Description
So I'm a seasoned dev working on a sandbox adult dating sim isekai. I have lots of characters and world building, a thought out plot with mystery and intrigue while also feeling like a slice of life. The lore is deep and thought out (absolutely 0 AI used for story or dialog), from the development of the various races and civilizations in this world, to the tension between various clans and religious sects as well as many completely unique fantasy races. The main harem girls are all heavily thought out and characterized uniquely with their own arcs that contribute to the overall plot. Basically it's a deep and expansive game with tons of mini games, upgrade system for your house you can buy, customization etc. I'm an accomplished dev who knows what he's doing and I have many cutting edge systems and visualizations in the game. With the scope of the game, for this phase i've needed to use generative art for characters and locations; I have a custom workflow that I run locally, however I am an artist as well so I use it as a baseline and make edits myself. My question is: if I were to release the game in an alpha with "AI placeholder art" and the goal of making money to pay artists to replace the art, do you think that would be feasible? Or would having AI in it at any stage be too much for those who dislike AI? For the actul designs of the characters I've put lots of thought into every detail down to the symbology of trinkets as they relate to the 4 goddess' of this world followers. For context I obviously would prefer not to use gen AI, but it doesnt seem remotely feasible to create in a reasonable time frame without it, especially with no money. If I had a budget or excess time it'd be a different story, but honestly part of the hope for this is to help pay the bills while i'm scraping by to make ends meat. I'm genuinely open to any thoughts and opinions or pointing out anything maybe I have a misconception about, like the true cost to pay for art. For context currently the game has about 100 unique characters with various expressions and outfits and it's still in the first arc. Not to mention all the unique scenes, locations(+time of day), items and enemies. I really dont think its feasbile for me to do all by myself if I want to release even remotely near this year. But again i'm open to any feedback as I could be misjudging some things. As a side note, the AI art in the alpha is edited by me so it will have some standards, obviously nothing that could compete with an actual artist. I think the features gameplay and story are so good theyll gain the confidence of anyone who plays it, but obviously also the art is necessary to even get someone to play, especially in this type of medium. I've thought about using the generic 3d assets but it's so far off the vibe and doesnt meld well with the inclusive natural body types for all the different characters(plus the many different fantasy races). Any feedback is appreciated even if you just wanna blow off some steam and yell at me for using gen AI at all lol. Also attached a small example of the placeholder assets in question for context.
ThePornDude
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