Comment by gametorch

TL;DR:

I started making a video game. I assumed 2D video game art generation was a solved problem. It wasn't. I tried to solve it and ended up getting close. This post's URL provides an example of how far image generation models have come (and how far coding LLMs have come, because they built that entire website, with my assistance, in 2 months).

Long Post:

I originally started programming because, like many others, I wanted to make video games. A bachelor's degree in Computer Science, a few internships in Silicon Valley, and some year-long stints at various companies that shall not be named here -later, I ended up where I started from: making video games.

I set out on my game-making journey intent to fully embrace change, because the times they are a-changing, as they always seem to do. First, I'd write the game in Rust, a language which I wish we had when I was in college (though I admit learning C is absolutely a pedagogical rite in any up-to-snuff CS program). Second, I'd use LLMs to guide me on my way.

I quickly found my bearings with the Bevy game engine [1]. I implemented Flappy Bird for practice. Sailing was smooth. It was time to make the game I originally intended to make.

Early in the development of the game I found the need to procure assets. I had already stumbled upon Meshy [2], a web app that let's you create 3d meshes from prompts. I think this is a great product and I gladly paid for it. However, I was making a 2D game, and 2D games need 2D assets. I assumed the 2D-equivalent of Meshy existed and I could pay for it.

How wrong I was. Alas, I could simply ask ChatGPT to generate 2D sprites for me, no? No. Well, yes and no. Yes, in the sense that ChatGPT does generate some pretty damn good looking sprites. No, in the sense that hours of painful manually cropping and Photoshop work was about to beset me. So I took matters into my own hands and tried to build it myself.

1. https://bevy.org/

2. https://www.meshy.ai/discover