Droid Productions
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Achievements
🕑 Added 2023-09-16 02:10:56 +0000 UTCI've written before about my experiments with AI (across various generative fields). I've tested out Voice Generation with Elevenlabs and Molly's JOI, redone the paths with Midjourney and AE, and experimented with music, SFX and video generation (though never getting anything that amused me enough to showcase it).
For Book 3 Achievements I had the bright idea of using AI to generate the icons.
(Strictly Ballroom: Succeed the day 271 skillcheck for dancing)
(Swinging on a Star: Dance 10 times with Emily)
(Redemption: Help Xochi heal Elsewhere).
Let's talk process. The underlying art is Midjourney; the prompt (after a lot of back and forth) looks something like this:
watercolors, a male angel wearing plate armor, back towards the camera, turned away, looking into the distance, dark hair, white wings silhuette steam achievement icon, borderless, colorful, illustrator --ar 1:1
(with the Bolded part changing between each clip, which gives something like this:)
That gets combined with a Photoshop template, and shrunk to 256x256 resolution to create something like this:
So. After making 40 icons like this I settle down to think.
I mean, I like how they look. But there's also a very active NoAI movement right now, and... well, achievements are outwards facing. It would take one angry artist to take to Reddit/Twitter to bring a torch-waving mob to my house, and while they're nice... they're not *that* nice.
I briefly considered adding a photoshop filter, making them more abstract. The end result looks quite nice, actually, but... we're still in NoAI land.
One of the early icons was actually really simple and clean; 
(Eternal Summer: complete Act XVI)
Now, I'm an absolutely terrible graphic designer, but.. something like that even I can mock up using stock assets. Time to grab some 'watercolor backgrounds', and go looking for icons.
Not as sexy, but also unlikely to bring torch-wielding-mob free.
Some of them turned out quite nice, in their own way.
(Home is where the Chosen are: Have 10 drinks at the King's Dragon )
(Dressed in white: Buy the outfit for Emily in Reality 2)
So... that's where I ended up, in a detour that took more time and energy than planned. Now I just need to set up all the counters and triggers, so it all shows up at the right time. Hope to get that done today, alongside the day 287 event that's still missing.
And with that... the game will be done.
Steam is reviewing the build now, we'll see if they find anything they don't like, otherwise we're cleared for launch in a couple of weeks.
Thanks for being part of the journey, and for all the support, DMs and the amazing community on Discord.
Comments
Droid Productions
Sure thing. Check your DMs.
AP04
Been busy, but finally got around to finishing The Return, Droid you are without a doubt my favorite AVN creator, and I am incredibly glad and happy to support your endeavors. I know Morningstar is no longer on the development branch, and would love a steam code for it if available, as the one you gave previously doesnt appear to work with Morningstar being its own separate thing now.
Merp
A pity, because you're exactly the kind of talented artist that would make good use of AI as a tool. You're not spamming out derivative works. You're under no obligation to pay someone else, clearly you can make your own icons, but if you feel it's both faster and better to use AI... that's what it is for. Hopefully things like Adobe integrating AI generation into their products legitimizes some of this emotional backlash. Loads of good work, proud to support you and thank you for all of it.
Droid Productions
It is what it is; as you say, AI art isn't going to go anywhere, but I don't want to invite people to throw their sabots at Love of Magic :)
Pax
I understand. It's unfortunate - they are happy when AI reduces the cost of the goods and services they buy but Angry when it reduces the needs/pricing for their services... got to 'love' cake eaters...
Droid Productions
The problem isn't that I don't like the AI ones; it's that I don't want the noise and chaos of an angry pitch-fork wielding mob coming after me for using AI art :) Doing a poll would do nothing to fix that.
Pax
Great work! A thought as well - why not consider a poll where your supporters on Patreon get to decide whether or not to use AI generated or your own graphically created 'sigils' for achievements? I understand the opinions of those against AI but AI is not going away, and I don't see a problem with your supporters having a say (IMO).
MoonLight
Great work, and good luck with the launch, and also a biiiiig congratz for being able to complete this great adventure!
Tor Cha
Looking Good!!
