Is using AI art in animations allowed?

[Kwing]

The art portal rules state that AI art isn't allowed, but I'm potentially interested in creating an animation where I manipulate AI-made sprites on the screen.

My intuition says this should be allowed because sprite movies have been a staple of the site for a long time and rely on the animator manipulating images they didn't create, but I figured I'd ask just in case.

[Template88]

My argument would be why. AI art is intrinsically generic looking, why would you want to manipulate generic looking puppets for your animation? Theres no novelty to it, its not a subversive thing to do. Every ai meme already does this. You're going to potentially make people mad on sight and AI isnt in the spirit of the site to begin with, even if it was technically allowed. Theres no advantage from this pipeline on this site.

[Skoops]

There have been some animations that got through vetting despite minimal use of AI-generated backgrounds and the like, but I would caution you against making it a core element of your work. You're not in particularly friendly territory for machine-automated plagiarism in particular, even if there's a history of folks using images they don't own in their work.

The difference from an audience perspective is that they can relate to sprites and images they've seen before; they may have some connection to the source material, whereas the use of AI takes all the laziness of not doing something yourself and removes all the familiarity and shared connection to the bigger thing that the derivative work borrows from. With that in mind, anything you post has high blam potential even if the degree of alteration means it's technically allowed.

[PerKGrok]

At 5/14/24 10:58 PM, Kwing wrote: The art portal rules state that AI art isn't allowed, but I'm potentially interested in creating an animation where I manipulate AI-made sprites on the screen.

My intuition says this should be allowed because sprite movies have been a staple of the site for a long time and rely on the animator manipulating images they didn't create, but I figured I'd ask just in case.

From the movie guidelines

https://www.newgrounds.com/wiki/help-information/terms-of-use/movie-guidelines

AI Animation

This will be an evolving area. If you are an artist who is using AI to assist you in your process, this is most likely fine. We will be removing things like AI slideshows, however. For example if you take an audio track and play it alongside static images generated by AI, that will likely be removed.

Our enforcement will be largely subjective as we get a handle on what cases are valid uses of AI and what cases are over-dependent on a computer doing the bulk of creative work.

So according to the guidelines it might be allowed - depending on how dependent on AI the totality of the work is.

But it is a bit of a gray area, so you will probably not get a firm yes or no in advance.

If you go for it, I would suggest you are open about what you are doing and that you document your process so you can explain it, if it is questioned.

I'm not a mod, so even this "maybe/maybe not"-answer is just a one user opinion.

Also, there is an animation forum that might be a better place for this question.

[Kwing]

At 5/14/24 11:02 PM, Template88 wrote: My argument would be why.

Low opportunity cost. I do not identify as a visual artist and visual art in general holds little appeal to me. I'm a writer, but prose on its own is less palatable to a general audience and there's still no writing portal yet.

The goal is less about making something that's visually impressive and more about having something serviceable that's less work than animating a short film from the ground up but more accessible than an audio drama. As I see it, there are already multimedia submissions on the site that are mainly there to highlight a single medium within it (for instance, Funkin is mediocre as game but serves as a delivery system for great music and The World's Hardest Game is fun and challenging despite literally having the simplest graphics possible.) In my case I want to highlight my writing.

[Skoops]

At 5/15/24 02:43 AM, Kwing wrote:

At 5/14/24 11:02 PM, Template88 wrote: My argument would be why.

Low opportunity cost. I do not identify as a visual artist and visual art in general holds little appeal to me. I'm a writer, but prose on its own is less palatable to a general audience and there's still no writing portal yet.

The goal is less about making something that's visually impressive and more about having something serviceable that's less work than animating a short film from the ground up but more accessible than an audio drama. As I see it, there are already multimedia submissions on the site that are mainly there to highlight a single medium within it (for instance, Funkin is mediocre as game but serves as a delivery system for great music and The World's Hardest Game is fun and challenging despite literally having the simplest graphics possible.) In my case I want to highlight my writing.

Not for nothin', if I see a mishmash of AI slop on the screen while being fed prose, I'm going to assume the writing is AI generated, too. Might not be the best idea to directly associate your human creativity with something so emblematic of the lack thereof.

[Blue-Fox001]

At 5/15/24 02:43 AM, Kwing wrote:

At 5/14/24 11:02 PM, Template88 wrote: My argument would be why.

Low opportunity cost. I do not identify as a visual artist and visual art in general holds little appeal to me. I'm a writer, but prose on its own is less palatable to a general audience and there's still no writing portal yet.

The goal is less about making something that's visually impressive and more about having something serviceable that's less work than animating a short film from the ground up but more accessible than an audio drama. As I see it, there are already multimedia submissions on the site that are mainly there to highlight a single medium within it (for instance, Funkin is mediocre as game but serves as a delivery system for great music and The World's Hardest Game is fun and challenging despite literally having the simplest graphics possible.) In my case I want to highlight my writing.

ehhhhhhh, yeah I dont think using AI generated backgrounds alongside your audio stuff would be a good idea. Like, if you're going to make a a movie to highlight your writing, your audience is gonna be looking at the movie first. You could have the best writing in the world, but if the first thing your audience sees is slop, they're gonna assume the rest of the movie is also slop, and they're gonna click off.

