Anyway genAI in video games is going great. The AI upscale remaster of Tomb Raider 2 turned these mysterious instruments into a touchtone phone, complete with the classic R button! It's really important that we burn down the world so we can do this. - ThreadSky

brandon.insertcredit.com • 3 days ago

Anyway genAI in video games is going great. The AI upscale remaster of Tomb Raider 2 turned these mysterious instruments into a touchtone phone, complete with the classic R button! It's really important that we burn down the world so we can do this.

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Comments

eldritchtea.bsky.social•3 days ago

noticing the steam page mentions nothing of gen ai being used, removing from my wishlist now

samanthacrawford.bsky.social•3 days ago

It wasn't AI, just a stock image being used on the texture. Someone else in this thread even found the exact image.

AI is a big deal and should be called out, but keep in mind a lot of these call-outs are going to be nonsense from people who don't know how this works.

eldritchtea.bsky.social•3 days ago

samanthacrawford.bsky.social•3 days ago

Yeah, I really don't care whether you buy it or not. I was just correcting the misinformation.

eldritchtea.bsky.social•3 days ago

And I was informing you that I was already aware

samanthacrawford.bsky.social•3 days ago

No, you weren't. You're digging your heels in because you said it was AI like 2 posts ago and then found out it wasn't, but you didn't like being wrong.

zilognmotohost.bsky.social•3 days ago

Not going to lie, that's pretty hilarious. Terrible, but hilarious.

zackzwiezen.com•3 days ago

I think this is just a stock image. THis one
https://img.rawpixel.com/s3fs-private/rawpixel_images/website_content/-a010-markuss-0005.jpg?w=1200&h=630&fit=crop&dpr=1.5&crop=entropy&fm=pjpg&q=75&vib=3&con=3&usm=15&markpad=13&markalpha=90&markscale=10&markx=25&mark=rawpixel-watermark.png&cs=srgb&bg=F4F4F3&ixlib=js-1.1.1&s=47906f8d38618bb0b7e46ddb7619760c

robobeau.com•3 days ago

Lumon-ass phone dial. 🤭

brandon.insertcredit.com•3 days ago

oh wow uhhhh but why!! this is actually more confusing

zackzwiezen.com•3 days ago

I assume someone saw a grid of buttons and typed that in as a search term, found this, used it, and didn't realize it was a phone.
Or someone was in a hurry and this was good enough. IDK!

nif.wtf•3 days ago

Possible the original used the same texture for some smaller console that was scaled to save space. They replace the texture in the remake, but ignore the reuse, and it has the side effect of being blown up on a wall as well.

badslime.bsky.social•3 days ago

Often genAI just uses a single source for generation if it is a close enough fit, despite claims it doesn't

zackzwiezen.com•3 days ago

Also possible, though I think the more likely answer here is that someone on the art team needed a techy number panel thing for this spot, grabbed this and used it and considering how this is the first time I've seen anyone spot it, the image was a solid choice it seems.

MOst people rany by it.

badslime.bsky.social•3 days ago

Most players run by everything

reyturner.bsky.social•3 days ago

Call
Feed snake
MasterCard
Redial

brandon.insertcredit.com•3 days ago

from @samderboo.com on the insert credit forums https://forums.insertcredit.com/t/ep-377-even-more-games-of-the-year-2024-with-kris-graft/4579/27

brandon.insertcredit.com•3 days ago

I am realizing this AI folly started as a touchstone phone and turned into a calculator halfway through.

brandon.insertcredit.com•3 days ago

now I'm even more confused: https://bsky.app/profile/zackzwiezen.com/post/3likkjunvms22

lottemakesstuff.pink•3 days ago

maybe an outsource studio got assigned that source texture with no scale references.

brandon.insertcredit.com•3 days ago

Yeah, could be that too.

mathewolson.com•3 days ago

another case of "not AI, just a shitty rushed photoshop," which itself is just a variation on the larger theme. every gen AI tool adobe adds is purely for the sake of encouraging this kind of sloppy work, not preventing or improving upon it

robear.bsky.social•3 days ago

I also wonder if the same texture is reused at multiple scales within the game. Like this could be absolutely the right scale if it also/primarily is used for some desk computer-type thing.

eldritchtea.bsky.social•3 days ago

Well I'm still not buying it lmao

OpenLara works great with the original versions if anyone is wondering

brandon.insertcredit.com•3 days ago

Having said all I intend to say on this (including that it might just be a photoshop bash that somebody did poorly or strangely which I mentioned in a quote post) I am now muting this thread, enjoy!!!

ironmonger.bsky.social•2 days ago

Nice that you got called out on being wrong of accusing a game company of using AI, and when it happened you decided to just cut and run instead of apologising for your incorrect knee-jerk assumption.

wafflechampion.bsky.social•1 day ago

For the record: Aspyr does use AI upscaling on their remasters and in these games as well.

https://www.tombraiderchronicles.com/headlines4756.html

duboisstanaccount.bsky.social•3 days ago

I don’t think that’s AI? I think the modders who made the new textures did it all by hand?

bad-takes.online•3 days ago

I dunno, man, what do *you* think the artist should’ve done with those original 4 pixels to make a higher res texture?

They gotta be something, why not buttons?

psykus.bsky.social•3 days ago

I mean entirely possible the AI stole from the stock photo.

pixelfish.bsky.social•3 days ago

Because clearly people want monitor sized buttons to interact with?

