gillbrooks posted at 3:17 PM Fri, 8 September 2023 - #4474269

OK, I'm going to have my say here.

Firstly, the notion that AI "steals" peoples art/images/photographs is a myth.  It uses images as REFERENCE.  It does not copy/paste bits of artwork into an image to create a new image.  As a Vue user, I nearly always used photographs or paintings for reference, yet was never berated or banned for that.  Most "real" artists use references, be it photo, image or physical.

Images are made up of noise.  A demonstration of this is in the image below containing 4 shots of the progress from 0% to 100%.  As you can clearly see, there is not copy/pasting going on.  The images are being built up using noise.

The second image shows one of those 4 that has been taken into Photoshop.  A squirrel has been hand painted in, and some branches and leaves added.  Colour and lighting correction has also been done.  This has taken much more effort than loading a pre-purchased model into Poser/Daz, clicking on a few pre-purchased presets and hitting the render button.  This, although initially generated with AI has also been worked on by a human doing actual digial painting.  

This brings me to my second gripe.  Most of those whingeing about AI who are calling themselves "artusts" are a joke to themselves.   I doubt any of them have ever actually picked up a brush and painted on canvas.  THAT is a real artist.  The whingers are simply using 3D programmes to create what can only be termed as mediocre, boring and in many cases, ugly images and they're calling it "art". On the subject of ugly and flooding, I might highlight all of those NVIATWAS in the galleries. And before anyone jumps in and accuses ME of being the same, well no, actually.  I WAS painting on canvas using oil paints long before digital, and even long before PCs were around.

I despise hypocrites, and this is hypocrisy at it's most vulgar.

OK…. My turn.

Other than a couple of earlier comments, I have avoided becoming embroiled in this hellstorm. But…

This pisses me off. More later.

You are correct as far as SOME of the AI apps out there. They do “train” on images, and do not just use them “as is” to composite an image together. They train on styles, color palettes, subjects and so on. And yes, it is essentially reference. And yes, I use reference (lots of it) no matter what medium I’m using.

The image demonstration you provided was interesting and informative. And a lovely scene resulted.

So, what pisses me off? Just this:

“This has taken much more effort than loading a pre-purchased model into Poser/Daz, clicking on a few pre-purchased presets and hitting the render button. “

And:

“Most of those whingeing about AI who are calling themselves "artusts" are a joke to themselves.  I doubt any of them have ever actually picked up a brush and painted on canvas.  THAT is a real artist.  The whingers are simply using 3D programmes to create what can only be termed as mediocre, boring and in many cases, ugly images and they're calling it "art". On the subject of ugly and flooding, I might highlight all of those NVIATWAS in the galleries. And before anyone jumps in and accuses ME of being the same, well no, actually.  I WAS painting on canvas using oil paints long before digital, and even long before PCs were around.

I despise hypocrites, and this is hypocrisy at it's most vulgar.”

BS. And yours isn’t?

You moan and groan about us Poser/Daz folks lumping all AI users and images into one group of folks, then you turn around and do the same thing with Poser/Daz/Photoshop/Photography folks.

Look, I know you and maneki_neko and several others are upset about Rendo’s AI ban, and are taking it out on the people here who are not fans of this AI craze.

And, by the way… I have been creating art since I first had memory of picking up a pencil. For most of my childhood, I was always drawing on good old 8.5 X 11 paper with a #2 pencil. Later as a teen / young adult I used tons of Prismacolor colored pencils. I’ve also played with watercolor (not my favorite), oils, airbrush, and just about every medium I could get my hands on.

When computers became mainstream, yes… I started playing around in Photoshop – when it was in its early stages. I’ve been using it ever since.

I am also a photographer and have worked professionally in this medium. I worked with a local modeling agency, both photographing models, and assisting with setting up their first website.

And I’ve worked with Poser for 12 – 13 years, done some work with DAZ, also. And as far as “loading a pre-purchased model into Poser/Daz, clicking on a few pre-purchased presets and hitting the render button” is concerned, you’ll not see an image posted by me that hasn’t been tweaked, morphed, lighted in multiple ways, color corrected, with Poser and Photoshop, sometimes for days. It’s certainly not a matter of “bada-bing, bada-boom, hit the render button.” A single page in my TNA series can sometimes take weeks to tweak - poses, expressions, camera angles, lighting, props placement, and render / assemble.

Like I said earlier, I know many of you are upset over the AI ban and are simply lashing out at those you assume are responsible. Yes, it's a relief to not see 30 - 50 AI images that all pretty much look the same every day.  But it was Renderosity's decision, not mine.

OK?

Can we just move on, now? Please?

 

 

"I reject your reality and substitute my own" - Adam Savage