Should Game Developers Be Worried About AI Graphics Filters?

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[@trapez77]

Ai is going to end humanity with an lethal amount of ambient occlusion

[@sparda9060]

We will all be living under heavy Path Tracing Shadows with the sun's ultra bloom and heavy god rays that can melt metal.

[@spandel100]

🤣

[@aquapendulum]

Throwing shades there, huh? 😏

[@pixeljauntvr7774]

We survived the over saturation of Bloom during the 7th generation. We will survive the Ambient Occlusion Apocalypse.

[@ChrisAlbertH47]

Or badly made raytracing

[@POSlTlVE_EDGE]

How is this different from mods that exist right now? Texture packs, reshades, asset mods can completely change a game’s look.

[@florisbackx1744]

Just as remixing a song or creating a song from samples is not the same as trowing a bunch of songs in a AI tool and let the tool brew something. The 1st two are other creative visions on something that already existed with effort and dedication, the later is random AI output.

[@globalistgamer6418]

Exactly, ultimately this is ‘morally’ similar to using shaders and filters in Retroarch, which is already happening.

[@TheKpc137]

@@globalistgamer6418it’s not remotely the same morally or in any regard. One is machine learning image generation and the other is an artist taking an existing work and adapting it, adding to it with their own creative vision.

[@_blankface]

​@@florisbackx1744 lol who cares

[@RyleyStorm]

Jesus man.

[@mondodimotori]

Until you can actually control every little detail of the AI output, not so much. You need total control on every aspect of the output to really make it your own.

[@askers81]

that kinda defeats the purpose of AI

[@askers81]

@AfterBurnett yea, but the point of ai was to leave the little details to the ai. If you were able to control every little detail, then you may as well do it manually.

[@askers81]

@AfterBurnett i know but the OP said that the we should be able to control every detail, and that we should have complete control, and that defeats the purpose of AI

[@Razumen]

@@askers81 Controlling every detail isn't the same as having to create those details yourself.

[@askers81]

@AfterBurnett I think we're having a different conversation. I'm responding to what the OP said. I what you mean, but the OP is the one in the wrong here.

[@DoctorRover]

AI should be used as a tool to smooth our current workload not replace it. Like imagine instead of having 25GB of textures, but decompressed by AI could smooth it down to 2GB because it's trained to trick high-fidelity details with extreme speeds. That's what I would want to see

[@Great.Milenko]

or you could have an AI generate materials and textures during gameplay, like a shader compilation step, but instead its an image generation AI trained specifically on materials and textures.

[@carlwheezer1544]

@@Great.Milenko what a gross idea

[@carlwheezer1544]

we dont even need AI for that

[@HunterTracks]

There are two types of compression: lossless compression and lossy compression. Lossless compression means no data is lost during compression, which means that it can be restored to full size with the same fidelity. The issue is, AI is entirely unhelpful for this, if anything it's an unnecessary drain of resources. Lossy compression means there's data loss between compression and decompression, think JPG files. The issue with using AI here is that it will essentially have to invent new data, which means that textures will just look different from time to time.

[@DessertMonkey]

@@Great.Milenko That technically exists already with tools like Substance and InstaMat (textures generated using node graphs & procedurally generated images). Seen some games use it to generate textures once they're installed, reducing the initial game install size.

[@GreekIrish]

We can sit here and talk about how we feel, what we wanna see, so on and so forth. If it's something that save game publishers money, it WILL happen.

[@thezx5795]

Honestly, yeah. In the end if there's a future where a game has notable features or what-not that is created from AI, and we see it and don't enjoy it, then we'll just have to ask for refunds.

[@dacentafielda12]

Capitalism and ai can't coexist. If the goal is to maximize profits, why would a company choose to employ a human over ai that can do the same as humans for a fraction of the cost?

[@huydinh3395]

Sure, UE5 stutters like hell but companies still fired their proprietary engine devs to save money while switching to UE

[@danielgrezda3339]

That's my fear. I don't care about what mods people do, but I'm scared about companies looking at these mods and considering firing thousands of people and releasing a garbage product.

[@damnman7226]

but if its horrible? they wont sell and revert to producing games made by passionate devs? right

[@ravensharpless]

6:47 "There's a future where the games journalism that you read is going to be decided by an AI and not journalists" So based. So true.

[@CyanRooper]

Imagine if AI manages to play and review games better than game journalists.

[@Secret_Takodachi]

​@@CyanRooperit's such a low bar I can already imagine it being true

[@WraithOfMan]

Games journos are overwhelmingly already NPCs who follow particular scripts and copy the work of each other, which is why the disappearance of ones already replaced by chat AIs went basically unnoticed 😄

[@mrburns366]

Games journalists aren't even journalists. Most of them are political activists

[@chpsilva]

Can you guys imagine being able to grab an old and semi-abandoned game like Prototype (2008) that still has a lot of replay value but approximately ZERO chances of a remake (cursed be you, Activision!) and applying AI post-processing to it, replacing the low resolution graphics and models with realistic images and light effects? That would be awesome.

[@amiasquinn7766]

Right now there are people working on AI Post Processing filters that don't put too much strain on the PC. So this is in fact already here but in testing phase

[@gerowen]

@0:30 As a player, no, this is very much NOT what I want. I want the developers to do the best they can to tell a story they want to tell and have the game look and run as good as possible on reasonably modest hardware without requiring the latest and greatest hardware.

