#cg animated abstract

[4noki-vns]

The Art of Asset Reduction: VNConf 2024 Write-Up

This is a write-up for my Visual;Conference 2024 talk on asset reduction: presentation of scenes with reduced art labor.

I will discuss how to reduce production requirements via various methods of asset presentation and staging, walking you through case studies of existing visual novels. This talk will guide you to answer the question: How do I fulfill my project scope without asset bloat?

This is an art talk that assumes you have already scoped down your story and have created a list of scenes that you need. This is not a talk about scoping down your game's story.

You have scenes you need to make. How are you going to make them (and with style)?

Abstraction

Cut-ins

Reduce

Reuse

-

I. Abstraction

I start off with abstraction as a reminder that visual novels are a combination of visual and novel (amongst other aspects)

Abstraction

Abstraction is a strong tool for bringing focus to the writing, highlighting ambiguity and setting the mood with colors.

Examples I mentioned in my talk include:

Black screen

Solid colored screen

Sky BG

Of Components

The mood-setting power of abstraction also extends to scenes with characters, especially CGs.

As again, abstraction draws focus to what you choose to emphasize: the characters.

(FLOWERS -Le volume sur ete-)

They are gay. Thank you for coming to my VNConf talk.

-

You can similarly abstract characters.

(Lachesis or Atropos)

Consider representing irrelevant characters (e.g., NPCs) as silhouettes. The reader can fill in the details within the shapes themselves.

Silhouettes are especially great for crowd scenes where you want to draw focus to the main characters.

This will be a recurring theme:

What do you really need to draw?

-

II. Cut-ins

One common not-quite full screen piece of art you'll see in many visual novels is the cut-in.

The cut-in typically consists of the:

Item/focus

Frame

And is often for topics such as objects or small animals, which may exist in the scene but may not be within the same frame of reference as the background and sprites.

The separate framing informs the players that the item is "separately framed."

(Who is the Red Queen?)

For example, this small bird is not huge and would not be the size of a character's head even had a sprite been on screen.

The Foreground-Backdrop Heuristic

Cut-ins make strong use of what I refer to as the "foreground-backdrop heuristic."

(Shikkoku no Sharnoth)

A general backdrop informs the reader of a broad location or scene (especially if characters are present). Then a more specific foreground (the cut-in) informs the reader of the specifics.

As the foreground cut-in is in a different frame, the pairing of the two helps create a mental model of the space in the reader's mind.

Cut-ins can be used for:

Backgrounds (mix and match foregrounds with a backdrop)

Reduced CGs

Presenting existing assets in a different frame of reference

CG variants

Try tackling your visual presentation in a layered, comic book-esque fashion with cut-ins!

Just be careful about clutter.

Whether you want to go for the layered cut-in style, the 3d stage cinematic style, or a combination of the two, make sure you have a vision before you jump in.

SD CGs

I had to make an obligatory mention of SD "super deformed" CGs in this talk, so here it is in the write up as well.

(Grisaia: Phantom Trigger Vol. 1)

SD, chibi. However you call these, they're great for playful scenes that might require more art than your classic sprite-background combination.

What SD CGs do best is that they:

Fulfill the role of a CG

Are easier to draw than fully rendered non-chibi art

Can be distributed to different artists to reduce artist workloads due to style difference

Just keep in mind that a simplified CG is still a CG and thus may lack reusability.

Consider what scenes really need a CG.

-

III. Reduce

Now, consider asking yourself: "Does what a player does not see need to exist?" (mostly applicable for games with opaque UI)

Yet, what you need to draw is what you need to draw. How can you reduce the work in what you need to draw?

One option is:

Palette Limitation

You've heard of gray scale games, but don't forget about other ways of limiting your palette to reduce workload.

Dramatic, mood setting color power

Less rendering work

(Sona-Nyl of the Violet Shadows)

A similar idea can be applied to NPCs for a more detailed take on silhouettes.

-

IV. Reuse

Lastly, please remember to be economical and reuse assets as necessary. One of the great joys of cut-in BGs, for example, is reusability.

I had to give an obligatory mention to CG variants in my talk, such as:

(Fatal Twelve)

However, overall, you never know when you'll want to use various components of your art elsewhere such as intermixing CG and sprite art.

Please keep your working layers if possible.

Other reuse examples:

UI (especially in episodic games)

Gameplay (e.g., Kogado's rhythm game)

Consider asking your programmer to work on a framework to reuse, reducing repeated code work.

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Conclusions

All in all, you can make your game.

And it doesn't need to be hellish on your budget or timeline.

If you take anything away from this talk, let it be to:

Prioritize reusable assets

Maintain aesthetic; avoid clutter

Display important scenes

Do not scope up; aim for a set goal

A scene can be presented in many stylish ways, some of which will suit your workflow better than others.

So, go on. Make your game!

-

Interested in my works? Find me on itch:

And check out my newsletter:

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VNConf 2023 Talk Write-up:

#visual novel development #vnconf #visual novel #vn #vndev #development guide #devlog #game development #talk write-up #gamedev #indiedev #this talk is also a yuri visual novel recommendation (kind of) #lachesis or atropos #shiei no sona-nyl #fatal twelve #grisaia phantom trigger #shikkoku no sharnoth #flowers visual novel #who is the red queen?

[princesstarfire1234]

I saw your RMA Post but before i ask, first i love your artstyle its so beautiful and each time i see it, it makes my day :] and second what are your thoughts of S2 part 1 and 2? And if you can rewrite it what will it be?

Aha hello!! I didn't think that RMA post would actually catch any eyes but I'm it did!!

First off, thank you so much! It's the best feeling ever knowing my art can make people happy just like that :]]

As for your question, I recently just rewatched a good chunk of S2 Part 2 but some of the details around the later bits are still fuzzy (rewatching em is quite hard for me as the english dubs aren't exactly that easy to find out there unfortunately)

I will say though, rewatching it really opened my eyes to just how much of a downgrade Part2 is compared to S1 and even just S2 Part1 itself, not just in story but in like the voice acting and animation. The voice direction is a bit off, characters sound flat, and the animation just feels... weirder, if that makes sense. It's not the worst thing in the world though, it's just an unfortunate thing I happen to notice. They also changed some of the VAs I think (liek Rema's) which was a strange decision but alright ig... There's also the reusing of so many games instead of new ones but oh well... Despite all my problems with it though, I like the inclusion of the new characters (Manus and all the other Leos Valiants). The Leos are all such silly guys :]] I do wish the DV7s got more screentime and played a bigger role though, the first episode for part2 really fooled me into thinking they would lmaoo

S2 Part1 still holds up, certainly not as good as S1 but still, it's got charm! I love the setting actually, Old City is such a bright and colorful place with like all these abstract and messed up winding pathways, it's so weird and funkyy, I dig it a lot!

So pretty!! God... just like how funky the cities look with all of them being like giant floating islands, it will always be cool af to me

Ik most of my followers don't care about runningman much but in the off chance some non-rma fan sees this, look at Tree City (pic below), I love it so much

Although... sometimes it really does feel like Season 2 is where the studio decided to lean more into it being a children's show. It's a lot less "dark" compared to S1 which is a tad disappointing. Like just compare Akong's battle (where the dude literally uses a bunch of the old guys to power up his thingy 😭) compared to CG's big mech fight. Still, I liked it! I like the neat guardians (the lil pullulu spirits who guard the gate, Vivace and Ensemble twins my beloved <3).

