AI covers for mods

[Tj Pepler - Critcher]

11 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

It's similar to asking a programmer to do code work for free

So this is my point though https://www.vintagestory.at/forums/forum/34-mod-requestsideas/
My case was just if it's ok to expect the modders to produce code and models and everything out of the kindness of their heart, and /or commision work, why couldn't we have an equivalent forum titled art-requestideas and be able to have a place to request help from people as well.  You are correct that some people do try and take advantage but I assure you I have had my share of PMs asking for free total conversions of the game   I guess I'm just hoping that there are artists with the same sense of sharing and giving that would like to contribute to mods and I would like for them to have an official place to exist.

[LadyWYT]

7 minutes ago, Tj Pepler - Critcher said:

So this is my point though https://www.vintagestory.at/forums/forum/34-mod-requestsideas/
My case was just if it's ok to expect the modders to produce code and models and everything out of the kindness of their heart, and /or commision work, why couldn't we have an equivalent forum titled art-requestideas and be able to have a place to request help from people as well.  You are correct that some people do try and take advantage but I assure you I have had my share of PMs asking for free total conversions of the game   I guess I'm just hoping that there are artists with the same sense of sharing and giving that would like to contribute to mods and I would like for them to have an official place to exist.

Ah I gotcha. Yeah that would be a nice section to have, though it seems like thumbnail image requests might already fall under the "Mod requests" category. Except instead of someone requesting a mod, it's the modder requesting help with assets. Probably wouldn't hurt to drop a request or two in there to see if anyone bites.

[Tj Pepler - Critcher]

I think though that we do need to value the artists time though and maybe a nice way to do it would be the modder can post her mod and post the art that they would like, then the artist could look at the mod and even the author and see if they want to support the project.  But the modding forums are weird sometimes and so many posts are in between right, so that's why I keep coming back to a seperate forum, that is just specifically for the one case, because I'm sure that a lot of modders would love to be able to show off their hard work in a shiny wrapper   and that would make it a nice one stop shop for that purpose.  (I think there needs to be a bit of restructuring in a few other places too, LOL)

[orphan]

I hope they eventually start performing quality control over the moddb, most AI generated thumbnails have AI made code and can be flimsy for security reasons and updating... often times even built on stolen code from previous modders, examples like the grave mod being directly from another grave mod

[Vexxvididu]

On 3/16/2026 at 9:39 AM, Vexxvididu said:

Yeah, overall the community is pretty anti AI.  ...but I can also see the temptation since AI art is just very EASY and cheap to make.  It's very accessible.  I was very tempted to do it myself for my mod but decided against it.

I felt inspired to draw a crappy greenhouse in MS paint.... may or may not attach to my mod posting, lol.  (SteadyGreenHouses).

[Bruno Willis]

9 hours ago, Tj Pepler - Critcher said:

a nice way to do it would be the modder can post her mod and post the art that they would like, then the artist could look at the mod and even the author and see if they want to support the project.

This.

I've seen mods where the modder has included a line in the description saying "looking for thumbnail art" and then crossed it out when they got some. That's a great way for those of us with art skills but no money to "pay" for mods we like. 

[Lielac]

9 hours ago, Vexxvididu said:

I felt inspired to draw a crappy greenhouse in MS paint.... may or may not attach to my mod posting, lol.  (SteadyGreenHouses).

Excellently evocative of the mod! I love the snowman, lol

[Broccoli Clock]

I avoid AI at all times, simple as that, irrespective of what context.

AI images in the mod, I'm not installing the mod. 
AI images in your advert, I'm not buying your product.

etc, etc..

It's a principle thing, absolutely based, even if using AI would "speed up" or "lessen" my work I have no interest in using it. In fact there was a poster on here crowing about how they  had uploaded all the VS lore to AI and was using it to somehow generate content. They were immediately placed on ignore.

Anyone that knows how AI works, at a technical level, will avoid it like the plague. Training anything on the vox populi of the Internet is just inherently stupid, yet that's the model. I know this is getting off topic in regard to just the ModDB, but overall AI in general is a massive shit sandwich that people are being forced to eat.

[ifoz]

2 hours ago, Broccoli Clock said:

In fact there was a poster on here crowing about how they  had uploaded all the VS lore to AI and was using it to somehow generate content.

The VS lore we currently have is so intentionally vague and requires specific historical knowledge to understand some parts of, that I can't imagine an AI would be very good at interpreting it and creating content from it. At least if the idea was to make the content lore-accurate. 

Personally in the past I've just used screenshots of content for my mods, as it gets straight to the point and shows off a bit of what is added. Usually with some stereotypical 'medieval' font featuring the mod name on top because I think that's funny. 

[Teh Pizza Lady]

AI = Artificial Intelligence

Currently AI cannot exceed a quarter of what a human mind could achieve. This is why your most powerful computers in scifi games and TV Series use human brains at their cores.

