Tuned in to Doujin Culture!

Well as for the AI stuff, Zanmu's background in 19 was also AI and there was no fuzz about it. No value has gone up or down since he always used stock images for spellcard backgrounds and ZUN used Adobe Firefly which just uses stock images. It'd be damning if he used for anything else, and retards are bullshitting about that being the case, same with him ever being staunchly anti-AI when he really has only ever seen it as a boring tool useful to be more efficient in making certain microaspects that don't replace human art.

>>1181
>No value has gone up or down since he always used stock images for spellcard backgrounds
I disagree.
In a thread around year ago on 4/jp/, maybe it was Prismrivers thread, maybe it was one of esoteric, some Anons analysed background image for sisters' fight in PCB. There were notes for some composition in the background, although barely visible due to filters used. After some time Anons figured out what exactly that piece was and it turned out to be some actual, western requiem.
With previous backgrounds you can have fun with this type of digging (although I will admit that I've never delved into it properly myself). You can try to flesh out 2hus with your findings (because any imagery tied to real world usually have some context to it beyond the theme which tied it to specific fight) and you can learn some new things about iconography or places of cultural significance. With AI generated ones you can only analyse how its theme is relevant to the 2hu or stage. No thread to unspool.
Is it significant? Nah, many people rarely care about what spellcard names convey or reference and those are more important. Does this tie in any way to greater discourse about AI? Not really, backgrounds aren't great litmus test for artistic integrity due to their relative insignificance and it's within realm of possibility that those gens are in fact less derivative than repurposed stock images. But it feels as if some facet that was there for dedicated autists is getting lost.

>>1183
That's a fair point. I do feel that Touhou all the way to UFO did have a pretty mystical feeling in almost every aspect. The most special case I can think of is the constant changing backgrounds during Eirin's fight in IN which makes sense as ZUN intended for it to be the last touhou game so he wanted it to end with a bang. But starting with TD the spellcard backgrounds started to become less and less meaningful with each one just really becoming a visual filler (that one door really being a barely changed stock picture for example). It's really the reason why I'm rather apathetic for the usage of AI in 19 and 20 but I do get the argument that it does diminish an aspect that while not really important it at least had enough human intervention to gather some kind of meaning off them. I do think most of the esoteric hyperanalytical anons have almost always really focused on 2hu 1-13 when it comes to the background art though, while mostly just seeing the lore, narrative, and character aspects of the rest of the games.
I'm not really pro-AI and am overall ambivalent with the AI crowd. The ones at 4/jp/ are pretty fine people (some are also using AI to learn to draw) but the other ones at twitter and the rest of 4chan are very shady mindbroken scummy dumbasses shadowboxing some cupcake war against some bizarre interpretation of enemy artists. Most of my worry is that concern trolling starts going rampant across the western internet over what is, at the grand-scheme of things when it comes to Touhou, a nothingburger.

>>1184
Oh, is the word "c.u.l.t.u.r.e. war" filtered? I wasn't aware of that, but eitherway I think I made my point clear.

>>1179
ZUN has always been a hack and this latest AI usage proves it. People should have never trusted him after finding out what he did in the PC98 games and now the icing on top is betraying doujin culture with AIslop. Touhou is as good as dead to me. Especially ZUN.

Pro-AI shills trying to bury this proves their dishonest nature trying to subvert doujin culture and make their slop acceptable. He could have avoided all of this if he had paid artists what they're worth instead of relying on a soulless machine.

>>1206
Don't let the door hit you on the way out, anon.

>>1206
You've gone to 4 different chans posting the same retarded concern troll post garbage. Eat shit and die already.

I do not care for your flame war attempt. Post 1CCs or vanish.

Calm down guys, there’s no reason to be hostile towards one another here

>>1212
So dismissive. Deliberately sliding the discussion will only embolden the AI abusers.

>>1213
It's hard to be calm when the entire doujin spirit is being killed in front of our eyes yet nobody speaks a word of dissent.