[@DamonCzanik]

"Modest" hardware is redefined every 6 months. That's just how technology works. Wanting it to stop is like wanting the sun to not rise in the morning. AI is only getting better & optimized. Nobody is forcing you to do anything you don't want. Have you never used graphic mods? They change the game. The only difference is this mod uses AI. Have you never wanted a graphics update to an old game with terrible graphics? You could make Zelda: Ocarina of Time N64 graphics look like Breath of the Wild, or Wind waker. In the end, someone needs to train this on existing art so you are still getting artistic direction. You want to stop needing new upgrades. I get it. But this tech is still a ways off from being affordable and good enough to rival today's games. They need higher resolutions, better frame rates and temporaral cohesiveness. But once there, it's good enough for us we don't need more. Not so with today's graphics card tech. 5 years after Unreal 5 was announced. They are still selling us new cards. With a 5090 being 2 grand. Do you want to keep buying the same game over and over again as publishers force remasters on you? I have never heard people say they want less control, less choice, less mods and less buying power in video games. Except when AI is mentioned.

[@snappertrx]

I can see this becoming a thing like current mods: Something you use after you're done with a couple of normal play thru's on a game just for kicks. I mean, once you've played and completed a game so many times there isn't much more for it to offer, but mods can mix things up and add some extra value for a while. Graphical AI "mods" would likely fall under the same category, imo.

[@thalamay]

What's more important: Will AI and Tensor Cores make it possible for Voxels to make a comeback? I want to live in the voxel future that was promised and then got wiped away by 3D accelerator cards.

[@Zetchzie]

calling it now. Acid trip simulator uses real time AI to produce images as you walk

[@pnut3844able]

Sure you'd get visuals, but unless you hijack the brain you won't get the serotonin dump and the blissful feelings that follow.

[@coreyhughes1456]

fun idea

[@EMee-i8q]

A.I. would allow gamers to create storyline mods that have disappeared since motion tracking took over the gaming industry. It would allow games like Witcher 3 to have mods like Skyrim, instead of having the developer stealing them and calling it an anniversary edition.

[@arthurtischler9801]

5:10 shock/upset? I was amazed with this, can't wait to have "mods" to change the games to play them the way I want. even if this gives a bit of latency

[@praxis22]

It's early days yet, but I can see people doing this 3Dfx style with a separate add in card running a model. This I analogous to a modern ENB, etc.

[@kaviramyead7987]

It really annoys me that a developer would go and say "this worries me, is it what players want ?", like why do they even care ? If we have a character editor we already are able to pick the character we like, unfortunately they are often very limited and, for some political reason, you cannot make what you want either in terms of shape and size. What i don't get is why the developers want to impose a vision, many people disagree with their choices, and very often some great games are ruined by some details such as the character not looking as we would want, or some weird filter and opiniated decisions. If the player like your style, why would you worry ? They'll just keep it. If they don't, then at least they are able to change it. There is now this very annoying trend where people think that others "NEED" to play the game "AS INTENDED", but no. No, no and no. This trend has to die. What we want from games is a good "base", good story, good physics, good environments, but we also like customization A LOT, customizing things is very important and improve the game a lot.

[@ScribbleNuts]

No, this trend does not need to die. I want to play games that devs intended for us to experience, not to stupid garbage an ai vomits out. It's like sitting around a campfire, and you have a story teller there, but you keep interrupting him by throwing your own ideas in the story. No thanks.

[@JustSheen]

i've been using RTX HDR on Elite Dangerous (which has terrible SDR and no HDR) and it fixes the image so much. Removing the artifacting found in the different skyboxes of the star systems helps so much to bring out the deep black levels of space.

[@anthonyrizzo9043]

I really dont see the problem with modding old games, thats basically what this is. I mean even current games, its not like you have to play that way, the original game is there still, and thats the way its meant to be played.

[@4.0.4]

Personally, I don't think video AI is even close to "being there" yet, but things like voice cloning, AI upscaling etc can help some lone modder make previously impossible stuff.

[@furrybproductions]

I think that ai will be utilized by devs in this kind of context where they train the ai on how their game is supposed to look at absurd settings that you couldn't replicate normally without killing fps so that they can shove down the native res and let the upscale do the work in a faithful way.

[@albertomon]

I think they should turn path tracing on a game scene to see how it looks and then replicate that on “ regular” lighting

[@maxtroy]

That is a super interesting application

[@ye849]

Honestly, not sure why this is a discussion. It’s a product you buy. It’s the user’s right to modify it however sees fit and if anything the dev should be flattered or not care. Anything else is a personal issue. Do you think BMW have issues with all of the pimpin’ garages out there?

[@thescooterbrown]

Think the issue is, we in an industry where bmw will decommission existing cars, and sell the pimped out ride

[@ye849]

@ thing is, this type if whinnying suggests a deeper issues - the devs don’t understand their job, position or even the industry they work in. Imaging you paid someone to paint your house white, came back the house of rainbow colors. The painter would be like “no no i don’t care what you like, it’s not part of my vision”

[@clorox1676]

It's a discussion that makes sense for developers, but not so much for players.

[@ye849]

@ players pay the dev’s salary… not sure there’s a discussion where the devs should veto players. This is a great example if their mind set is so immature and not real-world-businesses-legal ready. It just shows a clear lack of the law, of players, of business and generally what’s accepted in a western culture. Personally, i’m blown away

[@clorox1676]

@@ye849 In game industry they are literally paid to have a vision. For me as a player I think it would be wonderful, but I understand that for people making games this can have and impact on how the industry works.

[@Mozokuni]

I think developers should look at it as another mod. When I played fallout four for the first time , I had over 250 mods running. I had the Iron Man suit and modern weapons. They should be happy that we bought their game in the first place.

[@EhurtAfy]

I think many games have assets and textures that will be interpreted incorrectly by AI, even with many more years of technology development. I would actually love if we could inject AI filters into old games like we do with Reshade and overhaul them. Not just for better graphics, but also change the whole style with prompts like make it spooky, make it festive. Imagine if you could just change the whole feel of a game without actually replacing assets with mods

[@lohiths5302]

Ironically I sort of loved the later generation ue3 games..the artstyle was amazing. Dishonored looked like a oil painting. Bioshock was also amazing looking. I played it recently and the art holds up. Using this example for ai is just goes to show that ai enhancement is not going to be a thing. Just another tool for the modding community.

