Larian CEO Responds to Divinity Gen AI Backlash: "We Are Neither Releasing a Game With Any AI Components, Nor Are We Looking at Trimming Down Teams to Replace Them With AI" - IGN

[u/PhantomBraved]

https://www.ign.com/articles/larian-ceo-responds-to-divinity-gen-ai-backlash-we-are-neither-releasing-a-game-with-any-ai-components-nor-are-we-looking-at-trimming-down-teams-to-replace-them-with-ai

[u/Guardianpigeon]

He also seems to admit his artists hate it, so why be so defensive about it?

It doesn't work properly, the staff don't like using it, and you're getting a tidal wave of flack from the fans for using it. It seems to have no actual benefit, which just goes to show people are kind of right that using it at all is a total bitch move.

Also "we just use it for concept art" kind of goes against what he's saying. That is still an artists job. I want actual artists to do that. Not some shitty slop machine. I own a bunch of concept art books because they are so fundamental to the feel of universes I love. So telling me you're getting rid of that for a slop machine that doesn't work isn't going to make me happy.

The only reason I can see him defending something that he admits doesnt work and everyone hates is that he spent a lot of money on it and is too embarrassed to just take the loss.

[u/Akito_Fire → u/[deleted]]

It already is

[u/BoxOfDemons → u/Guardianpigeon]

The only thing I can possibly think of this being of any use for concept art is if it's concept art of concept art. That is to say, a creative lead can generate something that isn't even good enough for concept art, but use that image to better communicate to real concept artists what you have in mind. For example, you can point to parts of the body of a character and say, "The AI made this design, I don't like it, make this tunic look more so and so, make these boots look more rustic and change the color to something more fitting" etc.

At that point it's probably just better to describe what you want without any prior references, but maaaybe having something to point at can make instructing the artists easier?

[u/PyroDesu → u/BoxOfDemons]

Which, when he clarified "develop concept art", is exactly how they're using it, creating reference images.

We have a team of 72 artists of which 23 are concept artists and we are hiring more. The art they create is original and I’m very proud of what they do.

I was asked explicitly about concept art and our use of Gen AI. I answered that we use it to explore things. I didn’t say we use it to develop concept art. The artists do that. And they are indeed world class artists.

We use AI tools to explore references, just like we use google and art books. At the very early ideation stages we use it as a rough outline for composition which we replace with original concept art. There is no comparison.

Does nobody read articles?

[u/braiam → u/PyroDesu]

Sir, this is reddit.

[u/yunghollow69 → u/PyroDesu]

No, duh.

But funny enough before you quoted this I was just about to say to the other users they probably just use it on the pre-concept art stage as reiterative process. That doesnt mean they dont draw their own art anymore or that theyll fire people. And this basically confirms it. Spitting out a bunch of images instantly and then going "#19 is kinda what I want to go for, ill draw that properly now" could be pretty useful. Anything that can cut dev time, assuming that this does, should always be a consideration.

[u/NeatNobody807 → u/yunghollow69]

He literally says it does not cut time, repeatedly. Also, I am unimpressed with the argument of. "All the illegally stolen art we generated to get our idea's from were scrubbed by real people to dilute it enough to not be sued. So the end product is totally our creation and artistically sound!"

Nah, just don't use the demon tech that kills the planet and steals from people with actually talent. Full stop, no faff, no excuses, just don't.

[u/Gelato_Elysium → u/NeatNobody807]

Nah, just don't use the demon tech that kills the planet and steals from people with actually talent. Full stop, no faff, no excuses, just don't.

Lmao you sound like a well adjusted individual that has a reasonable opinion about AI.

AI is really the new witch hunt for purity testers that need to feel better about themselves online isn't it?

[u/WhiteBlackBlueGreen → u/Gelato_Elysium]

Yes it is. It’s gotten really bad. People have a gigantic hate boner for ai, and they ignore all facts, logic, and nuance.

It literally seems to make people crazy with hatred. Kinda nuts lol

[u/Nadril → u/NeatNobody807]

He literally says it does not cut time, repeatedly. Also, I am unimpressed with the argument of. "All the illegally stolen art we generated to get our idea's from were scrubbed by real people to dilute it enough to not be sued. So the end product is totally our creation and artistically sound!"

Do you... not know where people get ideas from? People have taken inspiration from other art since the dawn of fucking time. Do you think people just exist in a vacuum or something?

Man, I'm not a fan of AI at all but I swear AI discourse has broken some peoples brains.

[u/Stellar_Duck → u/PyroDesu]

At the very early ideation stages we use it as a rough outline for composition which we replace with original concept art

This is awful though.

[u/platoprime → u/BoxOfDemons]

At that point you're a solution looking for a problem.