ALSO ALSO THE IRON BEAST, I can always appreciate a big robot guy aha

That's all I really got for the ramble aha, I'd say more stuff about S2 and maybe my views on it will change overtime but as of now, I haven't even really gotten around to properly finishing it yet. I remember watching it waaayyy back but it was all in korean with zero subtitles 😭 luckily, I am in a server with people sharing english versions so I'll probably watch those when I get more free time!

I really just miss talking about this show really and I feel like I've largely outgrown the fandom in old spaces where I used to talk in (like Facebook groups and Amino lmfaoo), so it's absolutely awesome to find RMA fans over here on tumblr!

#star's asks #ask #running man animation #rma #runani #princesstarfire1234

[tailing-sun]

Shadow High OCs Bio 3: Wyn LeBlanc

COLOUR PALETTE: Raincloud

YEAR: First

GENDER: Agender

FOCUS: Hand-Drawn Animation

STYLE: Soft. Angelic. Minimalist.

QUOTE: “Reality…I’m so over it.”

BIO: A first-year student who was accepted to Shadow High on a partial scholarship for xir incredible talents in traditional animation. Wyn may seem lazy and disconnected on the surface, but in truth xe is just so focused on xir art and the constant whirlwind of ideas in xir head that xe forgets where xe is a lot of the time. Wyn’s one of those people who can get lost in xir art for days on end, even setting alarms to remind xir to eat, shower, sleep, and go to class. Xir independent animated series, Fallen Angels, about a group of angels who accidentally get stuck on Earth, is all completely hand-drawn with care in gorgeous abstract detail by Wyn xirself. Hailing from South Boston, this inkblot angel isn’t all feathers and halos, and has a hidden tough side that only comes out when xe is pushed to the absolute limit of xir patience.

OTHER:

-Xe based Fallen Angels on xir own experiences (i.e. living in a world that xe feels like xe doesn’t belong in and needing an escape).

-Born in Boston, xe is 15 years old.

-Xir closest friend is also xir potential crush, Hotaru. They lend their music to xir animations and xe in turn animates music videos for them.

-In terms of fashion, xe’s all about simplistic pieces with complex monochrome patterns and raincloud gradients. Any and all jewelry/belts xe wears will usually have an angel motif.

-Xe’s known to most other students as “inkblot angel” (after xir YouTube channel), but the Storm Twins call xir “the human Rorschach test”.

-Hangs out with Mara Pinkett a lot because they share a love of animation. Xe also likes to binge Fleischer Bros cartoons with Candy.

-Most of xir clothes come from thrift shops, since xe didn’t grow up wealthy unlike many of xir classmates. While xe’s proud of xir status as a scholarship student, xe sometimes feels insecure about not being as glamorous as xir peers.

-Xe loves hand drawn animation of all kinds, from anime to Soviet anti-war cartoons to YouTube animatics. Xe also has a soft spot for claymation and stop-motion, but is lukewarm on CG animation.

-Absolutely made all kinds of animated shitposts when Steamboat Willie entered the public domain.

#shadow high #shadow high oc #rainbow high #oc #character bio #character bios #oc bio #digital art

[ofthedevil]

How We Design 3D Environments for our Visual Novel

As a Visual Novel/Adventure Game hybrid, we knew early on that of the Devil would need immersive, atmospheric environments for our characters and readers to explore. Because our game is built in Unity with the Naninovel suite of tools, we have the ability to utilize fully 3D scenes for our backgrounds, letting us take advantage of powerful tools like animation, lighting, depth-of-field, chromatic aberration,  post-processing, and dozens of other special effects to set our stage.

With so many levers to pull, we needed a strong vision in order to help reign in our options. To that end, we developed a multi-step process involving the whole team's strengths, so that we could create a world that felt alive and real to us and our audience.

We start with a storyboard. This can be as simple as a bird's-eye view diagram mocked-up in MS Paint or as abstract as a piece of concept art. Looking at the script, we make sure to include every item we know a scene absolutely needs to work- any pieces of evidence or objects or people in the environment that we have to be able to interact with. From there, we build a simple untextured version of the scene in Unity, focusing on nailing the geometry and positioning of every item and locking down the main camera angle for that environment. We make sure to scatter a few placeholder characters around the area so we maintain proper scaling regardless of distance from the camera (Detective London is usually drafted for this role).

Next, we add textures, materials, and props to the environment based on what we know of the area. Depending on the age of the building or the intended use of the space, we might opt for sleeker, plastic-like materials or we may use rougher concretes and metals. Labeled placeholder props are swapped out for more accurate assets as we acquire or create them, and we try to finalize light sources and architecture so we can start planning for our CGs. Finally, we fine-tune a post-processing profile for each scene that fits the mood and feel of each environment, heightening certain colors or bumping contrast as we see fit to create memorable, differentiated backgrounds.

When the game starts, the script loads up our environment and captures it through the Scene Cameras we placed down. Some UI items, like our Interactable indicators, exist within the the 3D space of a scene, but most elements like textboxes, options, and character art is rendered "on-top" of the background so that our scene never obscures them.

We're carrying this same environment design process into the rest of our chapters- including Chapter One! Speaking of which, here's a first look at how we designed ultra_violet's, a well-hidden, exclusive club that Morgan will have to gain access to in order to speak to a key witness.  Follow us here or on Twitter to make sure you're the first to see behind-the-scenes features and sneak peeks of the upcoming chapters!

https://linktr.ee/otdevil

#unity #naninovel #visual novel #gamedev #cyberpunk #adventure game #gaming #pc games #indie games

[incorrect-house-of-nine]

idk I’d rather animated too, but I don’t think tlt would be that hard to represent in live action (aside from how much of the story is told from inner narration and it’s quirks which is why I don’t think an adaptation could do justice in the first place) it never gets too abstract.

cg for bone constructs, (ideally painting but probably cg) for the outside of canaan house and distant views of places like rho, a desert and a jungle for the planets harrow kills, and the rest can be good ol’ slasher film movie magic and set design. but yeah, it would probably be mostly cg, meh. but the things that cg would be required for doesn’t get too wild for what cg can do, just a lotta bones and flesh.

regardless people just like to lol about fancasts I think

Yeah, I can see your point, I just prefer animation and the broad scope of what it can do. Like, The Locked Tomb in @womenbadassery's castlevania style or supeeeeer long (and would never happen) Fortische's Arcane style.

[canmom]

L'Aventur de Canmom à Annecy - Mercredi 3: The First Slam Dunk

so this is a movie I've wanted to see ever since I saw the trailer.

before that I had never once heard of Slam Dunk, which is a wildly popular and long-running manga series about a delinquent who becomes devoted to basketball, which - in contrast to say Kuroko no Basket - seems to have very little profile in the west. but the visuals of this trailer just blew me away. I didn't even realise it was mostly CG and not just unbelievably tight drawings at first. this film is one of the best uses of nonphotorealistic CG I've ever seen; it absolutely captures the feeling of a manga panel coloured in watercolour. but even more so in motion, the choreography manages to perfectly blend the clarity of manga paneling with naturalistic sports movement. I know basically nothing about basketball, but the animation was so clear that it felt like I could read every move.

so what's this movie about, besides basketball? the structure of the movie is to interleave a movie length basketball game with the backstory of the players, primarily our main boy Ryota, whose family is dealing with the death of Ryota's star basketballer older brother. But all five members of the main team and even the main antagonist player get their own arcs.

