ball, then "image -> crop to selection" and then "image -> crop to content" to make it perfectly fit the ball.
> using a dataset that consists of copyrighted material is stealing. thats my opinion, courts haven't really decided yet how this will be treated.
Well, when using databases of copyrighted material benefited Google and other big search engines who used it for commercial purposes - it was not stealing but fair use. Now as the threat arises that it may benefit individuals courts will decide that it's stealing and will impose limitations only large corporations will be able to comply with (because suddenly Microsoft is leading the parade of C2PA ;) and mass hysteria in social media may just be proper marketing effort).
IMHO if a model is trained on whatever material is ok for as long as the output doesn't contain anything from that materials in a recognizable form. The problem with current AI datasets is that when you ask for "cute little monster" (we've talked about that in a different topic :D) you can easily get something that looks close enough to some pokemon which will get you into trouble with Nintendo - and as such it's better to avoid using such datasets for this specific reason. My idea of using AI generated pictures as portraits in JRPG quickly cooled down when I got Nick from Zootopia as one of the results :D
But let's not dwell on that :) Too much has already been said and nobody was asking any of us.
> voice actors willing to participate under the terms
If you do get to some good result with that, ping me. I have a more or less good mic and some experience in voice acting. Not sure if I'll manage to pull out enough dedication to finish the job (I know I'm quick to promise but often fail in the end, so no promises), but let's try.
Plus if it works I can do a dozen of different voices.
> come up with a script
I'm afraid there can be some problems with actual in-game voice. Reading a monotonous text is one thing. Having computer game character emotionally react to events in-game is a different thing. I might suggest to check experience of https://github.com/DanRuta/xVA-Synth - they've created an in-app editor for tempo and pitch (allowing to control emotion). Not sure how easy is to use this generator though.
They also have a dataset at least from Bethesda's games. So, using a dataset from some of the opensource games (like FreeDroid RPG, Valyria Tear or Dink Smallwood) can be a good (tested with time) option.
I didn't study the issue too deep, but XVASynth license looks like GPLv3, so we can even use this tool, just to generate a copyright-clean database.
EDIT: I've just realized that taining on LibriVox recordings may be a good start. It won't give any expressions, but the public domain recordings are already there together with public domain texts of the works. Just needs someone to listen and prepare for processing. This way the model can already have literally dozens to hundreds of voice actors ready. Still voiced reading (or even real-time synthesis) of text in-game may be beneficial as game asset.
1. I have a generic idea of the music for a game project. E.g. "chiptune", then I put this into search on OGA and listen, listen, listen. Those will be dozens of pages, but eventually you'll find a few tracks that fit your anticipated gameplay. Analyze the results - check authors of the tracks. And if the author has a lot of tracks in the style that fits your taste - pick it and stick with it. I personally find it easier to make the music sound much more consistent if the tracks are from 1-3 authors, not just "all good songs that don't fit together". If your project is "Dragon Ball style" then most likely your best keyword will be "JRPG" (Japanese Role-playing Game) and there are plenty of great tracks around here.
2. With sounds it's a bit more complicated. I haven't seen a good extensive and consistent RPG collection around, so most often I'm using multiple collections that more or less fit my game. But luckily sounds don't need to be as consistent as music track. So you can go to FreeSound.org and get missing ones by-keyword, like "Lasso". However, note, that sounds come in extremely weird formats and quality ranges, so you'll almost always need to add at least some basic processing to them (e.g. the most often is: load in Audacity [look for version without spyware], normalize, cut silence at the beginning, convert to 44kHz, save as WAV PCM 16 bit).
> what art style are you going for with this monster?
I've got absolutely no idea :D
And I don't want to burden you with my silly project. NSFW is a slippery and shady thing, even while keeping it much milder than what is regularly understood as NSFW content. That's why while the assets I make for my game are licensed under open license (GPL for now, but can be easily changed) I don't post them at OpenGameArt - even as they are mostly SFW (like the monster sketch above) they have a connection to NSFW concepts, it is simply not the right thing to do. I wouldn't even like to describe the actual content here (even though it's nothing too explicit) for this very reason :)
I've just given my project as an example "why AI is not the end of artists in a real life scenario", and maybe shouldn't have done that :D
AI can't do that. I can't do that using AI either. It needs a person with skills (both drawing and using AI) and a good artistic taste - neither of which I have :)
So the only thing I can do without opening my wallet is to say that "that's the art!" - I even have this internal joke in the story that the player's assistant who explains the game rules and writes in-game encyclopedia says: "Stop laughing! I know I can't draw, but I'm trying my best... honestly..."
I guess it looks rather like vector art. And it's definitely not "bad art" it'd take almost same effort as a regular picture minus shading.
@MecicineStorm it's GoogleTranslate's joke. "Котелок" means cauldron, but Google knows better.
Edit: ok, to be fair, there is indeed a hat style known as "Котелок" (hat style that tries to follow the shape of a cauldron upside-down), and indeed "Котёл" would be a better word to use for cauldron, but still "Котелок" as a "small cauldron" is something that first comes to my mind.
