Using AI for Game Art Production Expertly

AI has made its way into almost all areas of human activity. AI in games and art creation, in particular, are no exception here. In this era where authenticity and originality reign supreme, the intersection of AI and artistic expression demands discreet navigation. What we mean is that game creators and publishers should tread carefully when considering the integration of AI for gaming, especially their artistic processes.

One misstep and AI-generated art will be the reason for your game’s removal from all target platforms, shattering all the hard work and undermining its potential for success. And that’s not even the worst-case scenario. Your business could face litigation resulting from the violation of property rights and other legal issues.

Don’t want that fate for your game? Then, find out how partnering with an expert art studio like Inkration will allow you to utilize the mighty power of AI to get high-quality game art without taking risks in this article.

Understanding AI in Game Art

AI-generated art entails the utilization of machine-learning algorithms to craft visuals, characters, landscapes, textures, and other assets. These creations find application in video games, shaping diverse worlds and settings for player immersion. Besides asset creation, AI can be used for boosting asset quality, incorporating cool effects, realistically animating facial expressions and character movements, and better optimizing produced assets.

As gaming AI technology advances in capability and precision, it presents game developers with a cost-efficient and streamlined approach to generating assets of high quality, necessitating less manual input and conserving both time and resources in the production process.

A great example of AIs efficiency can be seen in the case of art projects undertaken by Inkration Studio. The process of character creation for one of our projects, without the use of AI, required up to 61 human hours. In contrast, for another project where AI assistance was utilized, we completed the same task in just 36 human hours, from conceptualization to render.

How Inkration Is Using Artificial Intelligence in Making Art for Video Games 

In Inkration, AI plays a pivotal role in the initial stages of our creative process – during visual research and concept creation. We use it for mood boards with references, concepts, and the color key. 

However, when producing the final artwork, we believe in the irreplaceable touch of human creativity. While AI in games aids in asset creation, our artists ensure the art tells a story, emotionally resonating with players. This human element is what sets our artwork apart, imbuing it with a distinct personality that AI simply cannot replicate. We seamlessly mix modern technology and our talent and expertise to produce truly unique and eye-catching game art. 

To back our claims, here are our favorite, vibrant art projects, for which we utilized AI potential: Muertos Fortune, Circus Show, Viking Land, and Majesty of Gods. Check them out on Behance!

AI Tools That We Use for Creating Game Art

Here are our to-go AI art generators for boosting our creative process:

• Stable Diffusion. This model generates realistic, highly detailed images based on text prompts as well as image-to-image translations.
• Midjourney. This tool makes stylized artwork from text prompts in a highly artistic manner.
• DALL-E 3. Tailored for generating text-to-image, photorealistic content, it works well with prompts from ChatGPT.
• Leonardo.AI. This advanced generative AI tool allows for more control in image generation from the text input.

After working on your desired art style, e.g., exclusively casual or cartoon, we train our AI based on our works to maintain the style and visual consistency throughout your game. If you need to make changes to the content stat or add something new to the project later on, our trained models will expedite the art creation process for you.

Casual and semi-realistic art styles bask in popularity at the moment, so if you’ve been thinking about making a game with one of them or trying something new and exotic, now’s the time to contact us and bring your idea to life with the help of Inkration’s professionals!

Impact of AI in Game Development and Art Creation

AI came into the game development industry like a wrecking ball. It not only takes away monotonous labor from game developers and artists but also revolutionizes the way games are conceptualized, designed, and experienced. 

First and foremost, the usage of AI in games streamlines the development process. It leads to significant cost savings by automating repetitive tasks, reducing the need to maintain a large team, and optimizing resource allocation throughout the production cycle. 

With behavior generation and natural language processing (NLP) for non-player characters (NPCs), AI helps make titles more realistic and engaging for players. Procedural content generation (PCG) also contributes to making in-game worlds more realistic. It allows for simplified and automated content creation, producing unique assets and terrains (for example, every generated house in the village will be one-of-a-kind, just like in real life) and even whole missions.

Artificial intelligence in video games helps keep mechanics balanced, making sure the title stays both challenging and enjoyable for players, providing a perfect gaming experience. It assists in quality assurance too, by systematically identifying and addressing potential bugs, glitches, and inconsistencies. For instance, AI-powered automated testing tools employ algorithms to replicate player interactions, guaranteeing a thorough examination of diverse game scenarios.

As you can see, with its ability to aid in producing immersive, personalized experiences, the impact artificial intelligence has on the gaming industry is tremendous. We expect its influence to keep growing in the upcoming years.

Why Should You Be Cautious When Using AI in Gaming?

AI usage for commercial uses meets a backlash and becomes prohibited in tons of upcoming cases. Steam, for example, is actively banning games whose owners cannot prove the content ownership. 

So, the malpractice of AI can really sour the milk for you. You can face legal issues concerning copyright infringement, ownership, and attribution. What’s more, AI algorithms may produce artifacts or errors that detract from the intended aesthetic, requiring human intervention and oversight. With AI usage, several technical challenges and limitations, such as data scarcity, overfitting, and others, may arise as well.

Not good at all, isn’t it? Well, Inkration fluidly blends AI power and their experience to make sure you get top-shelf visuals without taking any risks mentioned above.

Content quality and safety is our studio’s primary concern. Hence, to safeguard our visual content against potential issues such as copyright infringement, legal disputes, and platform rejection, we take a cautious approach by using AI exclusively for internal purposes. By not solely relying on AI and carefully monitoring its usage, we ensure the legal safety and security of your product. By capturing the art style within trained AI models, we ensure an enhanced security level for our 2D art services. 

Moreover, our models are stored locally, meaning that our masterpieces are available for your eyes only and are not vulnerable to potential leaks or unauthorized dissemination on the internet. This way, your content stays 100% exclusive. 
We have an expert art & animation team ready to jump on your project. Get the top-tier visuals for your game. Get in touch with us today!