That said, it can help organize things, help reason through processes, act as a sounding board, etc, but it should never be in the driver's seat and certainly shouldn't ever perform the majority of the work when developing a game or mod or creating a picture. AI can only replicate that which has already been created. It cannot create anything new.

[Farmore]

Personally as an artist irl I tend to overlook anything with AI as AI conflicts with my personal worldview. I tend to view art more philosophically (how, why, when, etc) as opposed to a thing to advertise your mod/product (not that there’s anything wrong with that either).

My impression of strict programmers is that they are looking for a means to an end, an image to get people to check out their product, marketing, advertising, or just a placeholder image. So a lot of them like AI because it fulfills these requirements.

I don’t know how the average non-programmer/non-artist views AI and how it affects whether it not they download a mod but I know a lot of artists will just automatically overlook it, so, if someone is using AI that is something to accept. And I am speaking generally here this isn’t applicable to everyone, but it is my impression of a lot of programmers and fellow artists I’ve spoken to?

[Maelstrom]

On 3/19/2026 at 9:16 AM, LadyWYT said:

In fairness, that isn't really an AI problem, as much as it is just part of being human. I think it's natural for us to look for shortcuts and easier ways to do things, and while easier methods aren't necessarily bad themselves, always looking for an "easy out" can be a real problem. [emphasis added]

Johnny Come-Lately to the convo with a comment from left field...

"Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of the human mind.  Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them."
- Frank Herbert
Dune 1965

[DUCATISLO]

16 hours ago, Vexxvididu said:

I felt inspired to draw a crappy greenhouse in MS paint.... may or may not attach to my mod posting, lol.  (SteadyGreenHouses).

bait used to be belivable

[Thorfinn]

AI is a serious mis-characterization anyway. It's all a model, albeit one you "train". For the forseeable future (and probably forever), it's just blindly following a glorified "if-then" algorithm. Zero creativity, as there is nothing creative about just following orders. 

The main reason AI output looks so goofy is that it's more or less averaging all its training data into some muddy mush, then reintroducing a pseudo-random variability.

All that said, I have nothing against it. It's just a tool, little different than any other. Just like I'm fine with a mass produced mug, I'm indifferent. If you want something that speaks to the human condition, don't look to "AI". If you are not looking for something spiritual, why not?

[Vexxvididu]

1 hour ago, DUCATISLO said:

bait used to be belivable

How is that "bait?"  It's just amusingly bad art that is now on my mod!  I don't think "bait" means what you think it means.

Edited Thursday at 07:39 PM by Vexxvididu

[Tj Pepler - Critcher]

I want to make a quick point for anyone who may not be aware.  I am not picking a fight or anything of the sort, this is fact only.  In several of my working environments across many different companies I work with and meet many different programmers from various fields and across many languages.  The one thing that is a certain fact in the real world is every one of them uses AI to an extent in their day to day work, all of them.  In many companies now agentic programming skills are required or at the least strongly encouraged.  If Vintage Story was being developed without any AI tools whatsoever I would be utterly amazed.  Any company not using AI now in their workflow is a rare snowflake in the desert.  
I am not saying good or bad, I don't care any more about peoples personal opinions on AI any more than anyone actually cares about mine, but know that the reality is, you are not avoiding it, if you run Microsoft, Amazon, Google, or any other modern service whatsoever you ARE using AI and are part of the system.  
That is the way it is now.

[DUCATISLO]

6 hours ago, Tj Pepler - Critcher said:

I want to make a quick point for anyone who may not be aware.  I am not picking a fight or anything of the sort, this is fact only.  In several of my working environments across many different companies I work with and meet many different programmers from various fields and across many languages.  The one thing that is a certain fact in the real world is every one of them uses AI to an extent in their day to day work, all of them.  In many companies now agentic programming skills are required or at the least strongly encouraged.  If Vintage Story was being developed without any AI tools whatsoever I would be utterly amazed.  Any company not using AI now in their workflow is a rare snowflake in the desert.  
I am not saying good or bad, I don't care any more about peoples personal opinions on AI any more than anyone actually cares about mine, but know that the reality is, you are not avoiding it, if you run Microsoft, Amazon, Google, or any other modern service whatsoever you ARE using AI and are part of the system.  
That is the way it is now.

just tell us ARE YOU anti AI or pro AI

 

there is no middle ground here sadly pick your faction 

[Tj Pepler - Critcher]

That's my point, LOL, it really doesn't matter what camp you're in, if you choose to follow General Lud and destroy the textile mills or you embrace them is irrelevant because AI is here, it's not going anywhere and everyone who makes statements that they refuse to engage with AI, yet they use their windows PC to post it are maybe not as well informed as they need be.
Now as for me, I think it's a tool that is not yet mature, like the first chainsaws that ripped the hell out of logs, made a terrible mess and killed a few loggers, a good tool once it's been worked on for a few years but dangerous and destructive potentially at first.  I also think that the current way we build AI with ridiculous data scraping techniques that cause so very much garbage to be baked into AI needs to change.  I also feel that AI should be heavily regulated and certain tools and models shouldn't be publicly available, but that is simply mho. 