It's not copyright. It's international agreement (Geneva Conventions if I'm not mistaking).
@boredom you can use GIMP to cut those. It's free and in some cases even easier to use than Photoshop.
Just use "rectangle selection" roughtly around a ball, then "image -> crop to selection" and then "image -> crop to content" to make it perfectly fit the ball.
> using a dataset that consists of copyrighted material is stealing. thats my opinion, courts haven't really decided yet how this will be treated.
Well, when using databases of copyrighted material benefited Google and other big search engines who used it for commercial purposes - it was not stealing but fair use. Now as the threat arises that it may benefit individuals courts will decide that it's stealing and will impose limitations only large corporations will be able to comply with (because suddenly Microsoft is leading the parade of C2PA ;) and mass hysteria in social media may just be proper marketing effort).
IMHO if a model is trained on whatever material is ok for as long as the output doesn't contain anything from that materials in a recognizable form. The problem with current AI datasets is that when you ask for "cute little monster" (we've talked about that in a different topic :D) you can easily get something that looks close enough to some pokemon which will get you into trouble with Nintendo - and as such it's better to avoid using such datasets for this specific reason. My idea of using AI generated pictures as portraits in JRPG quickly cooled down when I got Nick from Zootopia as one of the results :D
But let's not dwell on that :) Too much has already been said and nobody was asking any of us.
> voice actors willing to participate under the terms
If you do get to some good result with that, ping me. I have a more or less good mic and some experience in voice acting. Not sure if I'll manage to pull out enough dedication to finish the job (I know I'm quick to promise but often fail in the end, so no promises), but let's try.
Plus if it works I can do a dozen of different voices.
> come up with a script
I'm afraid there can be some problems with actual in-game voice. Reading a monotonous text is one thing. Having computer game character emotionally react to events in-game is a different thing. I might suggest to check experience of https://github.com/DanRuta/xVA-Synth - they've created an in-app editor for tempo and pitch (allowing to control emotion). Not sure how easy is to use this generator though.
They also have a dataset at least from Bethesda's games. So, using a dataset from some of the opensource games (like FreeDroid RPG, Valyria Tear or Dink Smallwood) can be a good (tested with time) option.
I didn't study the issue too deep, but XVASynth license looks like GPLv3, so we can even use this tool, just to generate a copyright-clean database.
EDIT: I've just realized that taining on LibriVox recordings may be a good start. It won't give any expressions, but the public domain recordings are already there together with public domain texts of the works. Just needs someone to listen and prepare for processing. This way the model can already have literally dozens to hundreds of voice actors ready. Still voiced reading (or even real-time synthesis) of text in-game may be beneficial as game asset.
I can try to suggest a way that works for me:
1. I have a generic idea of the music for a game project. E.g. "chiptune", then I put this into search on OGA and listen, listen, listen. Those will be dozens of pages, but eventually you'll find a few tracks that fit your anticipated gameplay. Analyze the results - check authors of the tracks. And if the author has a lot of tracks in the style that fits your taste - pick it and stick with it. I personally find it easier to make the music sound much more consistent if the tracks are from 1-3 authors, not just "all good songs that don't fit together". If your project is "Dragon Ball style" then most likely your best keyword will be "JRPG" (Japanese Role-playing Game) and there are plenty of great tracks around here.
2. With sounds it's a bit more complicated. I haven't seen a good extensive and consistent RPG collection around, so most often I'm using multiple collections that more or less fit my game. But luckily sounds don't need to be as consistent as music track. So you can go to FreeSound.org and get missing ones by-keyword, like "Lasso". However, note, that sounds come in extremely weird formats and quality ranges, so you'll almost always need to add at least some basic processing to them (e.g. the most often is: load in Audacity [look for version without spyware], normalize, cut silence at the beginning, convert to 44kHz, save as WAV PCM 16 bit).
Oh, that's much better than anything I've gotten :D Thank you! (will try to use those for some inspiration)
Indeed, it's always better safe than sorry in this situation.
> what art style are you going for with this monster?
I've got absolutely no idea :D
And I don't want to burden you with my silly project. NSFW is a slippery and shady thing, even while keeping it much milder than what is regularly understood as NSFW content. That's why while the assets I make for my game are licensed under open license (GPL for now, but can be easily changed) I don't post them at OpenGameArt - even as they are mostly SFW (like the monster sketch above) they have a connection to NSFW concepts, it is simply not the right thing to do. I wouldn't even like to describe the actual content here (even though it's nothing too explicit) for this very reason :)
I've just given my project as an example "why AI is not the end of artists in a real life scenario", and maybe shouldn't have done that :D
That's the exact point I'm making :D
AI can't do that. I can't do that using AI either. It needs a person with skills (both drawing and using AI) and a good artistic taste - neither of which I have :)
So the only thing I can do without opening my wallet is to say that "that's the art!" - I even have this internal joke in the story that the player's assistant who explains the game rules and writes in-game encyclopedia says: "Stop laughing! I know I can't draw, but I'm trying my best... honestly..."
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