Captain Toenail

I'd say that's a fair reason, which is why I'm trying to make the distinction between stuff that's generated with some thought going into it, and lazy 'AI slop'. Certainly, back in 2010, there were a lot of trolls. To frame them as far-right though? I highly doubt genuine Nazi or KKK type people were here on Doomworld. To me, Doom has always been a left-leaning hobby (all the demonic imagery is partly of that mocking American fundies attitude of the 90s after all) A troll is going to post inflammatory material to get a reaction and tune it to their target, no matter what that is. It's playing a character to get a reaction. As horrible as they can be (often sociopathic personalities) sometimes you need some trolls around to keep people and egos in check. I know I was trolled a few times over the years, and honestly, looking back, some of them were quite funny. That's partly why satire and comedians exist. Court jester anyone? I don't know the full story or beef between yourself and Torm, but he's always treated me well and I respect that, so to see him so callously dogpiled on was very creepy when I returned. My assumption here was there was always bad blood between yourself and Torm. Even if Torm has been a naughty boy copying linedefs, I wouldn't say that justified the massive outcry. You have to understand, to the outside world, and someone who recently re-joined at the time, that's what it looks like The various Discord channels, DoomerBoards obviously (btw, banning their stuff from being featured on this site was kind of lame. Maybe you find those guys can have abrasive personalties but I don't think they are intentionally malicious, more holdouts from an earlier culture of the internet), there's also the anonymous discussion on /vr/. The community has become very fragmented in recent years. A lot of stuff goes on behind closed doors. There's a lack of transparency. It was always split up between various ports but not to this degree. I totally agree here. I think we all have to be a little different to spend so much time playing a 30 year old game. I imagine I'm certainly a little eccentric myself (probably a contrarian, given this thread lol) And you're totally right about the mainstream - have you seen the list of upcoming streaming shows? What Are Next? I'm not fully convinced on this one - I mean there may be infinite combinations but everything is always going to be derivative in some way. I mean, inspiration always comes from somewhere else. I think the issue here is whether you believe humanity has some sort of divine spark or not. if you do, I think that's a good belief to motivate you in your work. Lots of exciting new possibilities incoming very soon - portable nuclear reactors, solar power etc. Future is actually looking bright! Don't let the doom and gloom headlines get to you. Well I'm surprised this thread for example is still going, to be honest. You need areas of open discussion or things descend into stifling hugboxes. Which is what I am worried is happening to the Doom community. I don't want this place to end up really lame groupthink zone where nothing interesting happens, like the majority of Reddit for example. I understand where you are coming from, but this kind of does a disservice to prompt-engineers - I've seen some crazy prompts created to get results - some of it very creative. Have you seen the older jailbreaks like DAN? It's quite funny how you sometimes have to trick, bribe, persuade the machine to get the intended result. This triggered my basic ChatGPT senses lol That is a tricky issue. I'm not sure how this will get resolved. I imagine you may be able to start charging a fee to let your art be ingested by future models. Could be a good money spinner. Nothing I wrote was intended to intentionally cause rage. maybe a few lines were cheeky lol. I don't really have the kind of personality that enjoys trolling others intentionally It was certainly overstated, but it's not going away. I mean, we could have bipedal robots in our homes in a couple of years. That's insane! Yeah that's pretty obnoxious, but CEOs like to have the latest shiny thing. What is it otherwise? I mean guns are a tool too, one that can be used to horrific ends. Tools require responsible users. I can definitely see an 'AI license' emerging to further monetise access to models, and to discourage bad actors from using them. And to increase government control. There is a cruel streak to the Doom community, it's usually not apparent to newcomers. Most of us are pretty cool though. It took me a while to understand what was going on. Certainly in my experience there was more comradery ten years ago, despite all the other issues. btw I love the PUSS guys - their projects are very imaginative and novel. I'm proud to have contributed to some of their map sets, and they really helped me develop my mapping skills in recent years. I mean, if we aren't all NPCs in some sort of bizarre simulated world already. A very intriguing (if disturbing) theory. Yeah I imagine it would be similar to Oblige maps. What I am arguing for is for using components of generated imagery to help build new textures. Of course that's just human nature to get more bang for less buck. We might reach an amusing point where AI are churning out AI content for AI to consume, completely rendering all online content meaningless, meanwhile everyone else has left the internet behind and are now living in the real world, attending real performances etc.. Maybe in a way that's ironically a good outcome Its old advice that is getting new exposure. You can use music like a drug - listen to upbeat stuff and you will feel better, watch comedy to lighten your mood etc. I definitely recommend it. No need to be suspicious. It took me ages to do answer all these quotes, interesting discussion!

