Would you consider using AI for CGs and backgrounds?
no. for several reasons, besides environmental impact:
prior to my being aware of the environmental impact of ai, I was not opposed to its use in free projects like this one (essentially in instances where you had no intention of spending money to begin with). however, even prior to the hard-line stance i currently have with ai, there was an issue i had with it aesthetically, which leads me to point 2:
it's already really hard to get an ai image just right when you're not trying to emulate a certain art style. to me, it usually just,.,,.,doesn't look great. i think we're past the "you can always tell" point with some images and generative ai engines, but generally speaking, when it looks like ai, it really looks like ai.
Since i would be trying to emulate the art style of choices, i would most likely have to feed choices assets into an ai generator in order to get the generator to copy that style. to me, that seems quite unfair to the actual artists who have put time and effort into creating the really cool backgrounds/character assets that pixelberry uses. even though pixelberry no longer seems interested in preserving that, i don't think it's fair, and i'm not interested in making any ai image generator any smarter.
i spent a huge chunk of the summer of 2023 on the sag-aftra/wga picket lines, where one of the main points of contention was the use of ai. prior to this, i was somewhat agnostic about its use (see point 1). outside of environmental impact, to me, using generative ai for a creative project of any kind now feels like i'd be spitting in the face of the people i met on the picket line and the people who have made the tv shows/movies i love so great. it also feels antithetical to use a tool that could potentially kneecap the industry i've been working so hard to be a part of.
additionally, this is a midquel to a book series that already has a ton of backgrounds to choose from. there really isn't anything where i've gone "huh, it would be so great if i had a background of this, too bad pixelberry doesn't have a background of it." if i do have any leftover funds from my thesis, i am planning on commissioning an artist for a few cgs, but i don't think that cgs are an integral part of the story i am trying to tell, just a cool bonus.
so, all of that is to say, no ai, unless it's an ai generated background from pixelberry that i didn't catch.