I think there is a concept for enemy sprite sheets, but it may not be a very robust concept. The LPC enemies generally do not need any equipment or clothes, as Guarav says, so they are generally simple animations + North,South,East,West facing frames. To illustrate Guarav's point: Non-humanoid LPC monsters
A few other enemy spritesets are more involved, such as William's wolf but, as Guarav says, most of the more complex enemies are humanoid, like a goblin or minotaur which are modifications of the LPC character base. Not a bad thing, but also not the kind of enemy that adds a lot of diversity to the foe list.
I don't have very good answers to these questions, but I am very interested in the discussion:
Standards, yes! but I suspect it will be difficult to have any sort of dimension standars since "enemy" implies such a huge variety of sizes. Some monsters being very long, but not tall, and vice versa. If there is a standard size, it would have to be very large, and all smaller enemies would fit within it... Or there would need to be a separate third standard for huge boss enemies, yes?
Animations:
Moving North,
Moving South,
Moving East/West (mirror? this works for humanoid characters because we're a symmetrical species. Not so all monsters.),
Moving West (if assymeterical)
Idle,
Taking Damage,
Death/defeat,
Basic Attack,
Spellcasting Special Attack,
Optional Auxiliry Action (just a slot for an additional attack or atypical feature. many monsters won't use this slot but it's available if needed)
As implied by my suggested animation list above, I think there should be all four cardinal directions for enemies to be truly compatible with LPC. Although full 4-directional movement animations are not usually necessary for turn-based JRPG style combat, that is hardly the only system the LPC assets are being applied to. The LPC characters move around in 4 directions. For the enemies to fully exist in the same world, they must also be able to move around in 4 directions, IMHO.
I cannot imagine incorporating non-humanoid enemies into the character generator. I agree about the needless restrictions that would impose. It seems like it would be far less work to create a separate "enemy spritesheet generator" considering how weird these non-humanoid enemeies are compared to the humanoid characters. Or even humanoid enemies that are very diverse in size: Cyclops, Ettin, Leprichaun, Brownie,.. Centaur?! Do all the weird Greek mythological half-human crossbreeds count as "humanoid"?
Maybe they're safe. They're certainly more likely to be safe, but I can't agree they are difinitively safe enough to create assets and share them on OGA just yet. I hope that will be the case soon.
That revisits a concern I had from earlier in the thread:
"It would only infringe on the copyright if the asset is too similar to the original asset."
Be careful with this. Similarity is not the reason something is infringing copyright. It is just the most common tool in determining if copying took place. Copying can still take place, and therefore be copyright infringement, even when the result of the copying looks very dissimilar from the original. It's just usually very hard to prove copying took place when the original and the new work look dissimilar.
I have seen someone get DMCA'd (and lost) because he used Chrono Trigger character sprites as a basis for his characters. He morphed the sprites multiple tiimes, tweaking them over a long period. Eventually, the characters were not recognizable as coming from Chrono Trigger at all. He appealed the DMCA saying there was no similarity betwen them and therefore it was not copying. The lawyers cited his dev-log, where he chronicled the entire process of copying Chrono Trigger assets and adjusting them until they were unrecognizable compared to the original assets. It was proof enough that copying did occur, despite a lack of similarity. Because his assets would not have existed without first coming from copyrighted content, they were deemed infringing.
If the end work is so dissimilar from what you're using as a base that you don't really even recognize the original base at all; then you should not use the original base at all.
If you still want to use the original base because it's easier and serves as a helpful guide; then you are benefitting from the effort of another artist without their consent: possible infringement.
On the contrary, this is distinct from using other art as inspiration. If you look at Chrono Trigger sprites, and that gives you some good ideas, then you stop looking at the copyrighted sprites, then begin to create your own sprites in roughly the same shape and animation style based on your own learned skills plus what you recall from the inspiring source, but are not actually repeatedly referencing, or overlaying, or tracing, or clipping any parts of the original, that is not infringement. It's inspiration. As stated above, this is what all artists do all the time. I'm not sure it's what AI's do at all, though. And that's the crux of the uncertainty.
Looking forward to when/if there is a fully openly-trained model some day. That being said, I do feel there is a distinction between generative AI and transformative AI. the asset rotation tool is not generating artwork nor adding features to the artwork that weren't in the original (which would mean the features were being added from the learned dataset) but are only transforming the existing art based on what the AI observed from other artwork. That seems more like inspiration or skills-learning rather than derivation from other works. Perhaps that is a specious distinction, I don't know. I'll have to dig into that more.
I pretty much agree with you guys, so I have nothing to add to the primary thrust of your statements, but I do want to make some notes that should be kept in mind:
Its basically like an artist looking up a reference and using that to create something inspired by it.
The counter-argument, and a fairly strong one, unfortunately, based on what can be observed with AI output decay, is that it's more like an artist looking up a reference and using that to derive something from it, not inspired by it. I have some idea how I personally define the difference, but I don't know how the courts will make that distinction.
"As such, AI generated art without much human input cannot be copyrighted."
True, but keep in mind that AI's inability to produce copyrightable output is not the same as AI being incapable of infringing upon prior existing copyrights.
The OGA community is certainly not overlooking AI as a tool, nor rejecting it. Just as you suggest: one of the first things we said about it was:
Submissions will be unaffected by any such removal if the art therein was generated with technologies who's training dataset, in its entirety, is demonstrably openly licensed.
The issue at this point is that no one has been able to build an AI-powered art tool trained with openly licensed content. If you know of one, please share. Even Adobe's Firefly AI, which claimed to be trained this way, was discovered to have been trained on AI generated content that was in turn trained on copyrighted content where use in that way was not permitted by the authors. Which is roughly the AI/Art equivalent of money laundering, not to mention the dumbing-down of AI models by essentially inbreeding them. That isn't to say all these AI's are violating copyright, but the courts themselves are still undecided, and so too must we be.