Hey guys, I've just returned to the forum and I'm seeing a lot of anti-AI shitposts, cognitive dissonance, mind-reading, and knee-jerk reactions. I'm guessing these were triggered by my post a few days ago. I just want to re-emphasise some points, and also make some comments on the community as a whole. First of all, the rate of change is really accelerating at the moment. We've now got rockets that can land themselves, actual useable commercial VR goggles, brain implants that can cure paralysis, self-driving cars, and other exciting stuff coming very soon like safe, truck-sized nuclear reactors. Not to mention all the crazy headlines like multiple assassination attempts on former presidents, exploding radios, all sorts of crazy shit. I don't know what the next headline is going to be. The point is we are moving into a quickly changing and evolving world and we all have to keep adapting now. Personally, I would be more worried about the threat of explosive drone swarms, or someone cooking up a new virus in their bathtub at the moment, than generative AI artworks. One of these new technologies is of course generative AI, and it is a fascinating and useful TOOL. It is a digital tool like any other, like spellcheck, like Photoshop's quick fill, like a screwdriver. But tools require skill to use correctly. You can post lazily generated blocks of text, or large garbled images, or be bombarded by terrible essays - this is more a lack of imagination and skill to develop the correct superprompts, rather than a criticism of the tech itself. Some of the early jailbreaks I've seen to get around the crude censorship rules were works of genius. You can get some fantastic results if you structure your prompt in a certain way, using lots of visual language. If you are a strong writer or persuader, you can become a strong prompt writer, the skills overlap - it's actually quite fascinating if you look into it. I'm trying to reframe this because I see a lot of people stewing in anguish (just see the recent mental health thread for example) - you need to reframe things in your head in a positive manner or you will always be miserable, and reduce your exposure to things that bring you down, like sad music, or constant exaggerated headlines about climate crisis. I myself have some artistic leanings, having studied art in the past, and dabbled with graphics, animation, video editing, pencil drawings, painting, and of course Doom mapping, so I can understand the feeling of 'looming doom' approaching - who wants to be washed away in a sea of 'AI slop'? But you have to understand that it is just another tool for your arsenal, and that in comparison, human made art will be valued more by people and society in general just because of basic human psychology. Would you rather have an AI generated painting hanging on your wall, or something that was made-by-hand? I know something drawn or painted by hand would be much cooler and have more value to the owner. At the moment, the tool lends itself quite well to generating things like gargoyles, demonic faces etc. - if you take the time you can curate these, cut them out and integrate them, just like taking part of an image from a stock photo (how most of the original Doom textures were created). Its a big time saver and makes things more accessible. I think its really cool and I'm kind of sad to see such a regressive and emotional attitude developed here on Doomworld towards it, especially from formerly cooler heads. I've read that a similar thing happened when digital art tools first came onto the scene, but now I would say most artists are using that software daily without issue. As to the community itself, I cant be bothered with online drama and histrionics which is why I'm usually quiet and avoid the private groups, but I have some things I feel I need to mention, for the good of the community as a whole. I've been around here a long time, making wacky mods and maps. (and stuck with this awful username throughout lol) I love the game, having started with Doom95 and the Maximum Doom CD, and I have an itch to feel useful and busy, which is why I have contributed to so many community projects and made so many textures and new monsters and stuff over the years. If I identify a niche that could be useful to mappers or modders (a new prop, texture, weapon etc.), I'll dive in their and cook something up. I'm kind of nostalgic for those old Skulltag mods that would have all sorts of silly chaotic things going on tbh! I've always been lurking in the background but I only seriously returned to the hobby when Covid happened, having a lot of spare time because of the crazy reaction locking everyone inside. Though I've always been a bit of an outsider on the edge (never taking part in IRC/Discord etc.), I immediately noticed a change in atmosphere and tone in the community when I returned. Everything was a lot more competitive, a lot of cool and funny people I had mapped with in the past were now banned, and there is a general spiteful and authoritarian atmosphere. I especially didn't like it when I saw all the manufactured drama take place to ban Tormentor667, a creative guy who has led many community projects, and has hosted all my silly bestiary stuff over the years, and even gave me a chance to take part in ZPack, even if my skills probably weren't up to it at the time. The reaction here was so OTT - I lost a lot of respect there, not for Torm for maybe copying some line geometry from something he clearly loved, but for the people eager to cancel what they see as a rival at the drop of a hat. That's really scummy behaviour and needs to be called out. The community has always had its cliques and cool clubs, but to see overt political moves like this in a hobby space was disturbing, especially from people I had previously enjoyed working with. I was actually very surprised to receive a Cacoward, considering all this politicking that goes on in the background! Lets get things in perspective - these are Doom maps, it's a hobby, not international politics XD I'm not sure what has triggered this change in atmosphere on the forum, it could be the growing influence of social media making everyone a bit more narcissistic, clickbait videos brainwashing everyone to extreme opinions, the normalisation of overt lawfare in American politics, or a reflection of society as a whole, but its not cool, and honestly pretty lame. I suspect the main driver here is the monetisation and commercialisation of the hobby. As soon as money becomes involved anywhere, the incentives quickly change. Communities and friendships thrive on reciprocity, without it this place is going to stagnate and increase in hostility, and Doomworld is going to lose all respect as a centre for all things Doom related. I already see it happening with splinter forums emerging, and people hiding on Discords or posting anonymously, scared to voice an opinion (remember, a forum is supposed to be a "a meeting or medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged" - you can't be a forum if unpopular opinions shut down discussions and get people banned) Sad because I love this game, I loved this forum, and I love all the neat things people come up with, whether its making crisp classical maps or new zany zscript stuff that pushes the boundaries. I love it all and there are some seriously talented people here! Anyway, thanks for reading my blogpost and listening to my TED Talk! I hope it has reframed the situation for some people, lessened their anxiety and given some insight into some of the hidden machinations of the community I have observed. TL;DR - the AI stuff is pretty cool (look into it), artists don't really need to worry, and there is a growing toxic atmosphere in the community. [ I wrote this all by hand btw, though I admit I used a spellchecker. Just like my last post :-) ]