[@LucasCunhaRocha]

XCOM2 is the one I like the most, the art style and animations are top notch.

[@marklarz4399]

Gamers gonna change all the games main character with the Stellar Blade chick

[@mikeuk666]

🤢

[@globalistgamer6418]

* The Stellar Blade chick with less clothes.

[@princepeachfuzz]

gooner.

[@BlindingSun_]

Nah I want Linda Lusardi in her prime in every game

[@sylvainh2o]

If the Woke agenda gets too much in the games people will simy use filters to get the looks they want. It's pretty cool also just in general how you could overall a game to make it with a style you want.

[@TrancorWD]

I'm with Oliver on the lighting assistance. Something like ray-traced lighting/reflection/temporal, lut maps, & sub-surface scatter even, from visual training data; I'd imagine being a much much smaller ai model that could run on gpus. What creative type would want ai to take over everything, instead of just helping reach a desired goal as a tool?

[@Nemoticon]

Yes, I'd like AI Graphics Filters as an option that I can turn on and off... I want the ability to choose. It's also very possible that it can potentially be an addon by modders for many tittles too at some point.

[@skycloud4802]

It will be interesting if some future game arrive in a green screen sort of mode. No fleshed out character models, just white statue models. No environment, all white with some markers for paths and objects. Then AI can smother it in real time.

[@jnee]

I think my only problem with the Bioshock example that isnt really addressed here is that some games have brilliant Art Direction. I would prefer human modders with 3D or texture painting skills offer their own creative takes than an AI with zero creative vision.

[@ag687]

​@AfterBurnettbe careful of assumptions. Making a demo work at all is an early step of the process. Optimizing and appearances are later steps in the process.

[@citizen3000]

Crazy idea but nobody is forcing anybody to use this in games any more than anybody is forced to use any mod with any game.

[@jnee]

@@citizen3000 didn't say anything about it being forced. And I'm encouraging modding, by human artists. If you don't want art made with intention that's fine too.

[@ninjatogo]

"AI" in general may not have creative vision but people can train custom models with very specific styles in mind.

[@OverhitDPS]

In time no artist would be needed just precise prompts and AI Model with lots of experience, maybe integrate previous works in order for the Model to understand previous assets used on older games and their evolution to make changes.

[@andraszoltan2]

Yeah: AI - driven material response will be next. More than just ray recon; it'll cover texturing and diffuse lighting to accelerate ray traced GI.

[@NativeInterface]

I don't know what the problem is of users doing what they want with their own stuff. If you're a photographer or portrait artist, it's not your business if your customer draws a mustache on it after the sale.

[@michaelservetus914]

Precisely. People often get weird ideas about their hobby that they don't apply to anything else. So, it helps to thing of non-gaming examples, like yours of someone changing a portrait they bought. Another one would be buying a car and putting on a wrap, a spoiler, and a different front bumper. Do people worry that the car designer is sad now? I doubt it.

[@arglebargle5531]

It very much could be, depending on the terms of the sale - if you plan to exhibit the defaced portrait publicly, for example, you could be violating the artist's reserved rights.

[@TehPwnographer]

They are clearly talking about these as products and not fan projects.

[@mctapoutos7426]

It's not yours that's the point once you don't have physical copy it's not yours

[@mctapoutos7426]

Disrespectful PFFFF tahts why all these people behind the scene dobt want us to own our games because they can take them away from us once they see we are messing with the code , thats why I sold my entire collection of Xbox one and SX games tbey are trash useless trash half of games on the disc they are basically code in the box basically so if Xbox show me a middle finger why i should care of buying their games I will buy cheap codes frok south America or buy a cheap code for game pass finish games I want to finish try other games and leave it for a month or two and go back to my switch and PS5 that I got recently basically just as an upgrade to my PS4 pro death stranding edition definitely not to play new games as they only have few that are not full of THE MESSAGE (if you know you know ) but if you dont care about fps or resolution there is no point upgrading from your ps4 pro and definitely no point upgrading your Xbox one X 😂😂😂 , I can finally say when I sold my Xbox one/SX collection and PS2 consoles as they are useless to me because if I want to play psx/psone and ps2 games i can do it on my fat ps3 or even emulate games, If industry dont care why should I , all i kept is my MGS collection , Shenmue and games that are nostalgic to me or I have a great memory playing it or even great story getting it there is absolutely no point keeping bunch of crap that i cant olay or i dont have any connection to and i thought I will be sad but when I sold it my collection of VMU (52 of them) amd my Dreamcast games and especially Xbox and i got a proper amount of cash I felt nothing thats meant i already moved on and I dont care if industry do not care who im going to show my collection? My wife ? My kids who instead of playing games they watching some bs on KZbin during their mobile phone tablet hours ( yes they obly have 3 hours a day ) so if i have no one who is interested and i have ti go to conventions to show my stuff and not sell it luke soke KZbinrs who got big and now are ripping people of on sales then whats the point keeping it at the end of the day the game that I got and never played or im telling myself that I will play one day or the ones I have because it cool to have are just bunch of $hit lying around and catching dust and when I realised that some people will pay thousands now for some of my collections that I have no connection to I moved really quickly with sale , remember prices will go down one day or your games will get old or something might happen to your collection so remember this ITS OK TO CASH IN WHEN THE TIME IS RIGHT AND WHEN YOU FEEL LIKE YOU THE ONLY ONE CARRYING ABOUT THIS BUNCH OF PLASTIC , and no I didn't go on the Crouse with my wife we are not thats for low lifes with no class ive invested in my house and got some gold ...BLINK BLINK MOT#ERFU¢KER$ BLING BLINK

[@MLWJ1993]

It's a fun tool to mess around with for sure. That's all I have to say about it. We're able to modify games anyway. There's even some huge total conversion "mods" out in the wild that pretty much create a totally new game within an existing game!

