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AI assisted graphics: blending 3D characters on top of 2D backgrounds
As the game will be 2.5D, it is very important to make the 3D characters blend “seamlessly” with the 2D background. Here is how I did it.
An experimental freeware 2.5D adventure game featuring AI-assisted graphics.
What is this about?
As the game will be 2.5D, it is very important to make the 3D characters blend “seamlessly” with the 2D background. Here is how I did it.
Updates
The lower resolution background images for the game are upscaled with Magnific AI to massive 4k+ resolution.
Using ChatGPT to help program a camera controller for a new location comprised of only one ultra-wide image.
I have now been working on this project for 46 weeks. Posting an update every week. But this week was a bit different!
This scene is a bit different from your basic scene, as it has a lot of traffic and a functional maglev system. So this is actually a replacement scene for the maglev station when you travel to the city hall.
The city in the game is meant to be full of Particle based traffic and the city hall exterior scene is the first scene where this is on full display. The same traffic will also be used to liven up the travel screens.
Some of the game locations were made with midjourney V4 back in the day. And it has an aesthetic I love, but I recently stumbled upon ways to upgrading old locations all within Midjourney to make them a lot better!
Quick sub surface scattering solution with Unity URP shader graph.
It was always my goal to use cloth sim on the character. The hair, the small pouch and the jacket just screamed to be made dynamic.
Sometimes these locations require more art direction. More specific features. In these cases, a lot more work is required. Here is a breakdown for how to use Midjourney editing tools to direct the image generation.
For the voiceovers of Echoes of Somewhere I will be doing a hybrid solution: some voiceovers will be real humans, some will be AI and some will be handled by Apple’s text to speech tech from the 90’s.
News
A really interesting gaming news site, PreMortem Games posted and interview about Echoes of Somewhere.
A website focused on covering adventure games, Adventure Game Hotspot, , wrote an article about Echoes of Somewhere. The piece is very interesting as it includes reactions to the game from the adventure game developer community.
Echoes of Somewhere was briefly featured in a recent Andreessen Horowitz blog post about AI in games.
A new beta version of photoshop was recently released with generative ai tools (adobe firefly) natively supported directly in the app. I tried it with a simple pixel art scene.
I was interviewed on the Metaverse podcast. We talked about Echoes of Somewhere and VFX in games and movies and on how AI might affect game production.
In the media
The project convincingly shows how an individual artist with limited resources can use these controversial, questionably ethical tools to punch above their weight when developing a game.
A massive 2-part breakdown, describing the pipeline behind the project, discussing the process of creating characters and environments using artificial intelligence.