A human would deffo know that if you needed to upscale the art what the actual affordances to an interface would be and those are likely dark monitors with no current display.

jcdenton.xyz•2 days ago

I don’t really understand the “burn down the world” argument. I dislike AI slop images as much as the next nerd but running a few hundred textures through an “AI” upscaler once during development is going to be tiny in terms of energy use compared to what players’ GPUs will use.

davestrock.bsky.social•2 days ago

But it'll be higher energy use than a human doing the same thing.

The point is, all things being equal, gen AI will use more energy and produce worse results. It'll just be cheaper in the short run.

dirtbagboyfriend.bsky.social•3 days ago

rage

dark1x.bsky.social•3 days ago

Wait, is that real?!! Where is that? That's insane.

brandon.insertcredit.com•3 days ago

Check the later post, it may be a crop of a stock image? but that's even more confusing to me, and also feels like something a human would not do

dfactor.bsky.social•3 days ago

You can find this texture 5~10 minutes in the Opera House.
https://youtu.be/KjB2wuwmAfk?t=5819

dfactor.bsky.social•3 days ago

Ah, I've found the spot. It's even closer! https://youtu.be/KjB2wuwmAfk?t=6355
It's the control shack that you can reach within ~5 minutes.

mattcaulder.com•3 days ago

thats looks so bad...wow

datafran.bsky.social•3 days ago

Ah yes, my phone number is 666-R25R

arrath.bsky.social•2 days ago

That is one big ass phone

dominictarason.com•3 days ago

All of the letters are readable and clear on that phone, though.. Which means it was almost certainly not the work of AI.

I think they might have just found the original source image which was pixelled over and called it a day.

It's far too creative a bad decision to have been AI.

graydeeus.bsky.social•2 days ago

May also have been the result of the artist seeing the texture in the abstract out of the game and not understanding the intended scale (because the texture itself *looks* like it belongs to something much smaller).

dominictarason.com•2 days ago

Yep, either way it doesn't have any of the hallmarks of generative AI or neural net upscaling (two different things, which are often conflated now). It's far too creative a goof to be machine-made.

Only humans can mess up like that.

anem.bsky.social•3 days ago

This is reminding me of the GTA Remasters, where bog standard bad art design/direction (stuff like applying the wrong normal map or artists overseas not being given the context for a visual joke) was blamed on "AI."

ramurray.bsky.social•1 day ago

It's too adorable to be the result of an algorithm.

earth-64.com•3 days ago

I would guess there was an initial AI pass (there definitely is looking at the rest of the game, I saw some weird shit in my playthrough) but then a second human pass to touch up letters/numbers/etc. The person would have no clue of the context, probably thinking its a texture for a phone somewhere

chupnet.com•3 days ago

I guess the phone could have been the original "inspiration" for the texture and no one ever thought it would actually be inserted there?

mysticrosie40.bsky.social•3 days ago

omgggg 😀

kaptajnen.bsky.social•3 days ago

Hoe can we ever go back to play Tomb Raider II again with the mystery-meat vague textures?

tormutrose.bsky.social•3 days ago

Going to guess the R button is for redial which wasn't a terribly uncommon button on phones though not necessarily in that particular layout, still very silly for it to make its way into the game as a texture like that though.

gameism.bsky.social•3 days ago

Not me on hold with my pharmacy: "press one to reach groceries. press two to reach the front office. otherwise, press the square sign to continue."

[Turns to giant wall of phone buttons, leans into what should be the pound sign button]

dashwallkick.bsky.social•3 days ago

big big fan of the way there's DVI ports the size of my fist.

spaceshipjo.bsky.social•3 days ago

You haven’t really lived until you’ve properly fisted a DVI port.

certificates.bsky.social•3 days ago

yeah this use case sucks. you almost think NPC dialogue or characterization would a use case, but 1) LLMs just aren't better at that than bespoke but cookie cutter dialogue, and 2) too resource intensive, and 3) genAI is still literally evil. a different autotext generation method entirely is needed

fragro.bsky.social•3 days ago

Are you aware you can run image generators locally and doing so in terms of environmental use, their training is equivalent to a handful of cars. It's a drop in the bucket compared to streaming video, industry, transport, and everything you use?

Also don't think this is generative. It's a photobash

satanicmechanic.bsky.social•3 days ago

Are you aware that nobody cares? It's still plagarism

fragro.bsky.social•3 days ago

Sure but creating a narrative based on misinformation actually damages your cause when 3rd parties do their own investigation.

People should focus on the economic issues caused by capitalism instead of arguments that don't hold water.

dugular.bsky.social•1 day ago

Using stock images isn't plagiarism if they were paid for. At worst, it's laziness.

arabiafats.bsky.social•3 days ago

oh ffs

song87.bsky.social•3 days ago

The originals look so good too. No reason to do this stuff

tanukitsune-x3.bsky.social•3 days ago

Ugh, I had no idea they did this in the TR remasters, this sucks

ryuu-van-draco.bsky.social•3 days ago

Nothing about that is upscaled since it's not the same graphic..

But yeah, pretty pissed till this day that they just threw everything into an AI thing and didn't really check the result.
Even worse they didn't throw connected textures into it together so every square doesn't fit to the other -_-"