But more than anything I think the biggest mistake currently with AI is trying to build a person to talk to, why would we want that?  that only leads to trouble.  The only speech from an AI should be the answer to your question, it's a robot, it doesn't have an opinion and it has nothing to add to a human conversation, it has no life or experience or anything real to share with anyone.  If we stopped treating the robots like people and more like hammers that would be a very strong start in the right direction.

But in the end I am very hopeful that we will be able to harness it properly and learn to use it as the tool it can be one day in the near future.
So I'm on team hopeful optimist

[Cingal]

I think mod makers should just focus on making mods.

It's free content that nobody is obligated to use, made purely for the love of the game. I don't really think it's anyone's business to police or demand they do things differently, especially not over something as trivial as a thumbnail. 

[Broccoli Clock]

2 hours ago, Cingal said:

I think mod makers should just focus on making mods.

It's free content that nobody is obligated to use, made purely for the love of the game. I don't really think it's anyone's business to police or demand they do things differently, especially not over something as trivial as a thumbnail. 

Sort of yes, sort of no.

In regard to the Mod DB, AI images just shittify the experience, but on the flip side you do have modders which are trying to be the least shittifying as possible (otherwise why install the mod).

There is a larger context though, and one in which the proliferation of the current form of generative AI is a negative for all of us. You might say, "this doesn't seem like a red line for me, so fine", but that just becomes the thin end of the wedge. People need to call it out for all its problems, even if it may seem innocuous.

[Broccoli Clock]

16 hours ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

That said, it can help organize things, help reason through processes, act as a sounding board, etc

It can be used like that, so long as people realise they will be exposing their personal data and sometimes more sensitive information than they realise due to inference and big data cross referencing. That the data transfer is irreversible, and that those who are collecting the data are not trustworthy. 

As for it "help reason through processes", if that is philosophically or ethically based, as opposed to getting the LLM to step through your program to identify an error, then people have to accept that the conclusion the AI comes to is based off racist, bigoted, sexist, sectarianism, and hate filled content. The AI is incapable of differentiating between fact and fiction, and that is a huge problem. Most AIs "think" racism is fine, because it doesn't know what racism is, it's just been scraping the most extreme corners of Reddit and "assumes" that is natural discourse.

Edited Friday at 08:12 AM by Broccoli Clock

[Broccoli Clock]

btw, I appreciate I am getting way off topic from the original AI images/Mod DB, but...

Aside from the environmental and ethical damage AI is doing, we need to remember the current generation of AI is all about answering one specific question, and that question is "how can we automate everything so we can stop paying wages". That is, if you look at the data, the primary goal of all the companies using it. I am no Luddite, I'm not here to break Spinning Jennies but when a tech is so blatantly designed to fuck you and I over, it seems crazy to me that people continue to indulge in this nonsense.

People using AI just now feels like the idiots who actually paid to use 23 and me (or the other DNA "testing" companies). Millions gave up the most sensitive data they had, ie: the literal code that runs their body and defines everything about them, only for that data to get breached and people started complaining random companies (specifically medical) suddenly had far more information about them than they had given them. 

It seems like "Fool me once..." is a proverb a lot of people ignore.

[Bumber]

10 hours ago, DUCATISLO said:

just tell us ARE YOU anti AI or pro AI

https://pbfcomics.com/comics/skub/

[LadyWYT]

9 hours ago, Cingal said:

I think mod makers should just focus on making mods.

It's free content that nobody is obligated to use, made purely for the love of the game. I don't really think it's anyone's business to police or demand they do things differently, especially not over something as trivial as a thumbnail. 

I mostly agree, however...I think it was the @Teh Pizza Lady that noted it earlier, either in this thread or elsewhere, but the main problems arise when the AI is in the driver's seat instead of an actual human. That is, it's one thing to use AI as a tool to whip up a quick thumbnail, or check code for potential syntax errors, or write a draft of a description, etc. But in those cases the mod author is the one in the driver's seat and checking the AI's output to make sure there's nothing goofy, and then making corrections where needed so that the code runs properly, or the description makes sense, or the thumbnail doesn't have ten fingers to a hand or something...stuff like that. 

Where problems tend to arise, is some will let the AI be in the driver's seat and just copy/paste whatever it spits out into the mod, without checking for quality or correcting obvious mistakes/polishing the rough edges. Making a mod in this fashion is very quick, but the result is very low quality. Unfortunately, since stuff like this is so easy to make and sort of works, it tends to end up getting overproduced and other mods might get unfairly deemed "guilty by association" since they use an AI thumbnail or something.

[DUCATISLO]

2 hours ago, Bumber said:

https://pbfcomics.com/comics/skub/

me af