AI art and AI in general is a hot topic nowadays. Has anyone tried to upscale game sprites and other images for MUGEN? I would recommend checking a free open source tool chaiNNer. There's also a large database of various freely downloadable AI models for upscaling and people even can also train AI models themselves. A lot of paid services popped up too for an easy cash grab, but I'm not sure if they can really offer something that isn't already available for free.
Here's a screenshot of the free chaiNNer app:
The AI doesn't just produce larger blurred pictures. It uses "creativity" and "imagination" to construct the missing details not present in the original low-resolution picture (on the left side of the screenshot), such as proper eyes or hair. But it's still not very good at drawing human hands. It's possible to try different models, pick the best picture and edit it if necessary. What do you think?
I'm not sure folks would appreciate that, as a person in the art community with twitter, if you were in my position you wouldn't go 5 minutes without seeing someone calling out a company for using AI and telling people to boycott them. So, if someone was to upscale Mugen sprites, I doubt it'd go well. Would def be interesting to see how it'd work, since iirc it doesn't take too kindly to high-res sprites, so maybe you'd have to apply it in game rendering? I'm not sure, I don't have much programming experience.
Interesting, I have not had the opportunity to use AI in that aspect (only academically) but I had and have faith that it can give very competitive results. In the example you share, the sprites look like a "High Res" style, which can give new life to already known characters.
I think that a tool of this type has a future in this MUGEN environment, but the limitation would possibly be that it is only a character already created previously but seen "more current in the drawing" but it would have more future to develop original characters, perhaps more limitations would be the cost of using a more "better" version.
As for the artists/illustrators, although it may be a competition, perhaps this is a window of opportunity for everyone, I say whoever has the idea can now capture it as is without having to go looking for the artist who wants to carry it out " because some set their conditions" or high costs, be careful not to say that I do not value people's work but sometimes the costs seem disproportionate to what is required, but I suppose that by searching you can find it, but the fact is that First-hand there is the tool to create without complications in terms of sprites.