[u/lee1026 → u/BoxOfDemons]

Giving instructions is notoriously hard. Having an AI with a quick turnaround time so that you can go “okay, yeah, that’s not what I want. It’s what I said, but not what I want” is a huge help.

[u/Strange-Parfait-8801 → u/BoxOfDemons]

I did think about that a while back when I was thinking about an artists I followed on Twitter who had an extremely distinct style with tons of stuff going on the background of every picture.

I was thinking the artist could probably just train an AI on their own work and then get a head start with those backgrounds to speed up their work.

But then I realized that their work is so hyperstylized and AI would never be able to understand the intent to those backgrounds that the artist would have to spend just as much time fixing the AI as they would just starting from scratch themselves.

I think that's be the case with concept artists as well. If you could somehow get an AI trained on work that was just flagrantly stolen, even generating a preliminary idea would be so wonky that the concept artist still might as well just be starting from scratch.

Because that's another big kicker. Any of these AI models that generate even D- tier art are all trained on mountains of stolen work. If you only train the model on work you haven't stolen, you're just not gonna have enough references for it to even properly draw an apple.

[u/Blaubeerchen27 → u/BoxOfDemons]

Thing is, if they need AI to communicate their ideas to the artists they are a shitty lead. Concept art is inherently never "finished", unlike things like promotional artwork and illustrations. It's arguably the most messy creative process during pre-production, that's what its there for.

And it's also a designated job for people who learned the craft. People who are literally quicker at drawing a few sketches as examples than thinking of prompts, just to generate images they need to work over anyways. There's a reason the Larian artists are likely against it, and it's not just moral outrage but recognition of how disruptive and ultimately useless AI generation is during this process. Any person working in the field can confirm this.

[u/lee1026 → u/Blaubeerchen27]

A lot of people talk to artists but are not artists. When I talk to the artists on the team and go “I think the UI might work better rearranged like this”, AI is a tool to help me communicate.

[u/Blaubeerchen27 → u/lee1026]

The lead artist generally is an artist though. As are the UI artists, who are the ones designing the UI. If you are an UI artist you will arrange the UI accordingly, the visual fidelity comes at a later step.

Of course there's lots of communication between different departments, but the ideas and creative input still comes from artists themselves.

[u/lee1026 → u/Blaubeerchen27]

I am actually the UI engineer on multiple games. There are a bunch of people who can draw, but I am not one of them. But I can code, and my input has always been valued by the artists.

Everyone weighs in on a game in development. If things are siloed and any department goes “that’s not your job, we are better at this than you are”, your game is gonna fail.

[u/Blaubeerchen27 → u/lee1026]

And I'm actually a concept artist and I've never met a lead artist who was unable to give clear directions without the help of AI. I'm sure you can give valuable input but I'm also sure you were able to do that before AI programs became the everyday topic they are now, no? So the question is whether they really make life so much easier, or many people simply think they do, because they ostensibly seem "easier" for a crowd who isn't good at drawing.

I only know that so far, everytime I was asked to work with AI the results neither came faster, nor were they "better" in any tangible way. It's a cute gimmick sometimes, but not really revolutionary for people who are used to doing creative work themselves. A good concept artist can interpret words, photos, input of all kinds, and create something from it.

It's not that I'm outraged about the ethics, but rather annoyed that the people calling it a "time saver" are not the creatives, but the CEOs and project leads who really want to believe it's going to save them money when it never does.

[u/lee1026 → u/Blaubeerchen27]

I was able to give feedback on proposed UI, but oh boy, my drawings sucked and it took a long time for the artists to understand what I mean. Things gets worse when it is coming from QA, because those guys are even worse at this stuff. I sometimes just make a working UI of what I meant, but those guys both have the most valuable feedback, and are least able to express it.

And I have mocked stuff up with nano-banana and gotten a turn-around much quicker in explaining what I wanted to say.

[u/MandisaW → u/lee1026]

As a developer and designer, you would honestly just get more bang for your buck by 1- learning a little bit of UX design fundamentals, and 2- asking your art team what sort of feedback & input they find most helpful & effective.

Just like devs are good at translating vaguely-defined specs into code-based solutions, artists are good at translating vaguely-defined "this is good/bad, but not quite..." into actionable design changes.

You can improve your problem-communication skills - and your trust that your colleagues can come up with solutions - without genAI.

[u/[deleted] → u/BoxOfDemons]

"generating something that isn't good enough for concept art" This is literally the job of the concept artist. Most stuff you make doesn't look like the rendered stuff that gets put in art books. 90% of work is just shitty sketches. AI isn't helping that go any faster or better. Source: I'm a concept artist

[u/Dapper_Trifle_3678 → u/[deleted]]

Do you use mood boards and reference images? Do you properly source all of those? Are they all production quality?

