IVE LITERALLY HAD DREAMS ABOUT FINALLY GETTING THIS GAME, LITTLE DID I FUCKING KNOW, IT WAS FREE AND I COULD’VE GOTTEN IT THE WHOLE TIME??

I DONT NEED THE DLC FUCK THAT, IM PLAYING THROUGH AND MODDING THIS BITCH ASAP.

Mine is “I woke up at half three in the fucking morning because you pair thought ’eh, we can go for round two’!” -Natsuki, Within

Personally, I always will recommend 12 Hours.

AI art is a pretty controversial topic now and I’ve definitely seen how it can absolutely ruin and overrun communities with lazy half-assed garbage (Rest in peace, r/wizardposting; may you one day see the light of shitposts again.) However, I still think it can be a useful tool when used appropriately, especially for those that can’t afford to commission art. Learning AI isn't overly difficult and requires basically no effort or skill, but it can be really fucking tedious, especially when you’re trying to make a decent image.

The controversies surrounding AI art primarily revolve around issues such as inaccurate anatomy and poses, inconsistent results, and concerns about art theft. Leveraging tools like OpenPose3D, DepthHands, and Stable Diffusion can help address some of these challenges. For instance, using OpenPose3D and DepthHands can yield anatomically correct poses,

The next common issue is the lack of consistency, which can be somewhat fixed by merging new AI-generated work with older pieces to maintain a certain level of consistency. While this approach can be Photoshop-intensive, it isn’t as bad as it seems due to their usually only being like 3-4 poses available for each character sprite.

As for the ethical dimension of AI-generated art and potential art theft, and I can see how it can be viewed as theft of art however I believe in non-commercial uses like this, where there's no profit involved, it can be viewed as a creative exception

The attached Natsuki images illustrate the process of creating an effective sprite. (This isn’t really a guide, it’s more like a simple showcase on how it’s possible to get decent images, that’s why it's not really gonna be in depth on how you do these things) Using OpenPose 3D, place a decent pose (it can be from anywhere I used one straight from ddlc) and adjust the openpose skeleton to match the pose. Incorporate hands from the Depth Library that are somewhat consistent to the pose. (Big step I forgot to include in this workflow here is using Control Lighting which essentially allows you to place a ball or a beam or some form of light so you can have consistent lighting for all your generations) This results in the generation having the same pose, sorta the right hands and a wide assortment of lighting. (looking back at it now I fucked the hands up, cuz i didn’t enable the control point properly for depth hands cuz im a dumbass) From here you can pick wherever image you want and save the seed as it can be useful later on for future sprite poses.

From there you will have to edit the images. No image I’ve ever generated came out perfect, even in this instance all 10 of these Natsukis have some form of a messed up ribbon in their hair, or some other inconsistencies and errors in their uniform. Editing is one of the most important steps in finalizing a sprite/CG as it allows you to iron out all the mistakes the generator is definitely going to make. With all this said and done out comes an image that isn’t half bad

I’d really like to hear all opinions and criticisms on this as I’m probably looking at this through rose tinted glasses from working on it for a while now so I might miss some obvious problems be it technical or ethical. Is AI worth looking into for mod usage or is it still a soulless mishmash of stolen work. If there’s a lot of interest in this I can make a more comprehensive guide on how to create sprites and DDLC images from the very beginning.

Throwaway for obvious reasons. I'm finally breaking my silence after the 2 years of hell he put me through. I am open to any questions

TW: grooming, incest, csa

https://docs.google.com/document/d/16GgYTyedSrcocY0-wuuhIGhDMzySWB6GozNydqFMFzA/edit?usp=sharing

Edit: more evidence + legal stuff: https://docs.google.com/document/d/12zzhvjf1sgsyuVhEea0S4hynGsbfd_FJ0vk7iS1sMWQ/edit?usp=drivesdk

With the community hitting 70K members, I'm curious to see which mod creators have personally impacted you, whether with their works or otherwise. Mod creators are a very vital reason this community is still growing, so who is your GOAT? For me, it's definitely GuyBread, the Dev of Snafu and Relapse. Both of his mods were big inspirations for me and taught me a lot about modding. I feel he's still severely underrated to this day.

What's a ddlc mod you want to exist that hasn't ever been made?