And this basketball game - despite knowing how sports movies work, that was so fucking tense. The ebb and flow of points and movement, the tension of each shot, the emotions of the team - I feel like by the end of the movie we've probably seen nearly every possible permutation of basketball events, and yet it never drags. In the final moments I could swear everyone in the theatre was holding their breath. I finally feel it, why people watch sports, instead of it just being something I understand in the abstract.

And to return to the animation, it's honestly incredible - I can only assume they used a method similar to Studio Orange combining 2D choreography and 3D, because the timing, the play of speedup and slowdown and direction of attention, is so on point; somehow it feels like the most realist animation of basketball I've seen and also incredibly manga, with many shots that are clearly splash panels, and even eventually devices like speed lines. The CG - which blends so well that when I saw shots that were probably drawings, I still wasn't sure! - never feels awkward or uncanny, indeed often it's easy to forget it even is CG at all, and I'm dying to know how their shading model works. The lines never look like they're drawn onto a model or display the awkwardness of an inverted hull. I keep coming back to this but it truly feels like seeing a really detailed manga in motion.

It turned out this screening had French subs, and my Japanese vocab is too poor to pick up a lot of the dialogue. So it's a credit to the animation, the acting, that I could still get so invested lmao

So The First Slam Dunk this delivered and then some. I cannot wait for the BDs to come out so I can run this on Animation Night.

#l'aventure de canmom à annecy #the first slam dunk #anime #animation #i can't believe i'm this hype about a basketball manga #Youtube

[moonlit-tulip]

Tsukihime Remake Liveblog Archive, Part 1: Arcueid Route

Last year when Arcueid's route of the Tsukihime remake got translated, and then again this year when Ciel's route got translated, I liveblogged on Discord as I read. But Discord is not the ideal platform for long-term archival accessibility. So I'm going to dump the archives on tumblr, instead.

Below the cut: the Arcueid-route segment of the liveblog, featuring spoilers for all of the original Tsukihime and for Arcueid's route of Tsukihime -A piece of blue glass moon-.

July 16, 2022

[6:16 PM] First off: the Tsukihime remake is really pretty, like, wow. I've played high-budget VNs from two decades ago, and I've played low-budget VNs from relatively recently, but this is my first time getting more than maybe 30 minutes into a high-budget VN from relatively recently, and things sure have advanced.

[6:22 PM] All the individual backgrounds are Very Pretty, and there are a lot of them, and there are a lot of CGs, and everything is very blended-together compared with what I'm used to. Like... I'm accustomed to VNs following a format of "there's normal sprites-on-backgrounds art, and there are CGs, and the latter are a conspicuous jump up in fanciness relative to the former. The Tsukihime remake, as of the end of the first day, is Not Doing That. It's throwing CGs out at such high density and with such a high level of background-art-prettiness that they end up feeling like just an ordinary part of the flow.

[6:24 PM] (The other recent high-budget VN I played the first ~30 minutes of, which I intend to return to at some point, is World End Syndrome, and it goes an extra step beyond even that, with animated backgrounds. Thus I infer that the jump in fanciness is a general Recent High-Budget VNs thing rather than something specific to the Tsukihime remake.)

[6:29 PM] And, like... so, the standard model followed by older VNs and lower-budget recent ones has a more-or-less static camera: here's the background, here are the sprites, when we're in this area and not in a CG there's not going to be much variety in the visual layout. But, here, it's constantly zooming and panning around. To the point where it very much comes across as the camera following Shiki's gaze, rather than just representing The Area in the abstract? Which is really cool. (And also speaks to the resolution at which the art assets were drawn, that it can get away with zooming in on them constantly without substantial blurriness resulting. And the detail with which they were drawn, that it can zoom in on them and have them still be interesting to look at.)

[6:36 PM] ...also, it's interesting how fashionable "start VN on a train" seems to be, lately. Heart of the Woods did it, World End Syndrome did it, the Tsukihime remake did it... I guess because trains are a popular way of getting from place to place and it's common for VNs to start with the protagonists going somewhere new? But nonetheless it feels like it's happening disproportionately, relative to other transit methods / "the transit happened offscreen before things started" / not starting with going to a new place at all / etc. Which is interesting. I wonder if there's something about the visual design of trains which makes them particularly popular among VN artists, or something.

[6:39 PM] Also, the remake sure does start hinting at the suspiciousness of Shiki's seven-years-ago-accident a whole lot sooner than the original did, wow. In the original, sure, it eventually becomes clear that there's something more going on with it than just the nominal car accident, but that only starts being hinted at a ways into the plot. But, here, we get the scene in the prologue of Shiki being told he was in a car accident, and then we jump seven years forward into the main story, and Shiki pretty quickly starts narrating about how seven years ago he almost died in an accident involving a building. (I don't have a copy of the VN script on hand, so I forget if it was a falling building or a construction-site accident or what, but it was something vaguely along those lines.) Very conspicuously inconsistent; far more suspicious far more quickly. It's interesting.

[6:40 PM] ...I should look into the logistics of opening up NSP files to see if I can do script-extraction from the translation patch; my searchable copy of the Fate/stay night script is very convenient, and I expect I'm going to end up wanting something similar here.

[6:42 PM] Anyway! Day 1 complete; it was delightful; I was very impressed with it; I look forward to continuing.

[6:43 PM] ...oh, wait, right, let's also have the bit about Lessons To Learn About VN Engine-Design, because that's a thing I like to do when I get into new VNs with particularly nice features. In this case, one positive lesson and one negative lesson.

[6:45 PM] The positive lesson is: the Tsukihime remake includes a flowchart of its choices and resulting scenes ingame (constrained to those scenes one has seen so far, for non-spoileriness), such that there's no need to memorize all the branches or keep extensive notes or suchlike. This is a very good idea, and I should make sure to include support for it whenever I get around to designing a VN engine of my own.

[6:50 PM] The negative lesson is: if you're going to give your VN individual voice sliders for each character with voiced lines (which is, itself, a good idea of which I approve), and you're going to hide the sliders for characters who haven't spoken yet in order to avoid spoilers, don't then go and initialize all newly-unhidden sliders at the default voice-line volume irrespective of what the user has set the visible sliders to. The Tsukihime remake even has a slider for "Other", as in all the bit characters who don't get sliders of their own; it would have been so technically simple and so much more convenient if they'd set things up so that, whenever a new character who does get their own slider appears, that slider were just set to the level of the Other slider, instead of initialized to the default 50% such that I had to keep going into the menu to adjust the new sliders upward for parity with all the old sliders. (Which I'd been systematically setting to 80% in order to have them not be drowned out by the background music.)