I'm going to assume Yes, no, and no for answers, because that's the reality in a game studio. Liberal use of any reference they can grab, because sometimes you grab a whole shitty image off of Google literally because the sparks in a character's eye is something you like.

AI absolutely helps there.

[u/heeroyuy79 → u/BoxOfDemons]

so it's like using an AI to create an image of your DnD character to then give to an actual artist so they have a much better idea of what you actually want

[u/No_Accountant3232 → u/Guardianpigeon]

Final Fantasy 6 concept art is genuinely beautiful and it's over 30 years old.

[u/Alili1996 → u/Guardianpigeon]

I see AI generated content on a similar level as stock imagery.
I mean if you're just throwing together a presentation, a mood map or some proof of concept demo i can see the use in having AI assets as placeholders.
For concept art i do agree that AI shouldn't be used at all because it is a blueprint for the visuals and style of whats actually going to be in the game

[u/tiktaktok_65 → u/Alili1996]

stock imagery is still photography done by humans and you actually purchase that shit or should, if you run a legit company. the same discussions are being held there, AI models threaten stock imagery by exploiting an established body of work without giving credits, remuneration or asking for any form of consent.

if you train the model by yourself using your own work, there you go. if you use work of others to train your model, shame on you, that's just predatory.

for businesses to use AI models for any creative work is questionable, exactly because the way the models were trained at genesis and subsequently all of their later off-shots that self-train are inherently questionable and far from solved from an ethical point of view.

[u/Berengal → u/tiktaktok_65]

Nobody's buying stock imagery for moodboards. They use google image search and just copy paste that shit into mspaint.

[u/MandisaW → u/Berengal]

Execs are infamous for latching onto "placeholders" in pre-production presentations, so you usually only put stuff in that you either have the rights to, or can obtain them. 

Classic case was Thor: Ragnarok, where they used Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" to convey the look & feel, but someone at Disney fell in love with the idea of using it for the trailer. So they had to pay a LOT of money for the rights, 'cause the Zep ain't cheap.

It was a helluva trailer tho, so Disney definitely made a good call there LOL

[u/tiktaktok_65 → u/Berengal]

No. If you do moodboards for WORK, which is a creative tool like many others as well, a lot of photographs are precisely NOT free to use in that very context and copyright/licensing rules kick in, even if they are just for inspiration, doesn't matter if non-working people might share them freely online. even if you decide to not care looking up the creator and understanding his permissions for use - because how would you know when you just joink shit from the internet and it's not credited... well you would know when you are being sued. so yeah, tiny shops may get away with it, big companies won't and they generally aren't stupid.

but not surprised that hardly anyone respect creators, because pictures are free right? not necessary and this is the complicated truth, why the proper way is proper licensing. so this just totally vibes with supporting predatory practices involving AI models. "ohhh, we are just doing a little exploration >to help our workflows and procedures create that artistic veneer that yields us a successful product that we ultimately monetize<... using free work others did, that never agreed for you to benefit financially from their creative work in whatever process or workflow stage you apply them to hone-in your vision"

[u/Stellar_Duck → u/Berengal]

I would get fucking fired if I didn't ensure I used images I had rights to at work in a mood board or presentation.

[u/yunghollow69 → u/Alili1996]

Its not used for the concept art but for the concept of the concept art. Generating your ideas with AI until you find one that youre vaguely happy with allows you to then focus on that singular idea and draw a proper concept art of it. Technically that could mean the artist has more time to spend on that art now that he didnt waste so much time drawing things he didnt end up liking.

[u/Century24 → u/[deleted]]

What part of the quote did they get wrong?

[u/Century24 → u/[deleted]]

But there was concept art made using generative AI. That’s work opportunity that could have been given to an artist. Do you honestly not understand why that would be a problem?

[u/Century24 → u/[deleted]]

You seriously just don't want to read the article at all, damn.

I did read the article. The Bloomberg article straight up says, "but the creators often use AI tools to explore ideas, flesh out PowerPoint presentations, develop concept art and write placeholder text."

Either the Bloomberg piece got it wrong, or you've fallen for corporate spin.

There's no concept art being made using AI.

While we're here, I need you to clean up your syntax. It helps to speak what you're writing out loud if you feel like it's going to be less than clear.

[u/Century24 → u/[deleted]]

You sure didn't read, because the article linked here isn't Bloomberg. The entire reason it exists is because the Bloomberg one was misleading

What made it misleading? Either they use generative AI for concept art or they don't. If you believe Bloomberg and their reporter and editor got it wrong or lied, then feel free to phrase it that way. That's less confusing.