The reason why FNF works is because its packaging is fun and interesting. A bright and striking artstyle reminiscent of graffiti art, grouped with simple mechanics with room for increased difficulty and banger music.

The World's Hardest Game doesn't have to be complex. It gets its point across, "Dodge these circles, get to the green zone." The main draw is the difficulty; your classic rage game.

AI generated images are a tossup between "wow this looks so real!" and "wait a minute, this person didn't draw anything..." and the main problem is the fundamental lack of creative input in AI generated images. Sure you type in a prompt, but that's where your input ends. Having your showcase of your creative writing alongside something that you did not create is kinda eh.

[Thetageist]

At 5/15/24 02:43 AM, Kwing wrote:

At 5/14/24 11:02 PM, Template88 wrote: My argument would be why.

Low opportunity cost. I do not identify as a visual artist and visual art in general holds little appeal to me. I'm a writer, but prose on its own is less palatable to a general audience and there's still no writing portal yet.

The goal is less about making something that's visually impressive and more about having something serviceable that's less work than animating a short film from the ground up but more accessible than an audio drama. As I see it, there are already multimedia submissions on the site that are mainly there to highlight a single medium within it (for instance, Funkin is mediocre as game but serves as a delivery system for great music and The World's Hardest Game is fun and challenging despite literally having the simplest graphics possible.) In my case I want to highlight my writing.

I’d say that the middle ground you’re looking for is to find an artist to make a comic out of your writing! It’s gotten a lot easier to post comics now, thanks to the Art Project overhaul update which allows for multi-image art submissions and multiple people credited.

You shouldn’t have to worry about your writing being somehow “overshadowed” by the art if you’re communicating well enough with the artist. The aim is to have the illustrations enhance your writing and give it even more impact. If you inherently see a collaboration as a competition between you and an artist, you might need to get some help.

[BoiledMilkz]

no. and even if you do, everybody will hate you.

[Kwing]

At 5/15/24 04:23 PM, Thetageist wrote: You shouldn’t have to worry about your writing being somehow “overshadowed” by the art if you’re communicating well enough with the artist. The aim is to have the illustrations enhance your writing and give it even more impact. If you inherently see a collaboration as a competition between you and an artist, you might need to get some help.

I've been collaborating with artists on the site for over a decade. It's not something I'm opposed to, but I've noticed that in many cases I have to tightly manage the scope of my projects to ensure what I'm asking of my artist is reasonable. The last three games I released were all downscaled for this reason and I can't help but be curious how the workflow might be different using AI tools.

At 5/15/24 04:43 PM, BoiledMilkz wrote: no. and even if you do, everybody will hate you.

Sour grapes will be sour grapes. Portal awards have been pure nepotism for a long, long time. High effort submissions (especially games) have been losing to 30 second animations made by someone with several thousand fans. And to be clear, this is an issue with an automated system, it's not as though users with large fanbases are "making" fans bolster their ratings.

As a reminder, the end result is not going to be low effort. It's not going to be slideshow set to text to speech. Animating by hand and audio engineering for voice actors and ambiance are a lot of work on their own, far more than a lot of what passes judgment on the site.

Given that I haven't gotten an actual, solid answer regarding site rules and this thread is clearly not going to stay on-topic I'm going to request a lock and take my query elsewhere. @Malachy

[Thetageist]

At 5/15/24 05:17 PM, Kwing wrote:

At 5/15/24 04:23 PM, Thetageist wrote: You shouldn’t have to worry about your writing being somehow “overshadowed” by the art if you’re communicating well enough with the artist. The aim is to have the illustrations enhance your writing and give it even more impact. If you inherently see a collaboration as a competition between you and an artist, you might need to get some help.

I've been collaborating with artists on the site for over a decade. It's not something I'm opposed to, but I've noticed that in many cases I have to tightly manage the scope of my projects to ensure what I'm asking of my artist is reasonable. The last three games I released were all downscaled for this reason and I can't help but be curious how the workflow might be different using AI tools.

Communication is necessary in every project. Scope creep is a real thing for any project run by someone with big ideas - it’s not a problem unique to you, thankfully. I’ve been running an art collab that quickly had to switch to a different way of showing the results because the big game I wanted to do couldn’t meet the deadline. That’s life as a creative - adaptability is a big part of it, and if everyone decided to throw in the towel the second a creative project got tough, the world would be a whole lot less full of interesting ideas to think about.

I doubt this’ll get closed, by the way. You are getting solid answers, the thread is staying on topic, and it’s a productive discussion overall. The rules have been cited for you.

Edit: I misread the post I’m replying to. I think the reason why you aren’t getting a solid answer is because you haven’t even given us a solid idea of how you’re going to incorporate AI into your work. What exactly are you doing? The rules are a gradient, yes, so where does yours fall on it?

[Malachy]

AI art is still pretty new, the rules are a still a little subjective. I think the intent is we don't want cookie cutter low effort crap clogging up the site sort of like how endless versions of beginner tutorials and shovelware aren't allowed.

Locking at OP's request.