July 17, 2022

[9:33 AM] ...oh, also, off in the realm of thematic stuff, there was this interesting understated / not-very-emphasized moment I appreciated, when Shiki first made it to the Tohno mansion gates. Up to that point, we'd been getting all this internal monologuing about how the Tohno family was a sort of living anachronism, an artifact of a past era in whose territory modernity struggled to take hold. And yet, at the gates, things had modernized a bit, relative to what Shiki remembered from his childhood. The gate which once relied on a live guard had been replaced with an entirely-remote "ring the buzzer and wait for the gate to be electronically unlocked" system. Even the Tohno mansion, central territory of the Tohno family, wasn't entirely untouched by the changing of the times. And I found that cool. I wonder if this is going to end up being a more in-focus thematic thread later on, or whether it's going to be consistently left as understated subtext like this instance was.

[9:48 PM] It's somewhat surprising to me how much extra impact some of the scenes are having, even given very similar textual content, just on the basis of the visual enhancements and the increased variety of music.

[9:51 PM] In particular, this afternoon I hit the "Shiki finds Arcueid waiting for him by his school" scene (which is to say, Arcueid's second scene in the story), and wow that scene hit me hard given the extra benefit of the new CGs and music. Like, in the original, I found Arcueid's initial appearance in that sequence less impactful than the subsequent chase and conversation in the alleyway, but here, her initial appearance itself felt like a Big High-Impact Moment in its own right.

[9:52 PM] (...and then, near the end of the scene, I got a BSOD, because yuzu, whatever its virtues as a generally-impressive emulator, apparently doesn't know how to avoid leaking so much memory that it ends up crashing windows given a few hours of runtime. That part was less ideal. But not enough to undermine the scene's impact.)

[9:53 PM] Also, Arcueid's theme is just generally really good. Very plausibly my favorite bit of music to appear in the VN thus far.

July 18, 2022

[3:35 PM] Just got my first bad end! #3. It had a very cool little gimmicky moment to it, with a fake choice point: Shiki goes into decision-making mode, the choice-selection text comes up, but then, before there's any time to choose them, Shiki gets whacked in the back of the head and the Bad End progresses. Very much the sort of maneuver which... would lose impact quickly if overused? But which, as a one-off thing, makes for a very nice surprise double-subversion of the Bad End. Make a choice which seems like an obvious bad-end choice, then unexpectedly get a choice-point (thus suggesting that it's perhaps not inherently a Bad End path, since those have choice-points less often than non-Bad-End paths do), only to have the choice-point then immediately taken away and the Bad End proceed along a more unambiguous path of Badness.

[10:32 PM] Made it to the end of the fifth day. That fight with Vlov was really dramatically larger-scale than anything from the original, wow. Feels like something of a Dramatic Tone-Change; I'll be interested to see how that's handled going forward, whether the remake continues to lean more into Bombastic Large-Scale Action of that sort or whether this is going to be more of a one-off turning point after which things will return to the more familiar and personal-scale approach of the original but now with extra church attention and a big crater in the middle of town.

[10:34 PM] (Or, well, the remake near-side routes, at least. Given the nature of the far-side routes, I'm at least moderately inclined to expect that they still won't be heavy on Bombastic Large-Scale Action, whenever they get released, irrespective of whether or not the near-side routes end up being thusly focused; the smaller-scale personal focus is kind of a central tonal element of the far-side routes in the original, I think.)

[10:37 PM] (Although, like, [rot13 for Fate/stay night spoilers]Urnira'f Srry orvat Sngr'f sne-fvqr-ebhgr-rdhvinyrag qvqa'g fgbc vg sebz orvat gur ynetrfg-fpnyr bs gurz nyy, npgvba-jvfr[/rot13]. So I'm not all that strongly confident in this analysis.)

July 20, 2022

[4:45 PM] An interesting side effect of Nrvnqsr's replacement with Vlov is that it's pretty substantially changed my impressions of Shiki's "we killed the vampire, everything's solved now!" misunderstanding post-big-fight and of Arcueid's reaction thereto. Because, in the original, Arcueid explains that she's in town to hunt down the vampire serial killer, and then Nrvnqsr shows up, but he's very clearly chasing her, and never shows any sign of having interests in town beyond that. (Plus, you know, doesn't leave any corpses behind after murdering people.) Whereas Vlov is relatively infrastructurally established in town, having built up a bunch of Dead, had his scheme in place for long enough that Arihiko has already heard of it by the time of the first day, et cetera. So, sure, Vlov himself can't have done the described "exsanguinated corpses without other distinguishing traits" murders on account of the burning-people problem, but there's a very natural interpretation wherein the deaths attributed to the serial killer are a product of Vlov's Dead, who lack the same burning-people-around-them curse. (Indeed, I strongly suspect that I myself would have fallen into this interpretation, had I not already read through the original.

[4:45 PM] ...and, as a result of this, even though the text of Shiki's misunderstanding and of Arcueid's reaction thereto is largely the same, the change in context makes it read very differently? In the original, it feels like dramatic irony, Shiki failing to put the pieces in front of him together and thus thinking the plot is resolved even though it isn't yet. Here, though, it feels much more like Shiki reasoning sensibly from the information he's been given, with the result that the misundersatnding ends up feeling far more like a consequence of Arcueid failing to communicate clearly, rather than of Shiki failing to make available inferences.

July 23, 2022

[4:21 PM] Interesting! So apparently, in the remake version of Arcueid's route, Ciel just straight-up got taken off the case after the Vlov fight, with her role in the plot of the original version of the route being filled instead by the various new Church-affiliated figures added in the remake. I won't be able to get to Ciel's route for a while, yet, given its not being translated thus far, but this sure does seem like it'll make her and Arcueid's routes diverge a whole lot more immediately, relative to the awkward coupled-until-a-largeish-chunk-of-the-way-in manner in which the two are structured in the original.

[4:22 PM] (Ciel's route was one of my favorites, in the original, so I'm very much looking forward to the remake-version.)

[4:36 PM] Also: I was really not expecting for the "Shiki finds Arcueid in the alleyway after she almost sucks his blood at the park" scene in the remake to be as similar to the original as it was. Like, sure, things in the original are more explicit / go farther, and the remake-version is somewhat better-written even on axes aside from the "Nasu can't write sex scenes and in the remake he doesn't try" one—there's some sense of thematic parallel between Arcueid and Shiki's respective sequential bouts of Sudden Very-Hard-To-Resist Urge Towards Violence in one another's directions here, for instance, which was nonpresent in the original (at least to the best of my ability to notice) and which I found to make the Shiki-attacks-Arcueid half of the sequence land a whole lot better—but... I was expecting a somewhat-substantial replacement along the lines of e.g. the Fate/stay night Realta Nua sex-scene-replacements, and this was Not That.

[4:47 PM] (I suppose in retrospect I should have seen this coming; after all, the sexual overtones of the initial "Shiki stalks and murders Arcueid" sequence all the way back at the beginning weren't cut out either. But I failed to update properly on that, and thus this still came as something of a surprise. But now I'm updating. I continue to expect that there won't be actual onscreen sex scenes, but I'm no longer expecting them to necessarily be entirely cut out / replaced, as opposed to just sort of made less explicit while otherwise being retained.)

[4:54 PM] (Although the succubus subplot was entirely cut out, so it's not as simple as "everything is going to be kept in approximately-original shape", either.)

