I was asked today by an AI CC creator if using AI for making and sharing CC in the Simming community is prohibited.
I want to make a post for anyone who has come to share CC for people to download and has chosen to AI generate meshes and textures to convert.
You will find many members of the community do not want AI CC. First, the environmental impact of large AI systems (energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, unsustainable water usage and other natural resources, & e-waste leaking things like mercury and lead into the ground and water). Also, certain AI models have been trained using countless artists' work.
Another issue is quality. The generated textures have lots of visual errors, and UV maps that are difficult to work with. The texture pieces are scattered all over the UV map in an "explosion" style, instead of being laid out in a clean, organized way. That makes them ridiculously hard to recolor if someone wants to do that (even if just for their own game).
Again with quality, AI-generated meshes often have a very high polycount. When I say very high, I am referring to a difference of models with a range of, i don't know, 150-3000ish polygons, compared to tens of thousands of polygons or more on the AI meshes. These very high-poly models are not optimized for The Sims games. They mess up game performance and tax your computer system. (& yes, meshes that were bought from websites like TurboSquid will have this same problem).
It's expected and appreciated that when there are high-poly CC items in a post, that it is mentioned somewhere in that post so that people are aware before they download. It's nice to list each item and type the polycount next to it. A lot of CC users do not know to open package files in Sims 4 Studio to check the polycount. But it is sure a lot easier if it's written in the post.
A lot of our frustration comes from the fact that a lot of the people that are AI generating CC know the above things and don't care.
It would also be appreciated if people who are posting AI generated CC would disclose that in their posts. It lets people be aware of what they are putting in their game, or alerts them before they download if they aren't interested. And there are many people, myself included due to my terrible eyesight, who have a really hard time telling if something is AI without, again, having to open the files in Sims 4 Studio.
It does seem like the people who make AI CC don't want people to know. This post came about because of comments I left on a CC post, first asking about the early access period which was ignored, then replying to another person about the AI which were all deleted & I was DM'd by the person who posted the CC set.
And it should be mentioned that if you've come to a community, maybe hang out for awhile so you know the general etiquette.
Not only is it in poor taste, but it really sends the idea that you've come here to exploit the community, to stroll in to Simblr and make a ton of AI generated CC Patreon posts, and on top of that they're in early access for a month or more.
*Addendum so I can link thefoxburyinstitute for the people who have been using AI generators for the CC they are posting, but want to learn how to make things. If you want to learn, there are a lot of tutorials, and other members of the community that are willing to help you if you get stuck.
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