Yes. They are each very different. Well, CC-By and GPL are very different, but there is also a reason for version 2 and version 3 to be listed on this asset.
GPL makes it easy to use this audio in your project if your project already uses GPL content.
CC-BY makes it easy for you to use it in your project if your project uses anything other than GPL content.
That should be fine. So long as the models don't use any existing trademarks (you have been making your own brands, so this should not be an issue) nor explicit verbiage or imagry (real-life sexual well-being products use only medical terminology and have no explicit imagry on the packages as far as I know, so I assume you will be mimicing this practice as well, and therefore should not be an issue)
EDIT: Actually, I have seen some condom packages with rather racey iimagery on them. I would recommend avoiding this style of provocative sexual imagery on the products. To be clear, condom packages etc should be fine, so long as they are the medical/neutral style.
I think there is a concept for enemy sprite sheets, but it may not be a very robust concept. The LPC enemies generally do not need any equipment or clothes, as Guarav says, so they are generally simple animations + North,South,East,West facing frames. To illustrate Guarav's point: Non-humanoid LPC monsters
A few other enemy spritesets are more involved, such as William's wolf but, as Guarav says, most of the more complex enemies are humanoid, like a goblin or minotaur which are modifications of the LPC character base. Not a bad thing, but also not the kind of enemy that adds a lot of diversity to the foe list.
I don't have very good answers to these questions, but I am very interested in the discussion:
SpellcastingSpecial Attack,Maybe they're safe. They're certainly more likely to be safe, but I can't agree they are difinitively safe enough to create assets and share them on OGA just yet. I hope that will be the case soon.
That revisits a concern I had from earlier in the thread:
Be careful with this. Similarity is not the reason something is infringing copyright. It is just the most common tool in determining if copying took place. Copying can still take place, and therefore be copyright infringement, even when the result of the copying looks very dissimilar from the original. It's just usually very hard to prove copying took place when the original and the new work look dissimilar.
I have seen someone get DMCA'd (and lost) because he used Chrono Trigger character sprites as a basis for his characters. He morphed the sprites multiple tiimes, tweaking them over a long period. Eventually, the characters were not recognizable as coming from Chrono Trigger at all. He appealed the DMCA saying there was no similarity betwen them and therefore it was not copying. The lawyers cited his dev-log, where he chronicled the entire process of copying Chrono Trigger assets and adjusting them until they were unrecognizable compared to the original assets. It was proof enough that copying did occur, despite a lack of similarity. Because his assets would not have existed without first coming from copyrighted content, they were deemed infringing.
On the contrary, this is distinct from using other art as inspiration. If you look at Chrono Trigger sprites, and that gives you some good ideas, then you stop looking at the copyrighted sprites, then begin to create your own sprites in roughly the same shape and animation style based on your own learned skills plus what you recall from the inspiring source, but are not actually repeatedly referencing, or overlaying, or tracing, or clipping any parts of the original, that is not infringement. It's inspiration. As stated above, this is what all artists do all the time. I'm not sure it's what AI's do at all, though. And that's the crux of the uncertainty.
Looking forward to when/if there is a fully openly-trained model some day. That being said, I do feel there is a distinction between generative AI and transformative AI. the asset rotation tool is not generating artwork nor adding features to the artwork that weren't in the original (which would mean the features were being added from the learned dataset) but are only transforming the existing art based on what the AI observed from other artwork. That seems more like inspiration or skills-learning rather than derivation from other works. Perhaps that is a specious distinction, I don't know. I'll have to dig into that more.
I pretty much agree with you guys, so I have nothing to add to the primary thrust of your statements, but I do want to make some notes that should be kept in mind:
The counter-argument, and a fairly strong one, unfortunately, based on what can be observed with AI output decay, is that it's more like an artist looking up a reference and using that to derive something from it, not inspired by it. I have some idea how I personally define the difference, but I don't know how the courts will make that distinction.
True, but keep in mind that AI's inability to produce copyrightable output is not the same as AI being incapable of infringing upon prior existing copyrights.
Agreed.
The OGA community is certainly not overlooking AI as a tool, nor rejecting it. Just as you suggest: one of the first things we said about it was:
The issue at this point is that no one has been able to build an AI-powered art tool trained with openly licensed content. If you know of one, please share. Even Adobe's Firefly AI, which claimed to be trained this way, was discovered to have been trained on AI generated content that was in turn trained on copyrighted content where use in that way was not permitted by the authors. Which is roughly the AI/Art equivalent of money laundering, not to mention the dumbing-down of AI models by essentially inbreeding them. That isn't to say all these AI's are violating copyright, but the courts themselves are still undecided, and so too must we be.
LOL
As another practical example, GabrielTurner uses AI to comment on AI discussions :P
Yes. They are each very different. Well, CC-By and GPL are very different, but there is also a reason for version 2 and version 3 to be listed on this asset.
GPL makes it easy to use this audio in your project if your project already uses GPL content.
CC-BY makes it easy for you to use it in your project if your project uses anything other than GPL content.
See FAQ "What do the licenses mean" and "Some artists have multiple licenses listed..."
That should be fine. So long as the models don't use any existing trademarks (you have been making your own brands, so this should not be an issue) nor explicit verbiage or imagry (real-life sexual well-being products use only medical terminology and have no explicit imagry on the packages as far as I know, so I assume you will be mimicing this practice as well, and therefore should not be an issue)
EDIT: Actually, I have seen some condom packages with rather racey iimagery on them. I would recommend avoiding this style of provocative sexual imagery on the products. To be clear, condom packages etc should be fine, so long as they are the medical/neutral style.
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