[@jurandspychow3766]

Enderal

[@adrak91]

I think the examples shown are of a magnitude of 100x more than would actually be the case(at least in the near future). I use a little bit of AI to enhance my screenshots for my thumbnails of Skyrim for example, that could be feasibly done in real time in the near future.

[@sleepwalkusa135]

Current AI is ridiculously good at mimicking what you visualize when you're tripping on psychedelics, so at the moment I just want an AI filtered tempest 2000

[@RazzyRazzam]

What AI commands for video like "replace enemy soldiers with frogs wearing bikinis" lol

[@aldi_901]

I think itd be cool once the tech gets soooo good that u could have like ai remastering of old games. Imagine a plug n play thing for gamecube, like an mclassic but for remastering.

[@MachFiveFalcon]

1:05 Their faces kind of remind me of the guards in Goldeneye if you pause lol

[@J-Hue]

1 step forward. 2 steps back.

[@MantasticHams]

I think in a sense this is just a variation on modding, the problem IMO comes in when you consider the limitations of AI and the ways it could cause problems with the experience. I also think we are further than people want to imagine from this being a really viable solution, that looks good, and runs on hardware that doesn't cost 3500 dollars. Really something like this needs a whole new architecture with a thorough understanding of things like game objects and such, so you dont just end up with over-boiled video-game stew

[@rugerdie4054]

Oh no Someone has paid for a product and they would like to modify it to suit their needs. How dare they. Developers need to get off their high horse.

[@pixelatedpenguin4319]

This sort of question always always reminds me of the "is a game a piece of art" argument. In years gone by, an artist would create a piece of art and it would be judged as good art of bad art. The good art would then possibly achieve a mythological status given enough time. It would be inconceivable for an artist to jump the ropes at the Louvre and artistically add a pair of glasses and a moustache to the Mona lisa. However, something akin to this happens with every single game. The Developers release their artistic vision and then it is patched and patched and patched again. Since the advent of modern art and it's acceptance, "art" has become the outcome of any creative process, baking a cake, creating a child, developing a video game etc. There is no human action whether, physical, mental or emotional that cannot in some way be described as a piece of art. A developer may not approve of another artistic take on what they perceive as their art. However, whether you are a developer or not, if you believe a game is art and are prepared to let people at your studio "tamper" (patch) that art, even if they had no input whatsoever into its creation then, you surely do not have the moral right to question someone else expressing their artistic vision of the piece, no matter how far they take it from your original vision, and let's be honest, games are created by a multitude of artists so it can, only very rarely, be described as a singular artistic vision.

[@sirtng]

Even if games are an art once your purchase something the artist accepts you can do whatever you want with it, if you buy a painting you might hang it in your toilet in and ugly frame, I might even change it completely by painting over it. The artist has no say once it’s yours

[@colaboytje]

​@@sirtngThat is completely not true. A game is not sold and does not become property. A license to use a game is being sold, but you never own the game. So no, you can't do with it what you want. This is different when you buy a painting. In that case, the painting does become your property and you can do with whatever you want.

[@Riboshom]

Isn't that exactly what this L.H.O.O.Q. painting was? Mona Lisa with a mustache, worth 750 000$?

[@sirtng]

@@colaboytje a licence that can’t prevent you from changing the game, all the licence is there for it to provide t and c round liability if it caused some damage or if you tried to profit off it, there is nothing that can be enforced to stop you changing how the game looks and good luck to anybody trying to argue that in court

[@the_RCB_films]

the guy in the black shirt, his eyes are sooooo dilated. big pupils, is he ai?

[@Vynzent]

I don't know. I understand a studio wanting their vision seen because that was the point of having an art team in the first place. On the other hand we already mod games to make changes to whatever we want, including the art direction. I can see it feeling bad froma development point of view mostly because of the work, time and money that went into making assets only for them not to be seen. I don't know if this is really a rational fear to have though.

[@apologise2bisons]

fear is ppl will lose jobs and in the end ull have just ai games and no other option

[@lpnp9477]

​@@apologise2bisonsnot if you stop buying the slop

[@Peremptor]

Artistic direction is more important that graphical realism these AI filters make that clear... they look horribly out of place but could be fun to use on a case by case basis depending on the game/application why not.

[@HeadsetHistorian]

Makes no sense for devs to be worried. Should musicians be worried about people doing covers or remixes of their work? You don't get to dictate how your art is enjoyed, art has always been living and transformative.

[@ktechnology9146]

_Most_ of the AI-enhanced graphics I've seen look like they belong in those "hidden objects" adventure games made for mobile devices. Presumably they'll get better, but I do question the long-term effects the push for AI-generated content (in commercial products) will have on wealth disparity and local economies.

[@Simp_Supreme]

less people in jobs and more soulless media. oh boy, the future looks amazing...

[@chrisbrown113096]

@@Simp_Supremethis happens all the time. Don’t want to mention it’s already been done? Ask practical effects artists when 3D rendering came out. Boom whole industry gone. People are still needed to train and create these Ai programs. They aren’t just a flip of a switch.

[@ktechnology9146]

@@chrisbrown113096 Employment experts and company CEOs alike are projecting enough job losses from generative-AI in the next 5-7 years to decrease the overall workforce. That prediction alone is unprecedented and suggests this won't be "business as usual".

[@blast_processing6577]

​@@chrisbrown113096 lol Your example doesn't make the point you think it does. Practical effects workers are unionized, but VFX and CGI workers aren't so they're _significantly_ more likely to be taken advantage of by employers.

[@ninjatogo]

@@chrisbrown113096 While this is true, the time and skill requirements to train an AI model are far lower than that required for people to learn 3D modeling and rendering skills. It's far more accessible for people to use effectively and as a result, a far more disruptive technology.

[@threepe0]

Graphics filters as shown in the thumbnail ARE powered by machine learning. Machine learning IS AI. Stupid question

[@citizen3000]

It’s funny how many people misunderstand this and will confidently say I SUPPORT ML BUT I HATE AI and it’s like MF LLMs etc are the product of deep learning which is a subset of machine learning.

