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LordCameron
Famous Hero
Veteran of the Succession Wars
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posted May 16, 2026 10:06 PM |
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AI Art Potential for Modding?
I gave Chat Gpt a sprite sheet for nomads and then said can you make a 2 hex wide frog unit for Homm3 based on this image. Obviously the scimitar caused problems in the image, but this was the very first attempt and it would be easy to clean up in photoshop.
Do you think this is a viable way to create new units? I tried to add the sprites in game to test if they were actually aligned correctly, but I realized I don't know how to convert to DEF files and make it all work. I might try again in the future.
Especially for mods like TUM which have some random green imps or for WOG with their image bashing I could see this as at least a step sideways
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What are Homm Songs based on?
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Ancientdruids
Famous Hero
(Andruids for short)
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posted May 16, 2026 11:51 PM |
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From my experience, AI is useful for generating portraits and map objects. Still, even minimal effort of manually polishing such assets improves them by heaps and bounds.
Having said that, for unit sprites, rendering them in 3d software seems the way to go for the forseeable future. Because this spritesheet is just unusable. Not even close to H3 aesthetic. Looks like something from Metal Slug.
And we haven't even seen it in motion. It will probably produce a fiesta of artifacts, pixel movements, size inconsistencies and blinking due to slight palette difference between frames. There's no way you can correct that easily, if at all.
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LordCameron
Famous Hero
Veteran of the Succession Wars
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posted May 17, 2026 07:50 AM |
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I think aesthetics is very fixable with the right prompting/enough prompting.
But yeah, it is the pngs in motion where it will probably fail. I'd be very curious to test it to see how far away we are. I don't think it will ever, or at least not for a long time, match the really nice models that are out there right now like HOTA or Nephrytes or yours, but I think it could be a step up from stuff like the Grove ripping World of Warcraft
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MurlocAggroB
Known Hero
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posted May 17, 2026 10:01 PM |
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There are multiple frames where it has like eight legs and clown feet. AI is so hideous.
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vitirr
Known Hero
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posted May 18, 2026 04:50 PM |
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I've tried this approach myself for my own project for a VCMI faction mod but was not successful.
Following the advice from other modder I used an H3 unit spritesheet and my own model and asked to mix them, but the results were pretty bad, completely unusable. This modder has shown results of his own and they look pretty decent so perhaps you can actually achieve it by multiple attempts or with more AI recognizable models (when your models don't follow the most standard conventions AI struggles more). I remain skeptic though because I've tried enough with AI generation to know that prompting is sometimes just useless, and if AI goes in one directon it is sometimes impossible to change course.
Another option is to generate video and capture the frames. This is IMO a far more feasabe approach because the video tends to keep consistency better. However it is hard to keep control of it to perform the animation that you want and prevent hallucinations when the content is a bit exotic (which in a fantasy setting is common). Access to good video generation is also often behind paywalls too.
There is also the option to generate 3D models based on 2D graphics of your model. I've tried with an existing tool and the results are impressive. I don't have the knowledge to judge the results from a technical point of view, but from the point of view of an untrained user it gets the done job by far.
The problem again is the animation. I've stumbled upon mixamo which contains an impressive set of free animations that you can apply to your models, so that's an option (still haven't fully tested it end to end myself). However if you want something more specific you are out of luck and will have to learn a bit of 3D animation (I'm quite sure you'll have to do some manual work even if you apply standard ones).
There are apparently other more sophisticated ways of using AI applying control nets and what not, but the learning curve there seems too high.
I haven't worked on my mod for a while because I was a bit burned out and I'm enjoying Olden Era at the moment, but I'd love to continue at some point. The animations though look like the biggest hurdle to overcome.
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Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
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posted May 18, 2026 05:05 PM |
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It will always take less time to correct generated artefacts than to draw from scratch.
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Ancientdruids
Famous Hero
(Andruids for short)
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posted May 18, 2026 11:41 PM |
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It will always take less time to take shortcuts. 100% true.
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BTB
Famous Hero
Moist & Creamy
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posted May 19, 2026 06:26 AM |
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Haven't any of you people seen Terminator? One minute you're telling ChatGPT to design new Heroes units, the next you're sending Kyle Reese back in time to boff your mom.
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purerogue3
Famous Hero
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posted May 22, 2026 05:11 PM |
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ai=avoid infringement
is it easy copying/moving sprites? I want to use the original KB ones in H3, especially the GIANT and the 1hp sprite.. even the skels are cooler
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