[10:04 PM] Day 11 complete! It was Very Good. It's been long enough since I've read the original that I don't remember exactly how it compares with the equivalent part there impact-wise, but I'm very impressed with this version, regardless. Lots of excellent romantic development between Shiki and Arcueid. Plus Ciel making a surprise reappearance, which simultaneously was a moving and impactful scene and also was kind of funny in how much Shiki just sort of Did Not Question this sempai from his school knowing everything about his recent adventures plus a whole bunch about Arcueid's backstory. Very good scene. Very good day. Probably my favorite chunk of the remake thus far.

July 24, 2022

[2:27 PM] Moon Princess ending reached! And thus Arcueid route complete. Just the true ending; insofar as the good ending exists in the remake as it did in the original, there was no mention of said existence in the post-ending Teach Me, Ciel-Sensei! session, and there are only three rather than four ending cards in the endings gallery, so I'm guessing that's it. Which... feels right, to me. The Arcueid true/good ending split never made much sense to me, in the original.

[2:27 PM] I have yet to go back and get all the bad ends I missed and otherwise Do Branch-Exploration; I'm going to do that later this afternoon. But, in the meantime, overall impressions of the route based on this single pass through it:

[2:44 PM] It was good! I liked it a lot. It was not, on the whole, as good as the original was at being the thing the original was, I think. There were individual scenes where it managed to outpace the original, definitely; where the new renditions of the scenes felt like the original thing, but better-crafted / more what-it-was-trying-to-be. As well as some newly-added scenes which felt like they successfully enhanced the tone of the original, like the "Ciel tells Shiki about Arcueid's past next to the crater left by the fight with Vlov" scene. But there were also various scenes and story-elements which felt like they were doing other things, things that the original wasn't doing, and which, through dilution, were sufficient to end up making the route feel somewhat less concentratedly the-thing-the-original-version-was on net. The presence of guests in the Tohno mansion, which reduced the sense of isolation which characterized the place in the original; the Vlov fight, which was a lot more Large-Scale Bombastic Action-shaped than anything from the original; Ciel's replacement with Noel and Mario during the middle parts of the plot, which dampened the impact of her disappearance and subsequent reappearance towards the end; Ciel's interlude just before the final fight with Roa, which was relatively straightforwardly action-y and lacked the sense of Desperate Pursuit Of A Probably-Doomed Happy Ending that the rest of that sequence had; et cetera.

[2:45 PM] ...but, at the same time, while it may not have been as good as the original at being the thing the original was, it still did a very good job of being itself?

[2:47 PM] Overall, then: I enjoyed it, I am very much looking forward to the translation of the next route (and to the release of the subsequent routes), and, while it remains to be seen how I'll ultimately rate it relative to the original (having now confirmed that that rating won't be "superior in every way, does everything the original did but better"), I'm very much expecting to find it good and worthwhile and worth revisiting in the future for its own sake.

[2:50 PM] ...and I am absolutely expecting at least some scenes' Prototypical Images In My Head to be overwritten with the remake-versions. As well as some backstory-explanations. (The remake's exposition-sequences often felt somewhat clearer, in a fashion that I'm not sure whether to attribute to differences in writing or to differences in translation.) So I guess my default imagination of Tsukihime, from here on out, is going to be a sort of weird patchwork of original and remake, rather than purely one or the other; that'll be interesting.

[11:02 PM] Branch-exploration complete! Exactly one unexplored branch remains, on the flowchart (which is a thing that's accessible from the ingame menu, it's so good, I applaud whoever came up with that as an innovation over the "fans need to assemble and pass around our own flowcharts" meta of prior Type-Moon VNs), and that branch is untranslated. So I guess that's it for now! Nothing more remains, pending translation of the next route.

[11:19 PM] A few branches which stuck out to me which I happened to not hit on the first pass: - There are multiple layers of Bonus Dead Apostle Exposition that one can choose between and can't see all of in a single pass through the VN! I managed to miss both of them, the first time through, but even if I hadn't, I'd have been stuck with just one or the other rather than both. Mean. (Although... plausibly warranted from the standpoint of "they add up to solid hour-ish of non-plot-central infodumping", admittedly. The prior mandatory Dead Apostle exposition-round was a bit much even just by itself, so I can understand spacing out the bonus rounds to take place on multiple successive passes, even if in this case I ended up doing them both in sequence anyway.) - The "Shiki goes out to see Arcueid while still weak from his encounter with the clearing behind the Tohno mansion that morning, and ends up falling apart over the subsequent day" dead-end branch was interestingly different and weird, in this version of things. Instead of getting picked up at school by Kohaku only for her to suddenly be gone and Roa to be there and kill him, he gets driven home, runs into Kohaku-in-disguise-as-Hisui at the mansion entrance while his internal monologue grows progressively more deranged, taken into an off-limts hallway of the mansion, and then she's suddenly gone, with his internal monologue and the presence of a Bad End at that point indicating that something kills him off but with no indication as to what? It was interesting in the degree of utter unclarity there was regarding what happened, even moreso than in the original version. Something Kohaku-related, presumably, but I have no solid hypotheses regarding details. - Where the "let's go to that one alleyway in town!" date-branch in the original was a Clear Wrong Choice, here, it starts out seeming like a Wrong Choice but actually ends up somehow being probably the best of the three date-branches? Both on the "Shiki and Arcueid both have a fun time with it" level and on the "contains Interesting Side-Character Stuff" level. It's the only branch in the entirety of Arcueid's route where we get to learn anything about the one purple-haired girl who keeps on showing up in minor roles throughout the early parts of the route and who's almost certainly going to be important in some other route! And apparently her name is Saiki Mio. As in the same family name as Saiki Gouto, who's been generally ominous and who stabbed Shiki to death off in a different dead end. So that seems significant, even if thus far I have nowhere near enough pieces to put what's up with the Saikis together into any sort of coherent picture.

[11:23 PM] (...was Mio somehow involved in the incident with the Loud Dogs In The Nighttime that woke Shiki up? And/or with the thing where, despite Vlov lacking Nrvnqsr's "have more than one animal familiar" superpower, there were still two dogs in the elevator at the head of Vlov's attack on the hotel? Certainly she made some sort of obscure comment about dogs, during the "Shiki runs away from the hotel room and sits in the park debating whether to really go through with abandoning Arcueid" branch. Once again: not nearly enough evidence for me to be confident. But I've got my eye on her, at least.)

[11:53 PM] Also, while I’m at it with the various mysteries left hanging whose answers aren’t clear to me just on the basis of familiarity with the original: - Why, at the start of Day 7, is Shiki in that state of “feverish in a manner that seems mutually-reinforcing with his more-overt-than-normal attraction to Akiha”? There’s no succubus to leave him pre-flustered, this time. But it’s clearly something weird going on beyond his normal health issues and his normal attraction to Akiha, there. - Whose familiar / shapeshifted form / whatever-else-it-might-be is the panther that keeps showing up? Whoever they are, they don’t seem inherently hostile to Shiki; the panther shows up just before he passes out, in the aftermath of his first fight with Roa, and nonetheless he wakes up alive the next day. But they also don’t seem inherently non-hostile to him, because the panther totally does tear his throat out if he ends up killing Arcueid a second time in the alleyway. - What’s up with Shiki’s nighttime jaunt into the hidden attic, on the first night? - What’s up with Shiki’s nighttime jaunt into the one alleyway, on the second night? - What’s up with Shiki’s throat-itchiness, early on? It seems like plausibly Noel’s fault somehow, but details are highly unclear of what plausibly-she did, why, and what its effects are (beyond “be yet another component in the soup of negative mental influences Shiki spends the story stewing in”). - What’s up with the various new characters? (Saiki Gouto, Saiki Mio, Arach, Noel, Mario, the third Church person whose name I forget, Vlov, perhaps a couple more I’m forgetting as well; all seem like they have things going on beyond what’s been revealed thus far.) - What’s the prior time saving Shiki that Ciel alludes to, after saving him from Roa? Was it in fact her, rather than Noel, who cleared the path for him to stab Vlov? Or was there some other occasion that I managed to miss or which happened in Secret Backstory or something?

