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A post discussing backgrounds - Falling Undercover: Nox Syndicate
🕑 Added 2025-04-01 16:17:02 +0000 UTCHey everyone,
Just a post today to update you on a slight issue we faced during Falling Undercover: Nox Syndicate’s production. It has to do with something that maybe you don’t give too much thought to, the backgrounds.
Now, for our first two projects, Kyoko and Misumi, we did the backgrounds entirely in house. They were a bit rudimentary, since Operae does not really specialize in drawing backgrounds, but fit with the general art style of the game. In Turning the Page, we changed our approach and opted to use pre-rendered backgrounds that we purchased online. A lot of devs do this and we planned to continue to do this well into the future.
However, the further we got into FUNS’s development, the more we realized that such a thing wasn’t going to work. Speaking frankly, the pre-created backgrounds that are available online weren’t really gelling with the setting that we were gravitating towards, and it was causing the setting to feel a bit mismatched. We would be using a combination of contemporary, historical and futuristic backgrounds, all of various tones. It was a bit of a mess, and proved to make the game seem a bit underwhelming compared to our creative vision.
So, the idea came to some of our team members to use AI to create tool-assisted backgrounds. Although the backgrounds this provided us with were suitable for use with some editing, this wasn’t exactly a solution that we were satisfied with. Simply put, we are a team of artists and prefer supporting artists, and although the image generation tool we used purported to be trained using images that were not stolen, it still didn’t sit completely right with us.
However, since we are so close to release and backgrounds are the kind of thing we need to acquire in great numbers at the beginning of our project in order to present the story in the manner which we think we would like to tell it, our ability to commission a background artist to do everything by hand is severely hampered.
So, after much internal discussion, we have come to this decision. At the launch of FUNS in April, we are going to use a number of edited AI-generated backgrounds in order to properly present our vision of Neo Elysia (the setting of FUNS). However, the important part is that our use of these backgrounds will not be permanent. Throughout the lifetime of the project, every one of them will slowly be upgraded to custom backgrounds, explicitly created for our purposes. In fact, we have already made arrangements with a specialized background artist for this, and work will begin on the first batch of backgrounds very shortly.
We know that AI use is controversial, and with good reason. As such, this is not something we take lightly. However, with the resources at our disposal, we feel that this is the best route for us to make a visual novel that our fans will enjoy at a pace that allows us to continue operating as a viable business. As far as the custom created backgrounds go, they will be added throughout the project, but will certainly all be in the game by the time version 1.0 ships, whenever that may be. This will undoubtedly be a very large amount of work, however we are quite happy to be working with an artist that will help bring our vision to life, while adding their own spark of creativity to the project.
If you have any questions about this, please feel free to contact us here or on discord and we will be happy to respond.
Until next time, take care,
Azienda 💜
Comments
Vulcan64
I think the plan to use AI backgrounds initially, and then slowly replace them with artist backgrounds, is a good plan. It is both practical monetarily while also providing an artist produced product as an end result. Plus, we get to see just how much better the game looks as the game updates progress. Also, I think it's really important to end up with actual artist backgrounds with a vision behind them. They will help to properly establish the setting. It's a sy-fy setting. It's best to see your vision of it in the world backgrounds.
Malum Nuntius
As someone who sees the pros and cons of AI, I think using it as a way to get a basic idea of where to start from is a viable option for such a long term project. As long as you both inform everyone that that’s the plan for the time being and, as the project progresses, you replace all of the AI created items in the game with something a human artist created, then I see no issue. I also would recommend saying what was replaced from AI to human art in the future patch notes. I think it would help with your project group’s credibility for future projects. I don’t know if this is an actual quote, but I believe it: “there is no kindness without honesty.”