[@praisetheoak]

1:40 just "hypothesizing" uh? I see what you did there, maybe we'll hear more about this at Nvidia's CES 2025

[@ag687]

I figured for a long while now that we'd see some kind of universal VRAM compression or equivalent like overlayed visuals on a low resolution as where Nvidia would go. Also figured it was further away but inferencing is only as good as training and they keep making insane improvements on training. Its also crazy to think what we see in AI that's so impressive now is actually stuff built with last gen tech.

[@anshukandulna1844]

They'll talk about neural rendering and other stuff

[@MFKitten]

I have been talking about the potential of making custom datasets for the specific aesthetic you're trying to make in the game, and then you have the raw game just be very raw and simple, and the model would be trained on game scenes and real life recreations of the same scenes (or drawings or whatever else). Everything in the game would be represented in the dataset. The idea of using generic datasets and broad models is off putting to me. But making your own custom models for a specific game, and building the entire graphics around thia concept, is going to be the way.

[@agahnim0196]

As a developer, i'm extremely excited to see what AI will be able to bring to us...Streamlined development, democratization of indie development, shorter development time, smaller budgets, etc. And if i make a game the way i want it, and other people want to tweak it and change it to make it their own, well, as long as they paid me for the original, and credit it as their source, then i'm happy to see what they can come up with... it's like fan art, or fan fictions. Being angry or scared of that is just being selfish and ego driven IMHO.

[@jonmichaelgalindo]

Well, my sister uses this awful blue-light filter that turns everything yellow. I'm an artist with a deep understanding of color. I absolutely hate that she uses that. But she wants it so meh. 🤷‍♂ You guys are seriously underestimating how much AI will change gaming. Games will be straight-up generated live.

[@Nicdehouwer]

Amazing how well-lit Oliver's shot is

[@The_Ostrich]

I actually had the same question. First time I came across such a real-time AI graphics filter on top of a game was 3 years ago in a GTA 5 video called "Enhancing Photorealism Enhancement". Feels like this is the last remaing step game consoles could do to push graphics one last time towards photo realism, cause consoles on their own have pretty much peaked with how realistic they can render graphics in real-time since the PS5 era.

[@PogueSquadron]

Let alone peaked with how good graphics can be considering the amount of time and manpower that they would really require to make them better.

[@john_hunter_]

Yeah raytracing & photogrametry still don't quite reach the realism of AI.

[@DasIllu]

i see this as an opportunity for the future where we can "remaster" our old games our self. Upscaling of textures, smoothing over rough edges... But it must be an external program that can neither be hindered or controlled by any company. Just imagine Oblivion NPCs with faces that don't make you wish the void would just take you :D

[@LanceThumping]

Should Game Devs be worried about AI filters? No, it's the user's choice to mess with the game's appearance. Should the Game Devs been looking into AI filters for their own uses? Yes. The GTA research paper is a good example of how it could help push the artwork up a little. If you can get a model working that doesn't really alter the foundation of the appearance of things but just tunes things to appear more realistic, as in, the textures and models determine the what is in the image and the general appearance/lighting, but the model can just add extra character, detail, and shading that would be overly intensive to render normally or overly difficult for the artists.

[@gamingtemplar9893]

Asking DF if the future of game developers is using AI is like asking how to make a surgery to a nutritionist. DF makes great videos, tests, info about tech and all, but this question is for technical artists, game devs and artists.

[@mr.merleb]

I would LOVE this for old games like FFXI. Absolutely legendary games that DESERVE HD remakes.

[@86lanzo]

This just looks like the extension of mods

[@jaefrmbk2k]

seems like gamers are simply lookin for more realistic face lighting, facial features & facial skin textures so developers step it up already 👏🏾👏🏾

[@marconwps]

Happy Holidays !!

[@Parmetheus]

I mean, I use shaders on game right now, is this something all that different?

[@EthnicCleanser]

I could totally see how different ai/prompts could be seen in the future like how (mine craft) texture packs are seen today. Some are after a more fantasy feel in their game others are after a more medieval, maybe more cozy. Either way it up to the player and what they feel they want the game to look like. The fun part I think will be what the truly creative and technically gifted will reach towards. Some form of unrealized form of post processing that has been impossible up until now.

[@TheCrazyMoleMan]

It's the next logical leap, and finally. There hasn't been a leap this big since games went from 2D to 3D.

[@cmdrblahdee]

Many years ago, I had gotten a powercolor graphics card that came with some preset shader tweaks at the driver level. I dont remember the exact setting name, but one of them had the look of colorized black and white. This was perfect for Tron 2.0, which I got shortly after getting the card. To this day, I cannot replay the game because, to me, that is the "correct" visual for that game and i havent exactly found a way of doing it without the card. I'll argue that, in 500 years, we'll have enough computing power to run any such AI generated tweaks. In that sense, the article is correct. Exactly when we get there is simply a matter of optimizations and hardware capabilities. Will players want it? Sure, some will and some wont. I think the key thing to look at is how many players actually change the graphics settings and to what degree. If you're a developer of PC games, you're already making a game with a range of graphical features that may or may not be present depending on the preferences and capabilities of your end user. Does that bother you? Does your game support mods which can drastically change your game into a totally different game? Similarly, players who really want to tweak the visual look of a game they enjoy will spend their time, effort, and use the tools they have available to make such changes. Look at what can be done to Cyberpunk with mods; while AI tweaks aren't practical today, they will be leveraged as it becomes practical. As an example, I think we'd all love to have chatGPT in any NPC we walk up to.