#Archive #Tsukihime #Tsukihime Remake Liveblog Archive #ciel route to follow in a few days #i've finished reading it and thus *probably* finished liveblogging but want to give myself a few days to digest it before archiving #in case i end up having any final thoughts i decide to add on to the end

[heartvisor]

various thought about hibiki

the key matter to hibiki is very much mentorship/support and direction and deliberate action in cultivating an awareness of/connection to the self and the relationships we have to the world around us. various processes are shown in a detail that you generally don't see in this sort of genre.

the attention people have to performing send-offs to the oni, packaging mochi made for delivery at tachibana's, the guided/supported piecing together of disk animals, the sights and people on the way to school, chopping firewood and building a hearth--the mundane and the fantastic are detailed in a way that shows how consideration is needed for both. it communicates a very real sense of gathered effort, lends believable weight to hibiki's value towards training, and imbues them with a sense of meaning that you can carry with you

particular to youth, the curiosity towards the building of the world is very much respected and fulfilled here in various ways (things can often become abstracted and strange in various avenues of life; a flood of information and procedure is prescribed and memorized, but simultaneously things feel very rarely explained in clear and tangible ways--there is no time or patience or space for it). in hibiki, the world is rendered more real, more approachable, less of a stranger and more full of wonder.

the way asumu's gaze follows the people of takeshi with that particular admiration and curiosity was always so sweet. it hearkens to how important it feels particularly as a young person when encountering people who fill you with that wonder, who take the time to give deliberate consideration, who broaden the range of the world in both larger and smaller, personal ways...

additionally, it feels strange to mention, but there's a bit of a characteristic wetness to the fighting in the first half that feels somewhat intentional. somewhat related to the pathos of blood, there is a presence to liquids. the usual toku sparks fly away and fizzle out (they, like cg fireballs and such, feel less physical, more fantastic) whereas monster blood and water sticks to the body--it persists on the person

the injuries as well, while oni have increased regenerative power, there was focus on doing so and the effort expended in such. there is a consideration to these things's tangible sense.

#krhbkblog #benlongtext #sorry that this is so long-winded and a bit disorganized. it was rough trying to put this together after staying up last night lol #it was good! it was sweet... i feel like i might cry if i think about it a little too long ://D #krtext

[willoughby20nikolajsen]

Unrealistic as folk isn't going to educate you on about gay intercourse.

Johnny Sibilly isn't drawn to be able to giving the "ABCs of what it means in order to be strange. inches Sibilly and fellow "uncommon as people" solid contributors consent: in case a person don't understand exactly what something potential, Yahoo and google it. Russell Capital t. Davies' usual series, which premiered in, adopted three homosexual men in Gatwick, England. A a few months later, Showtime opened its personal model, set in Pittsburgh and increasing its umbrella to cover up more versions of irregular. On Thurs night, the newest time hits Peacock, chosen as a "reimagining" in the collection, this particular time in Brand new Orleans and a very good much larger apple: an expecting a baby lesbian brace, a good auto lady, drag queens and extra splendid homosexual folks than that you would be capable to count amount. This version involving "odd as folk" takes no time to be able to explain who it truly is or why really right here. below s simply their apple. "It's crucial to make strange points for irregular men and women. from time to time the first abstract of abnormal being is a lot like, 'ok we're activity in order to explain our existence to you, it can good enough, baby, appear on in, the particular baptize's friendly, ' " Ryan O'Connell, who stars while Julian, a geek with cerebral palsy who nonetheless day-to-day lives at domestic along with his mother, Kim Cattrall, plus also is the creator and co-executive producer, informed typically the every day details. "Here is just like, 'neatly, we don't affliction in circumstance you're comfy or perhaps not; this will be existence. ' " Devin approach famous actors in "weird while folk. " PeacockAlyssa MoranPeacock "outlandish simply because folk" isn't self conscious about its sex. basically, it revels inside. every place, version and appeal. A single person, two persons, more. beeline, homosexual. Abled and not. "In so some sort of whole lot extravagant tv and motion picture, exclusive characters are sanctified and produced to be these kinds of basically palatable models of what aberration will be, " Fin Bordure, who plays Mingus, a high teachers pupil making a great attempt to discover his area, advised Good news. Why Esconderme y Llorar - Folk version began 'Queer as Folk' with a Pulse-like taking pictures "It's essential to see characters of which can also become blowzy and usually are animal and maybe no longer like each and even every different but can nonetheless always be a part associated with the identical party, " Argus explained. "not each individual is going to get along, but there's continue to this thread that will keeps people connected. " Mingus Fin Argus and their high faculty fitness instructor Ruthie Jesse Adam Keitel find common ground outside the particular lecture room. PeacockAlyssa MoranPeacock Showrunner Stephen Dunn declared his / her demonstrate as "real, raw, authentic abnormal reports. " just about every now and then simply that's an exclusive support CG and Jesse James Keitel anticipating twins and determining how to become folks. now plus again that's Mingus, experimenting as a pull queen and jointly with his very own female. occasionally which Brodie Devin Much, who has alone away of clinical university and are available home with away an affairs. every single now and then simply that's a fatal taking pictures at Babylon, some sort of gay nightclub. sometimes that's a montage associated with sex scenes. "There are individuals that re like, 'Oh, here is quite woke, ' and even I'm like, 'Our existence is woke? ' La Tierra Llora to us, " Sibilly, which performs Noah, a new successful attorney together with less success throughout his personal living, informed The information. "above all inside case you quit in New Orleans, there's such a very good, diverse neighborhood of people littering the particular streets, the dining establishments. La Tierra Llora doesn't look at like we're blockage containers. We're simply showing the entire world how its in addition to the way that exists. " Keitel, the trans more playing semireformed birthday party lady and excessive college trainer Ruthie, whose partner, Shar, is pregnant, stressed the messiness of it all. These characters aren't ultimate, nor whenever they pretend to end up being. Noah johnny Sibilly, correct, and Julian Ryan O'Connell, larboard, are coming in order to grips using their moving realities. PeacockPeacock "We get to seem exclusive people lifestyle their lives authentically and unapologetically in addition to surrounded through their friends in a community who adulation and embrace these people, " she suggested The news. "I assume individuals overlook that queer people are usually general. We're commonplace individuals, real people with hopes and even desires and tiers and affray and conflict. They damage. " During the particular tragedy of the particular bistro capturing, "unusual as folks" locates its gentle. Now there are not any explanations of Grindr. There aren big t any beeline character types to guide you into their world. It just is present. "As unique men and women, we undertake concerns in our lives that you'd feel annoying and it s even using all of these kinds of things what can make us special: each of our humor we acquire out of the particular darkish moments, each of our friendships, our referred to as family unit, " Sibilly informed The information. "It's concerning now not how it changes you, but precisely what you need to do with that that matters. That is a really relatable odd component to climb from the ashes. "

