Shipwreck Jones

@Incrementis Well, people don't exactly seem to be eager to help out on the project, so I'm probably going to be going at this alone. I don't mind doing the work, as it's something I can do while watching youtube videos and relaxing at the end of the day. I was just hoping that it could be finished in a more reasonable time period. And, I already tried posting elsewhere. I got zero replies on the beamdog forums, and the Baldur's Gate subreddit mods rejected my post because they have a blanket ban on A.I. generated content. That one hurt, as the subreddit is probably the largest community of OG BG fans by a rather wide margin. Anyway, I'm probably not going to make the videos since no one seems interested in helping. But who knows, maybe putting some out there will help attract attention the project. So, we'll see. And, of course, if I do, I'll post a link here.

@Isewein No need to apologize. Doesn't look like this project is going to get much attention anyway. Honestly, I'm not particularly interested in having a debate -especially since I'm struggling to condense my beliefs concerning the issue down into a concise argument. So instead, I'll pose some questions to you. Carlos Mencia once received a ton of backlash for stealing a joke from Bill Cosby. Yet, regular people repeat jokes created by comedians all the time, without permission or credit, and no one cares. Why is one bad, and the other okay? Why is it okay to create memes from other people’s “content”? Why is it okay for people to repost those memes without permission or credit? Why is it okay for people to create variations of the meme? Can memes not be considered a form of (low) art? When is it okay for creators to “take inspiration” from other creators? If you believe it’s permissible when the resultant work is transformative, how transformative must it be before it’s okay? Can generative A.I. tools achieve the same level of transformation? And if so, why is okay to do it the old fashioned way, but not okay to do it with tools that make the process faster and easier? Now, don’t get it twisted, I do think there are some serious ethical questions concerning generative A.I. (i.e. companies using it as a means to pay creators less than they deserve). Moreover, I am greatly concerned about how it is becoming easier to spread more convincing misinformation (which can result in harms up to and including the loss of life). So, I am not saying that it’s not important to consider the ethics of A.I., or the potential ramifications. I do, however, disagree with the people who seem to think it’s inherently wrong in all cases, as well as with the A.I. bros who dismiss critics as modern day luddites. @jastey Yes, I was planning on replacing all the portraits with ones created using A.I. Of course, many people seem to take issue with that as well.

Yeah, I've been trying to match: Head (i.e. Hood, Helmet, Hat, and Hair Color) Race (i.e. Ears, Skin Color, Body Size, Body Proportions (which can be easier said than done)) Attire Color and Type (i.e. Plate, Chain, Leather, Noble, Peasant, Wench, etcetera) Expression (i.e. At least when I knew the personality or situation of the NPC in question) I didn't worry about making them match better than that (i.e. the specific look of the armor and hair length) because there isn't a huge variety in the character models. So, if I tried to make them match exactly, the portraits would end up looking pretty samey. Speaking of which, I could get good facial variety when using a reference image, but my faces tarted all looking the same when generating from scratch. So, I started using celebrities in my prompts to try and give some variety. And, whenever a character's skin color looked ambiguous, I would make them non-white (there are a crap ton of white humans, and white human males in particular, in the game). Of course, I probably know a lot less than you when it comes to how different peoples are supposed to look. So, I probably made mistakes in that regard. I don't suppose I could entice you into continuing to work on the project. Since you already know what you're doing, you can help me to help others to get into it, and with so few people working on it (so far just me), each person that decides to sign on can make a huge difference to the amount of work everyone else has to do. Not only that, seeing that other people are getting involved might help others to feel like the project is actually feasible, which might encourage them to contribute. I have no expectations. I know it's your free time, so you can help as little or as much as you like, and I'd still be appreciative. You can also work on any portraits that interest you (I'll happily pick up the portraits people don't want to do if it means more hands helping). And if you don't want to help, that's fine. I still appreciate you sharing. P.S. Can I have the portraits you've already made? You have around 50 that I'm missing, and I'd love to use them to fill in some gaps.

To Mods: I couldn't create a topic in Unreleased Projects, so that's why I put it here. Please move as necessary. Wut Iz? I really liked the idea of the PPE (mod that gave portraits to every character with a speaking role in BG 1 & 2), but found the portraits rather disappointing. Now, to be clear, I have zero doubt that the mod took a tremendous amount of time and effort to put together, and certainly appreciate all the work that all the contributors put into it. I just want to see the mod improved, and this is my attempt to do so. As I see it, the PPE suffers from four main problems: Portraits inconsistent with character models and/or personality Inconsistent art quality Inconsistent picture quality Inconsistent art style I aim to rectify this by creating new portraits using a combination of A.I. and photoshop. I've already created about 275 portraits, but will probably want to revisit the first 50 or so, as my quality standards kept going up as I worked. Why am I posting now? I'm reaching out to the community now for two reasons. First, I was wondering if anyone wanted to contribute. PPE has approximately 3,600 portraits in it, and figure it would take me about 4 years to finish if I did it all by myself. Naturally, I would welcome any help. Many hands make light work, and all that. And since I was going to post anyway, I figured I would ask if anyone had any input. I'm thinking about switching A.I. image generators, and was wondering if anyone had any advice. I've been using Dream by Wombo, but have been experiencing errors sporadically over the past two weeks, which will temporarily bring progress to a standstill. On the plus side, the free version doesn't have any image generation limits, is easy to use, gives good results, and allows the use of reference images that influence output. However, it also doesn't allow any sort of masking (allowing you to preserve parts of an image you like), the interface is mildly annoying, and, as mentioned previously, it has been experiencing periods of downtime recently. Of course, I'll hop on their discord to find out what I can about Dream, but was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for alternatives. Requirements: Relatively Free or Completely Free (in order to maximize potential contributors) References Images OR Masking (in order to reduce the amount of work that needs to be done in an image editor.) High Quality Final Product Reasonable Image Generation Times Nice to have: Completely Free Reference images AND Masking Easy to setup and use (but I will make tutorial videos if I have to) Offline (so we don't have to worry about changes to monetization, changes to image generation limits, changes to the program or models that we have no control over, and times of heavy usage) Fast Image Generation Times I was thinking about trying Stable Diffiusion, but saw how complicated it was and decided to ask around first. And, yes, there are plenty of articles about A.I. image generation, but a lot of them are either trying to sell you on something and/or written by A.I. Moreover, the landscape is changing rapidly. And, if you're wondering why I didn't do a bunch of research before starting such a large project, it's because the scope of the project gradually grew from me just wanting to make 6 custom portraits for a party for my own playthrough. Thinking About Contributing? You don't need any paid software, high end hardware, or specialized skills. I do highly recommend the use of a photo editor, as it will make life much easier. However, A.I. handles all the heavy lifting, and I will probably make some video tutorials in order to make getting into it as easy as possible. Thus, the only things you really need are some free time and a desire to help. Coordination I have already made a spreadsheet to keep track of my work. If people are actually interested in helping, I'll convert it to a Google Doc and create a Discord. Image Comparisons I have uploaded some before and after comparisons to this post, but am limited on file size. Thus, I am also providing a link to additional comparisons. Hopefully, they'll help get people interested in helping. And, yes, I’m aware that my images are in the wrong format. I will use a Photoshop Action to batch convert all the images at once.