[@EricJW]

I think the wrong question is being asked. The real question is much broader: "Are artists entitled to prevent you from experiencing their art in a way they didn't intend?" To me the answer is an obvious no, especially if the art is also a product to be consumed. Once art leaves the hand of the creator, the experience of that art should not be theirs to control anymore. "AI destroying artistic integrity" is irrelevant. Total conversion mods, reshade mods, character model swaps, campaign/mission mods, etc. all similarly "corrupt" the original vision, and I think we'd be in a much worse place if we lost those.

[@JayceeGenocide]

I would LOVE to turn an old GOATed game like Call of Duty World at War with SUPER REALISM..

[@sitaroartworks]

If you think blurry graphics full of temporal antialiasing and ghost effect is advancement well, think twice and good luck with your eyes health.

[@kylespevak6781]

I 100% want it, not for realism, but dumb stuff like yarn or Lego

[@patchworkpants]

They shouldn't be at all. No. If you're just using them as a style filter over the top of game assets that have already been modelled and textured by artists on your team then nobody is losing work or hours. If you could have smooth live image to image on every frame of your game, you'd just need to be very tasteful in your choices. Come up with/train something that enhances the aesthetic that you're already going for. Ideally get your concept artist to provide all of the images to train the model and if the tech qorks well you basically just have an effect that makes your game look more hand painted and less 3d rendered, which could be really nice for some art directions.

[@sparda9060]

If you play games with a specific AI filter that you like, why bother playing the game when its not the creator's intended vision for what they want to gamer to see? might as well make your own since it will be possible to have an AI make a quick small game that is exactly what you want it to be. Its fine you want to change the look of the game after playing it how it was intended, but having this filter being used on first playthrough of the game is kinda insane as you won't be playing the creator's game, you are playing your own fictional version of it with AI filter, no pun intended.

[@mrspaceman2764]

The truth is that no one really knows how this technology will be used by consumers. I don' t think we'll see the ability to render a realistic reproduction of an old game running in the background, any time soon.

[@gustafpihl]

I feel like a lot of the debate on all kinds of AI stuff is a bit backwards. It's one thing to talk about the turbulence and social instability that will result from rapid technological chage, and how we best alleviate that. The thing that is surprising to me though is the way many people appear to prioritize protecting the current state of any given profession. The point of a job, a profession is that it exists as consequence of the fact that it provides value. People want what the profession produces. It seems strange to me to prioritize professions as an end in and of themselves. It's a bit akin to "problematizing" cars because they put horse carriages out of work. They don't live up to the artful pursuit of horse carriage riding. It also seems to be a trend in a certain subset of the video game culture to want to demonstrate how virtuous you are by signaling that you're aware of how problematic AI is in every possible way. Sorry if this comes across as a bit ranty, and it's not meant as an accusation specifically at Digital Foundry. It's more the comments section and the whole space in general. I'm just tired of how pessimistic and cynical a lot of the culture is becoming. We're living in this amazing time and everyone is just complaining about how problematic everything is. There are so many aspects of the rapid advancent of AI that has incredible potential applications for gaming and entertainment in general. But many people just look at some incidental flaws that exist at the current moment and don't seem to be able to step back and look at the trajectory. The big AI labs have made huge strides in making hardware and algorithmic optimizations to pretty much all areas of ML, we're seeing new techniques and structures emerge on a weekly basis. Compute will improve, power availability will hopefully improve. I mean not even three years ago it took minutes to render a crappy low resolution picture using DALLE-mini. Now we are getting pretty close to realtime generation of HD video with Runway and Sora etc. Given how much talent and money is being invested in this space and how relatively nascent a lot of the modern progress is, I'm sure there's still a lot of low-hanging fruit to pick. Plus human brains are an existence proof of the physical possibility of crazy things on a much lower energy budget than current GPUs. I also don't understand people thinking that AI is just randomly stiching together "stolen" data. People who say things like this clearly do not have much experience using any of these tools and do not have more than a superficial understanding of how they work.

[@NegitoroIsBestShip]

Found the plagiarism defender.

[@arglebargle5531]

I don't see how it's weird to prioritize professions in and of themselves. You just pointed out that people value the product, but the relationship between the profession and the product is clearly part of what's valued as well if people are adamant about protecting both.

[@gustafpihl]

​@@arglebargle5531 I totally agree that it's important to respect and value the professionals working to deliver us the things we value. I was more focusing on the long term goal as a society. Take something more concrete for example, in the same industry but a simpler case. Voice acting for video games. Suppose AI voice models get good enough and efficient enough that you could produce professional quality and low cost. By this I mean that randomly sampled consumers would percieve the results as being at least as good in a blind study. Note that I'm assuming this comes to pass for the sake of the argument, not saying for sure that it will. To simplify things we are now faced with basically two alternatives: either we try to impose regulations to protect the profession of voice acting and limit this new technology, or we allow the market to decide on which way we want to go. If we do not impose regulations, we could potentially have massively more amounts of voice acting in games, of as high a quality (in this hypothetical) for a much lower price. Small studios which could not afford professional voice actors could be able to produce experiences that are way beyond what they otherwise could. Of course this same argument goes for AI art and all other AI related things. Now I'm not saying that the technology by necessity will become indistinguishable or even better, but I'm asking people to keep it in mind as a possibility and to consider the long term outcomes of the different options. What possibilities are potentially being squandered in order to protect the status quo? Just to be reasonable and realistic about it. Another thing is to consider what could be possible if/when we get realtime voice generation of very high quality. Then you could essentially have background setup instructions for different game characters and then be able to speak to them completely freeform as with real human beings. If we just focus on the present day, we may miss these kinds of opportunities. Technology advances, and what was once a reasonable set of professions in a society is not necessarily stable over time. It sucks for those who have invested all their life in something and risks losing their jobs for sure. And I definitely thing we need to consider UBI or other alternatives!

[@gustafpihl]

I'm also confused about the emphasis on artist or developer's vision, particularly when it comes to games. The thing that makes games special is that they are interactive, the experience is bespoke to the person playing the game. Dynamically generating parts of the experience just increases the potential for interaction and immersion. Also if people want to interact with a game in a certain way (say by applying a post-processing AI video model in the future), why would developers be against this. The person applying this filter is not forcing anyone else to do it. It would be like a musician telling people they'll be offended if people listen to their music with effects on it. Seems a bit pretentious?