I agree, it is a skill in-of-itself to craft the superprompts and curate the generated content, that overlaps with language skills, an eye for composition, visual imagination and persuasion (to get the thing to obey your prompts, amusingly). Allowing this thread to become cluttered with low-effort, raw generated images from basic, beginner prompts would be a real disservice to mappers — it adds little to no value and clutters the thread. I would argue that finding new, innovative and novel ways to use these tools is by definition creativity. I still thinks there is massive potential here to create very cool textures for Doom, using generated content in combination with graphics editing skills. As Gez says, GIMP is an excellent, free tool and what I personally use to do my texture and sprite edits for must be over a decade now. Another useful tool is XNView, which allows you to batch crop space around sprites, which has saved me a lot of time! I can understand the outcry from artists in general, but when in comes to Doom mapping, which is basically a hobby with zero art budget aside from time, I don't really see the issue. Another interesting potential implication, is that skilled artists will actually gain in value and status as AI content becomes more mainstream, as their art will stand out from the generic AI content that makes up the majority, becoming more boutique and desirable in contrast. I'll leave the discussion at that, so it does not derail the thread further. I won't promise not to continue using the curve linedefs tool or the stairbuilder tool in my maps though :)

Sure no problem https://imgur.com/5Jxm3q7

A few more textures pilfered from Quake3 and edited for use in classic Doom Hell-themed maps. q3_combos.zip

The jump pad from Rise of the Triad, edited to resemble Doom's platform textures. A deployable jump pad could make an entertaining inventory item.

That's a neat idea. I had a go at it. The faces aren't an exact match but they are close.

Use them on a crusher :)

Similarly, do particles align to a grid?

New skinwall textures with insane demented faces of the damned. The faces were generated using a superprompt, then manually cut out, overlayed and coloured in. This technology has lots of potential for new Hell textures if you are willing to use it.

Here's the Corridor 7 eyeball thing as part of a wall. Makes a good shootable switch. Edit: and a 'Doomified' Quake 3 archway midtexture

I have this eyeball thing from Corridor 7 recoloured in gory Doom palette colours. The blood is from the Heretic Imp. Not entirely sure what to do with it. Maybe could be of use in a Halloween or flesh hive themed map. The original garish sprites can be found here

Playing with metallic filter. Simple edit of beta Lost Soul. it's the kamikaze powerup from Quake 3: Team Arena.

I have a couple of things brewing, but I cannot say for sure when any will be ready for release. @Matthias No problem, I am happy you enjoyed it, thanks for playing!

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it! No jumping please