#La Tierra Llora #La Tierra Llora artist by Paulina Aguirre #Estrella de la Mañana #Estrella de la Mañana artist by Paulina Aguirre #Esconderme y Llorar - Folk version #Esconderme y Llorar artist by Paulina Aguirre

[jen567]

Theme 1: Inner Space  

Artistic references

Frederik Heyman

Frederik Heyman is a fashion photography multimedia science artist born in 1984 in Belgium and graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp in 2007 with an MA in Photography and an MA in Graphic and Illustration Design. He has created 3D works for brands like Burberry, Y/project Kenzo, Gentle Monster and many others. His works present an imagination of the real world and the sci-fi future world, rearranging the real world with observations of desires and fantasies to create his own virtual worlds. He copies elements from the present world and pastes them into this alternate reality. This reality depicts detailed descriptions created out of a desire to overcome human nature.

Eero Lundén and Juulia Kauste

Another Generosity

Born in 1986, Alexey graduated from the National Technical University in Poltava, Ukraine with a Master's degree in Visual and Decorative and Applied Arts. He has created a series of CG works for the fantasy field, produced a large number of 3D models and collaborated with clients all over the world, and in 2012 he started his research and work in the field of scientific visualisation.

He has won several major awards in the field of 3D graphics, including two CGSociety 3D Awards and the ZBrush Image of the Year Award, and has been published in more than 30 international print magazines and books. in 2017 he founded Newt Studios, a medical animation company, with his business partner Mike Moran. He is also the founder of the Ukrainian company ARQUTE Ltd. He is also a strong believer in a healthy lifestyle and believes that a healthy lifestyle leads to a more fulfilling life.

Drew Berry

Drew Berry is a medical animator, artist and cell biologist who can make the violent cellular and molecular movements and abstract and complex science that occurs in the human body understandable in beautifully visualised images. He has worked as a biomedical animator at the Walter Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Australia from 1995 to the present. His animations have been exhibited in numerous museums.

Stine Deja

Stine Deja is a visual artist born in 1986 in Denmark and living in Copenhagen. Her work is about the impact of technological development on the human psyche, living conditions and behavioural patterns. It is a dystopian and critical perspective on the future of human culture, combining extensive conceptual research with transcendental aesthetics and a sense of irony. Deja's creations use different mediums such as monolithic installations, kinetic sculptures, sound installations, videos, 3D animations, and texts, and focus on the integration of human biology and digital technology, biology and digital technology. She focuses on the relationship between human emotional complexes, motivations and obligations, and the mechanisms that humans employ to help them fulfil their desires. Her work is in the collections of numerous museums and foundations.

[josephfebin]

Forefront 1: Cat and Moth (2023) Battle of 2D and 3D

Directed by India Barnardo, "Cat and Moth" is a pleasant animated short. I was eager to see this movie as expected it did not disappoint me. In the film, we can see a playful cat and a turbo-charged moth competing for a desirable spot on a sofa. Being a classic premise with a modern twist, this short film kept me glued on throughout. What interested me the most was the blend of 2D and CG animation used in the movie. The film is mostly in 3D animation, but it also incorporated a number of 2D scenes and aspects that really set it apart. The harmonious fusion of contrasting styles in the movie created a vibrant and engaging universe. The classic monochrome styles with abstract elements offered an additional level of aesthetic appeal to the character movements and animation accents which made it more captivating.

''Cat and Moth is a battle over the most comfortable spot in the universe. It’s set in a doll-house-like, handmade inspired CG set, along with 2D sequences and 2dfx to bridge the two worlds'' The soundtrack, composed by Liv Muir Wilson, is a pitch-perfect jazzy tune that enriches the whole viewing experience. It brilliantly complements the action on screen and contributes to the happy mood of the movie, tells how important a sound team for any movies.

With the opponents established and the arena set, Barnardo are her team bring this battle to life through an eye-catching blend of 2D and CG animation. Although it’s the 3D animation that makes up the majority of the film, it’s the 2D elements, and sequences, that make the short really standout.

In my own practice, this movie and it’s making tells me, how we connect our own stories to our movie with adding further contents. The director's personal connection to the story is certainly something I really appreciate. Her personal cats and their behaviour served as the inspiration for the movie's plot. This gave the characters and their interactions a little more authenticity. Seeing personal experiences translated into art always fascinates me. Overall, "Cat and Moth" is a skilfully crafted and enjoyable animated short. Barnardo adopts a creative approach to her direction and her works reflects how skilfully she handles the tempo of the comedy. The seamless integration of 2D and 3D animation styles throughout the film deepens the narrative. Animation fans of all ages will definitely enjoy this movie.

Bibliography

Barnardo, I. (2023). Cat and Moth | Short Film. [online] Vimeo. Available at: https://vimeo.com/833197466 [Accessed 3 Jul. 2023].

shortoftheweek (2023). Cat and Moth - an animated short film by India Barnardo. [online] Short of the Week. Available at: https://www.shortoftheweek.com/2023/06/05/cat-and-moth [Accessed 3 Jul. 2023].

www.catandmoth.com. (2023). Cat and Moth - About. [online] Available at: https://www.catandmoth.com/about [Accessed 3 Jul. 2023].

#ma animation #animation #major study #university of hertfordshire #Vimeo #Youtube

[evoldir]

Fwd: Workshop: Germany.BasalMetazoan.Sep18-21

Begin forwarded message: > From: [email protected] > Subject: Workshop: Germany.BasalMetazoan.Sep18-21 > Date: 13 June 2023 at 07:36:53 BST > To: [email protected] > > > Dear all, > > We are exited to invite you to the Tutzing basal metazoan workshop > ("Hydra meeting”): Evolution of resilience, regeneration, and animal > complexity - insights from basal metazoans > > The workshop will be held at the Evangelische Akademie Tutzing, Germany, > 18-21 September, 2023 > > The goal of the workshop is to learn about cutting-edge research > from international experts working on basal metazoans (eco-evo-devo, > phylogenomics, stem cell biology, gene regulatory mechanisms, tissue > formation & regeneration, nervous system evolution, symbiosis, microbiome, > etc pp) and to provide a forum for future networks and collaborations. > > As in previous years, the workshop will be quite intimate – with a > maximum number of  ca. 100 participants. Contributions to the meeting > may be in the form of talks or posters with a focus on new or unpublished > findings. > > - Full room and board are 700 EUR for the 3.5-day meeting (Monday lunch >  - Thursday lunch), thanks to subsidy by the German Research >  Foundation (DFG) > - To register, please fill the following form: >  https://ift.tt/A7xvjIc (where you can also indicate your >  interest to present a talk/poster and submit a title and abstract) > - Registration deadline: June 15, 2023 > - Decision on talk/poster acceptance: July 1, 2023 by the scientific >  committee (liana Baums, Noriko Funayama, Celina Juliano, Yehu Moran, >  Ulrich Technau) > > The associated webpage can be found at https://ift.tt/ClvEK8t > and will be updated regularly! > > We look forward to seeing you in Tutzing in September 2023. > > Sincerely, > > The Organizers & Scientific Committee: Christian R Voolstra, Uli Technau, > Thomas W Holstein, Thomas CG Bosch, Iliana Baums, Noriko Funayama, > Celina Juliano, Yehu Moran > > > > Christian R Voolstra