[@ruffmadman]

Honestly, this is just an awful take. The problem with your analogy is that you mistake AI for what you want it to be for what it is. A car (tool) replaced the horse (tool). The rich who had horse and carriages still had drivers. AI is a tool, but is currently being used to replace the driver if we follow your analogy. It is trained on works by actual people to generate things that look technically correct, but without the understanding of why things are done in such a way. In a visual format, we get content like the most recent Coca Cola ad, which on top of being visually bad, makes no sense and carries no meaning. "Meaning" is the crucial bit here. For Video games, art direction serves many purposes, aside from making a game look good. For one "looks good" is subjective. Cyberpunk looks good. As does TLoZ: Windwaker. But each is art directed to serve a distinct purpose. The character design environment design, 3D shading, all of these are done purposefully to bolster the story of a game. Done with intention, done with meaning. People don't want slop, human or AI generated. In regards to these game filters, no one is stopping you from using it, that's on you. But I would never want to play a game with AI art direction from the ground up. If they didn't care enough about the game, I shouldn't either.

[@ruanrubsnealves5083]

Nice topic! Love your content, guys ❤

[@yumri4]

What I think is happening is the feature in the nvidia overlay in the nvidia app that replace the Geforce app that modifes everything in the colors. In short a simple color filter that for the short term then in a longer term out look nvidia might add in tensor processing features that take it out of the CUDA pipeline and into AI compute. Alike to the current feature it will have a hit onto performance just Tensor cores are not used for the newest white paper from nvidia for nueral texture image processing but the RT cores are. So moving it to the Tensor cores for AI compute might be where they go. On consumer end GPUs the amount they get of Tensor cores numbers at most in the 100s so what they will be able to do will not be much. You also have TensorFlow is a pain the TensorFlow framework is how to get it to use only tensor cores not CUDA cores. Now for AI image generation it will depend on how it is coded. TensorFlow can do as good if not better than pytorch with pytorch only using CUDA and TensorFlow only using the tensor cores. The problem will mostly be it will have to disable the DLSS feature set to work then you have the performance issues that DLSS is covering up coming up again. AI processing on the TPU inside of the GPU will not help matters either. The other issue is most TPU code is made for data centers so it isn't optimized for speed on a single physical die but speed by spreading the compute load around. In short meaning the code used in AI graphics filters will have to be entirely written from the ground up if nvidia is using their TPU which it seems like they are planning to by offloading some of the heavier processing that the tensor cores would have done to the RT cores for consumer systems. Now will it ever allow the end user to control lighting systems? Unless the game developer codes for it most likely no but changing which lighting system is used it already is happening. Going from shadow maps to ray tracing to what Epic Games is naming "Mega Lights" etc. and so on. You have a few games with all 3 lighting options. Yes they are basically tech demo games but all 3 are used in 1 game that you can change between.

[@kuromiLayfe]

Not sure how much isn’t there already, like with RTX Remix one could completely replace the full complete compiled shaders used instantly making the artstyle completely different (including the way objects get rendered). what the article is saying is probably just that but by prompt (the ai would just write a new pass on top of the existing one that changes the look without truly changes the rest of the game at maybe the cost of 10% of frames rendered in real time)

[@jackkaraquazian]

AI cheat tools that use the game's video output as an input may be more of an issue, providing additional overlays, keeping track of other players, auto blocking/aiming etc.

[@K3dev]

Maybe developers can train a custom AI for their games that was trained taking some lightweight rendering path and outputing their vision, example they train it taking rasterized graphics and train it to output path traced graphics.

[@oimrqs1691]

I would guess it'll start like that. Maybe just a lightweight 'filter' that just makes the image more believable and coherent. Will be nice.

[@SMorales851]

This is the basic principle behind DLSS. However, turning raster into raytracing (correctly) is not possible, because RT requires data not available in the rasterized image (light coming from outside the screen space). However, ML models are quite useful for "filling in the gaps" (see: DLSS) and for finding "optimal" aproximations to expensive computations.

[@K3dev]

@@SMorales851 they could pass all the lights positions in the input parameters and even the geometry or anything else, no need to limit to screen space. But even in screen space if they train it just for their game, the ai can even be overfitted (that memorizes things) so when seeing some part of the game it knows how the lighting should look as that area was in the training set.

[@AGuy-vq9qp]

@@SMorales851this isn’t how DLSS works at all lol.

[@AGuy-vq9qp]

No chance, the whole point is making lighting consistent and realistic. Which AI will fail to do.

[@TroyS-x6x]

More viable would perhaps be a.i. generated alternatives to assets (not real-time) that are then stored in separate folders and later accessed by the game bypassing original assets. Rinse and repeat outputs until you get something desired

[@kailenmitchell8571]

If easily available, It would be very game dependent. A mod heavy game like Skyrim , would scream for that. A stylized not modded game would unlikely be used much.

[@Hpalhazred]

Most form of automatization is ruining the gaming industry, is a plague, Broken pseudio ray tracing taking 100fps from your performances, automated broken LODs, AI upscaling tech that still break glowing effects and Alpha textures, broken Nanite in Unreal 5... I miss the era when devs used their own custom engines and tools to offer the best visual experience stutter free.

[@maloiik]

great topic. feel like the takes here are quite off and disconnected. this is gonna be ubiquitous pretty soon

[@citizen3000]

Old men yell at clouds

[@Mr.Anders0n_]

The question should be: why should creators be entitled to dictate how they think we should experience their work. Once we paid for it, we should be free to experience it however we wish 🤷🏻‍♂️

[@ferrarikangaroo9271]

Fantastic response. I completely agree.

