How to identify AI generated fan content in video game gifs.
The time has come to finally do my full analysis, thanks to some very brave souls who came out and spoke about this first.
I do not like making call out posts and this is not one because I will not use this person's full name, but rather only screenshots from their content. So it is completely up to you if you know who it is or not. However I do not support or encourage bullying, but rather respectful and calm interactions, if it does come to that.
Disclaimer: I am aware that AI will slowly engrain itself in our lives in different ways. I am not irrational to be blind to that, and I also do not like living in denial. That being said, I try to bring awareness to its usage and how it damages the creative segments in particular. You know the saying, robots should wash my dishes and clean for me so that I have more time to follow my creativity and offer valuable things to the world. We must not use it the other way around to the point that it replaces our brains. There are studies that show that overusing AI is detrimental to brain functions. The brain, and actually the human body, is designed to conserve energy and resources. Any type of help, shortcut and easy way out you give it, will be in the detriment of your own brain functions, and AI is the worst in this regard because it thinks and creates for you, while flooding your senses with dopamine that you keep on chasing and at the end you are empty and have not exercised your personal qualities and strengths at all.
Video Game Photography (VP) takes a lot of brain power and creativity, and videos/gifs just as much, depending on the difficulty. This is not a complaint. As a VP artist, the process is a big part of the enjoyment, but it's here rather to underline how disappointing and disheartening it can be to work so much and with such care, and then see content created through less fair means.
I admit that I probably would not have made this analysis had I not seen so many people duped by these gifs.
Also, I believe in freedom of choice. People will use AI, and there is nothing I or anyone else could do to prevent it, but I expect honesty and the courage to tag AI content properly. I would respect someone who does that immensely and would never deny them the right to do so.
Please note that all the AI renders I am discussing are based on swaps, which are mods that swap a canon character in a scene with another. For example in the examples below Taash's romance scene have been used as base.
First photo is from the AI generated gifs, the other two are my own VP (Full sets here and here)
Observe the shape of the ear in particular and the brow ridge area.
AI gave Solas a pretty deep brow ridge, which he does not have, as the root of his nose starts very high up, which is a very common trait for Dragon Age elves.
Most men do have a pronounced brow ridge, hence why AI, that pulls from so many sources has given him a trait that is easily found in the resources it uses. Solas has a brow ridge as well, but the nose root is simply higher than for most people.
Then the ears are obviously thinner and sharper than what the AI gave him in the first photo
First photo is from the AI generated gifs, the other two are my own VP (Sets here and here)
Here we went from AI generating a relatively straight nose for Solas in the previous example, to something completely different, A curved, bulky thing. It tried getting closer to the real shape of his nose, but it did not manage and that is precisely because his nose is not easily found in resources that AI pulls from.
Also observe the shape of his eyes. He has a relatively narrow eye socket, his eyes are not big and round, they're quite narrow and also have a distinctive downward sweep, or a negative canthal tilt. The AI could not reproduce that properly.
Bellow you have screenshots from the AI generated gifs and please observe how flesh reacts to pressure.
AI tried creating natural physics to resources that were taken from a video game. In game you will have clipping in such poses. The nose will not bend down during a kiss and the ear will not move when touched. They will clip, meaning the nose will go through the other person's cheek/eye/mouth and the hand will do the same to the ear. We are long way to go until physics technology reaches such levels in games and pray we don't get there very soon because you will need A LOT of hardware power (and money for a new computer) to sustain it.
Dragon Age Veilguard gave us astounding hair physics, but look at how much resources are needed so that players can enjoy them and there still are those who cannot afford a device that can support it.
As amazing as Veilguard physics are, they have not reached this level either. Hair will not react like this to touch. It will go through his hand, or remain suspended in the air, depending when you paused the game.
And now onto the other gifs that annoyed me just as much because I am quite feral about both of these characters.
These gifs have also been created based on swapped scenes and in this case, these are all from Solas's prison cutscenes and Solas was swapped with Elgar'nan.
First photo is from the AI generated gifs and the other two are my own screenshot taken in game and not altered in any way. I have not posted all of them yet, but the last one is part of this set here.
I will be honest these were the gifs that really set me off most because of the nose and the ears. I so wished to be able to have different shaped ears for my Rook and Elgar'nan was the only one who had special ones (unfair) so of course I remembered them. Then his nose is definitely not like whatever AI gave him, that dainty, curved thing. It's big, has a bump and is very far from the nose job he unfairly received. (Actually a crime to give nose jobs to characters that have distinctive noses such as he and Solas do, but that's a whole other discussion that I will not get into here.lol)
First photo from AI gifs, second taken by me, but not yet posted.
His eyes DO NOT glow. Ever. They are gold/yellow, but never glow. I do get that it would have been pretty hot, but they do not do that. The only time they do glow is at the very end when he's fully succumbed to Blight and then they are red, not gold anymore.
Furthermore, in this case, when Solas is swapped with Elgar'nan, Solas's eyes should glow, and again, they never do. Solas's eyes do not glow ever, not once, not in the prison, not outside. Never, ever. Unless he does some magic and kills Varric, but that's a different topic.
Also, I tried to recreate these short videos of Elgy. I have filmed in a few games many times using Otis (Frans Bouma) cam, which gives you the possibility to set nodes, that the camera can follow and pan around or towards a target. The results can be wonderful, and when watching these gifs, and knowing that in these scenes those camera movements do not exists, I imagined that was how they had been created.
Well, presently the Otis cam for Dragon Age Veilguard has a glitch (hopefully it will be fixed) and it will jump to different places after setting the nodes and starting to record. Maybe with some effort it can be done, which I will try again, because I want to offer such gifs as alternatives.
The thing is none of the DOFs in Reshade can sustain such bokeh in combination with such good blur too. Cinematic DOF can do it, but it has a set target and at the settings needed to sustain this blur, the target will eventually be out of focus, as the camera AND the character moves. This can though be done with AI engines that use photos. You take some nice photos, with good blur and bokeh and then let AI do its tainted magic.
Other details to look out for.
Open the pictures above and look at how, in the first one, the OC's arm appears cut, and in the animation, it just appears and reappears from nowhere, without continuity. In the second example, look at the hands. Those are supposed to be the hand models for Rook. I wish Rook (and all the other characters) had such nice hand models. Sadly, they are of very low quality, lack nails, and often resemble inflated rubber gloves.
Also, what is that bump on Elgar'nan's head? The crown messed his hair that day I guess, tsk...
As I already said, this is not a call out post, but simply one to inform and help others spot AI generated content. I know how thirsty we are for content of our favorite blorbos and I know some characters have created fandom wars, but we must not be blind or ever stop using our critical thinking.
I am a VP artist and it is probably my most beloved hobby and seeing such things upsets me deeply because only I and those who use these tools know how many hours of our day and how much research, testing, tweaking and editing it takes for us to create the content we love to offer. We do it for free and it takes away hours from this very precious and very short life.
The only thing we ask is that our work is valued and respected and those who use AI are brave and honest and tag it as such.
I will repeat that I would never in any way think that I can stop someone from doing whatever they want. My only request and expectation is that you own it and are honest about the tools that you used.
Thank you for reading this.