#IFTTT #Email

[canmom]

is an AI image generator better understood as "a tool used by an artist", or "a service commissioned by a patron"? your feelings on this question will correlate pretty much exactly on whether you think this shit is good news or bad.

though as far as the pro-AI side goes, I think there is some slippage between 'the AI neural net learns like a human' and 'the AI is just a tool'.

and oof i did it again. long text post below about encoding, interpolation, plagiarism in art etc.

suppose for the sake of argument we lived in some cool fucked up biopunk world where instead of a data centre crunching numbers, you had brains in jars that spent their life looking at pictures and drawing them in a big training centre, and then it sits on your desk and draws pictures when you ask it. if you tell the brain to draw a picture, and then say 'hey guys look at this picture I made'... well you know, is it really your picture, etc etc.

the objection to 'the computer does all the work' in 3D computer graphics is that actually it takes a stupid amount of work to do anything half decent in CG, it just shifts the work elsewhere from where it is in painting. it's less akin to painting and more to building an elaborate physical diorama and then taking a photo of it. for this reason, computer graphics has been able to slip in fairly easily to the social roles we've designated around making 'art'. CG also has a distinctly different look to existing art forms, the endless quest for photorealism notwithstanding.

AI image generation is trickier to defend from this objection, since the whole selling point is that it's very easy to get 'good results' without specialist knowledge, and its success state is trying to look indistinguishable from other means. (Midjourney's fractal horror landscapes bother people much less since they're obviously AI - this kicked off in serious when AI started to get close enough to be near-indistinguishable.)

the obvious objection to the brain in a jar analogy is that the AI doesn't actually resemble a human all that much, and there's no reason to think it's sapient; it's a robot not a robota.

the way a human learns to make art is a set of practices - certainly they are likely to be inspired by other art that came before them, but as if not more important is the experience of interacting with their chosen tools, the connection with other parts of their life that they put into their art, their relationship to other people who respond to their creations. humans are certainly great imitators but we're not just that, which is why art constantly evolves.

so then what is the "AI" actually doing, if not "learning"? well, it's something more like interpolating and extrapolating. but it's interpolating in a strange abstract multidimensional mathematical space that's fairly opaque to intuitive human understanding, so we have to lean on analogy.

this isn't entirely unalike to the techniques used in image compression. even an older algorithm like JPEG transforms its pixel values into frequencies by the wavelet transform. what's stored in a JPEG file is coefficients of waves that can be added back together to generate the image; it turns out you can discard some of the higher frequencies and still get pretty close. computer programming is in large part about learning to translate data between different representations, 'equivalent' insofar as you can map one to another with the right algorithm.

in that sense then an 'AI' and its dataset does have an approximate encoding of the 'training' data. (I use quotes because it's really important that these are just analogies, it's not an 'intelligence' like an animal and its training is only similar to what a human does when learning.) and this representation can be used to create variations that seem like they might have been in the training data. for another flawed analogy, the text prompt is something like a query into something like an approximate database.

how does that relate to familiar human notions of artistic plagiarism? i see a lot of people get very chewed up about what is and is not 'allowed' in art. (one young artist asked me if it was ok to claim as his own a drawing from photo reference!) the answer i always give is that the problem is with dishonesty, so just be upfront about what you did. if you copy another artist, as long as you say 'i made a study, here's the original by artist xyz', you're in the clear.

in fine art, things get especially screwy. it's already the case that an especially skilled human can create a convincing forgery, so art ends up being associated with some kind of attestation of its pedigree. owning something 'authentic' by the right person means it's extremely valuable, which has little to do with the actual aesthetic qualities of whatever it is. the absurdity of this has been mocked endlessly but it doesn't seem to have stopped at all. meanwhile we've had ~mechanical reproduction~ for a long time, so mass produced exact copies are the norm, and along with it is the legal apparatus of copyright. online, generally the ethics of it has turned into 'feel free to copy but give proper credit'. I've been pretty obsessive about this, always wanting to give a source; i really dislike decontextualised images floating around. but that credit goes as far as naming the artist, maybe giving a little context about when and where it was made, and not an attempt to create a genealogy of inspirations in most cases.

a human artist can learn to imitate another, but it's a truism that learning to imitate an exceptionally skilled artist is amounts to becoming one yourself, and that no matter how hard you try to imitate, some of your own style will shine through. for this reason, studying under someone and taking on their style is understood often as an act of devotion. (though conversely in the eyes of a critic, an artist may be dismissed as derivative if their inspirations are too obvious.)

with AI, the question becomes more complicated, since there's a huge black box in between the input and output, distinct from the black box that is the artist's mind itself. an AI can fairly easily be tuned to imitate someone in particular, for example the infamous Kim Jung Gi AI made recently after his death, which tries to generate images that he might have made. an artist may try to draw in the style of Kim as a tribute to him, using their own subconscious visual library and methods. you could even do this in a different field of art, e.g. a CG artist making a render inspired by one of Kim's drawings. but running that AI would never be seen as an act of devotion, rather an attempt to create a shallow and insulting replacement. ig you could interpret this intuitive feeling thus: it's not carrying forward the practice that Kim dedicated his life to, but presenting some completely different and trivial activity as equivalent.

our notions of plagiarism, copyright etc are pretty broken at the best of times. in general my feeling is that the less restrictions there are on copying, the better, since one of the best ways to learn is to study other people. but I also put a lot of value in having some understanding of history, influence etc. - the stuff sakuga fans like.

AI interpolation is going to just make it all the more screwy. "a tech company took a billion pictures including yours and mashed them into an abstract function that can be probed with text queries, and i queried it with your name and found a picture that's pretty close to something you might have drawn, clearly derivative of your work but not directly plagiarism - what are my ethical obligations to you", all at scale, is not a problem we've had to deal with before. it's a pretty left-field thing for artists, already occupying a tenuous position within capitalism, to have to worry about. unfortunately the default reaction of a lot of people is to try and get the government to make it go away, which is likely to backfire if it goes anywhere. but it is alarming, it is pushing on a lot of existing fault lines in this strange social process we call 'making art'.

(the solution is to give people some sort of insulation from the market, and access to some sort of community of artists not shaped by chasing an Industry. but 'not having to profit a capitalist to live' is unthinkable so...)

to me there is a strong intuitive feeling that what someone querying an 'AI' is doing is not very similar to what an illustrator 'querying their own subconscious' is doing, even if both result in a similar picture. that's not the same as saying it's 'not art', it may be a type of art (what else would it be?), but it's a type of art I have zero interest in and can't see the appeal of doing. which is fine that's just taste, there's plenty of other activities that people do which I don't care about. but insofar as it actually threatens the continued reproduction of types of art I do care about, and is trying very hard to imitate, I really don't like 'AI' and wish it would fuck off as a flash-in-the-pan fad.

anyway, being specific is hard, analogies are always limited, from now on every time I see a post about AI art that I'm moved to respond to, I'll draw a picture instead.