[@questworldmatrix]

How the hell does that make any sense? Do you watch Momento in reverse?

[@laeternaml]

Yes, this is the future. Ultra customisation of everything, for everyone.

[@Mr.Anders0n_]

@@questworldmatrix that's an extreme example because it's directly against the point of the movie, but it's my money, my time, my experience. If that's how I'd want to experience it, then no one has the right to stop me 🤷🏻‍♂️

[@drdca8263]

@@questworldmatrixBecause you asked that, if I watch momento, that is how I will watch it.

[@plume...]

Everything that AI touches ends up looking a bit plasticky/too smooth. I hate when I can immediately tell that something has been "AI'ed", it just sours things for me.

[@ImperialCitizenn]

Players are the ones that should be worried because just like what happened with dlss and frame gen, the devs didn't use this new technologies to enhance the games but to be more lazy on the optimization...

[@NoWay1969]

This sounds controversial simply because it has "AI" attached to it. Currently there are projects to completely remake both Morrowind and Oblivion in the Skyrim engine. It's hailed as nothing but positive. At some point, AI will make projects like this trivial, and some will take issue because some segment is always going to push back against any innovation.

[@ShaneMcGrath.]

As long as there is an option in settings somewhere so we can choose to have it on or off then it's fine in my opinion. If it's forced then no I don't want it.

[@RealBadGaming52]

Thats what i worry about

[@KenlieroGames]

I have a feeling that it will be what developers will use already when they make the game, just like what we already do... If game is fast enough to run more filters. Developers already add them to make game look better, not the player. It's not like devs will make too fast games in the future, so that players can add more filters... We always make too slow games :D

[@Linkdouble0zero]

What is going to happen is there will be NO "original" vision under the surface. AI will either be used as post-processing on top of a very basic framework designed specifically to aid the AI in doing so OR AI will produce the entire experience with no real "engine" to speak of, rather just a set of specific parameters. On top of that, if concept art is used to train a project's AI for the style then eventually that concept art will also be generated by AI which is going to turn into the next AAA feedback loop trend chasing slop with the subtraction of even more soul and the addition of AI inbreeding making it way worse.

[@hihihi1q23]

We're rapidly heading to a direction where all the biggest games are going to be gacha, AI generated slop coming out of China and made in Unreal Engine 5.

[@Eneeki]

After the last 10 years with character models being so fuglified, this kind of thing would be a godsend. The hardware specks required would be jaw dropping however. and as a player, I do not really care about the developers vision, I care about enjoying the game and having it be visually appealing. After the last number of years, it is no longer about a devs vision, it is about the money the customer spending being worth the cost. A perfect example is Fallout NV, 3 & 4. I would never waste my time on the vanilla game and always mod the hell out of it before playing so I enjoy the game.

[@kokomanation]

AI art is all the same style is like industrialising Art and culture making it inauthentic as possible but I am not against AI being used to improve the flow of a game or possibly fix bugs and other things

[@jamster2400]

I’m excited for a game that is designed to specifically take advantage of ai . Like allow you to mod it to ai as you go. Like a ai sandbox

[@AllThatMattersToday]

I'll actually answer the question that was asked. Yes, that is what the consumer wants. That's why mods are so popular. People want to tailor games to the experience they want. If they didn't, mods wouldn't be a huge part of the community. Any developer who is worried that the people who bought money on their game wants to tinker with it should probably get out of the field as their feelings will constantly be hurt. AI makes it easier for the user to do things without having to have a vast knowledge and ability to do so themselves and makes it faster for those who do.

[@thephilvz]

If you sell me a product, you don't get to tell me how I can use it!

[@MitternachtAngel]

I don´t care about mods, I think AI is the future of VFX and animation. In one form or another. We simply can not brute force our why to good VFX and graphics. The complexity is to much for our tools. No to mention is too expensive in every sense of the word.

[@quinn6464]

I could see a future where developers train AI with game assets and reference animations to help solve for more complex sims, example: hair a clothes,. Then tag very low poly models with a specific ID that tells the AI what it is supposed to render. I think this is still a very far ways off since AI rendering is not performant. If AI continues to progress and becomes used in everyday tasks and games I could see companies releasing their own AI cards to go with the computer and their GPU cards. Not ideal, but people probably made the same complaints when GPUs became necessary. I say probably since I have been dealing with GPUs my whole life and don't remember any discourse when they became pretty much a requirement.

[@RedSntDK]

I certainly like options. I don't play Scumm games in ScummVM at the original resolution and options, I definitely upscale and use various smoothing etc. In the future, if it's not a draw on the resources available to play the game is possible to upgrade the look of a game, then sure, I'll definitely want to try it out. But my 3070Ti can't even get cyberpunk 2077 to run smoothly with raytracing on, so I imagine I won't experience AI stuff in the near future.

[@Cade_Squirrel]

As a developer making a game with a very specific art style (It's modelled after a SEGA Master System game) I really don't give a fuck what someone does to my game as long as they don't expect me to implement their shitty AI makover.

[@retropulse03]

I love the idea of it. Maybe I want to play Jet Set Radio Future for the 80th time, but this time with super realistic graphics. Maybe I want to play a Cel-shaded version of Alan Wake 2 one day. Maybe I want to make Kingdom Hearts look like it would belong in Dead Space. Or let me go through Chronicles of Riddick like a candy-coated fever dream. This sounds FUN and last I checked that was the whole point.

[@DuduMaroja]

This is the worse the tech is for now, it will only get better

[@MentalParadox]

Worried? Should game developers be worried about raytracing? Any previous advancement in 3D technology? AI filters will become a standard part of games in the future. Devs will only model their world and characters up to a certain level of detail, to act as the "skeleton" for the AI to then paint over. No, we can't do this yet. Temporal inconsistencies are too rampant for now. But in ten, twenty years? It's inevitable. Photorealism will NEVER be achieved with traditional methods. We'll need AI for those final 5%.