>>1213
It's really one guy sperging out and having to make sure everyone has to hear him bitch.

>>1216
The japanese way of silently accepting everything getting worse and not voicing their complaints will only lead to things getting worse because ZUN thinks he can get away with it. But it seems some people are speaking out unlike you.

>GET ANGRY GET ANGRY GET ANGRY GET ANGRY GET ANGRY GET ANGRY GET ANGRY AND DO NOT ALLOW ANY NUANCE INTO THE DISCUSSION OR YOU'RE A PRO-AI SHILL
no

If I am causing a commotion then I'm sorry but for me opposing the AIslop enshittification of everything is the most important thing for doujin culture to do in order to survive. Letting ZUN of all people get away with it sends a strong signal to everyone else that it's not an issue if they use AI for their works.

>>1220
Yeah that's a nice signal, thanks ZUN!

>>1184
It's not as much shadowboxing as it is having standards and pushing for people to do better.

>>1222
How about having some actual standards and making a thread for that topic instead of hijacking one that's about getting started to the series?

>>1221
I LOVE ZUN!

>>1223
People should know which games to avoid for using AI.

>>1222
You misread, I said that it's the full blown pro-AI posters who do that.

The strong anti-AI artists are being called out for trying to cope over ZUN's AI usage by saying it's "clean AI" but ZUN has admitted he uses ChatGPT which is as dirty and thieving as they come.

>>1226
That makes more sense then I am sorry.

>>1228
Sorry. I am too emotional about this issue. But it is important that people know at least which games are using AI so that they can be avoided in the future to not support its use.

>>1206
ZUN not even trying to pay some artists to do work for him before using AI is the biggest betrayal.

That ZUN has stooped so low to use AI is sad and makes me think the series should move on without him.

AI is neighbortech so ZUN is a neighbor

>Hey, this aspect you've NEVER hired artists for, you should've wasted your time and money on! Especially ME, clueless twitter westoid who has never played the games and just know touhou from tertiary memes!
>This goes against doujin culture! You should therefore be less doujin about this by having people under you!
>Moriyatard seething
>4/v/ style posting
Kuso thread, kuso topic, kuso posters.

>>1244
how is it "less doujin" to have people work under you? dai worked under r07 but you don't hear people say the original higurashi vns are "less doujin" as a result
also who are you quoting?

>>1244
>clueless twitter westoid
>NOOOOOOOO JAPANESE LIKE >>1233 DON'T EXIST WHO ALSO THINK REAL ARTISTS SHOULD BE USED
You're embarrassing yourself to defend AIslop. Reconsider your life choices.

>>1245
I'm quoting every thread about this topic across multiple imageboards. Hiring people is already ZUN only does for decimal and Phantasmagoria games, and it's always been with character designs, sprites, or having Tasofro (maybe dead) on when it comes to fightans. Paying someone for an aspect he did by quickly photobashing stock pictures he had to tediously look for is just going to make development even slower and add an extra cost on something no one values anyway.
I think AI shouldn't be used but these "proposals" and arguments are fucking braindead retarded. If I were ZUN, I would've just made a fan contest to make spellcard backgrounds also only using stock pictures and whichever comes close to what I want wins and gets to be in the credits. No one is proposing that to him, just bitching and attacking him instead. Pointless bashing does fucking nothing btw.

>>1245
so much this, doujin is working small and independent not literally working alone

>>1248
He should have known better than to betray doujin culture by using AI in the first place. He knows of it and he knows how people feel about it and he still used it because he knew neighbors like you would defend it.

>>1250
Okay then, ZUN should have his hands cut off and his eyes slit like a yukkuri abuse guro pic for using AI then. Does that make your chimping out ass happier?

fig sure was bold in leaving this up
It's really disappointing. Not even for the quality or ethics of the art in question, but because 20 is the best-playing and funnest release since at least 17 and I'd even say since 15. No animal realm, no ability cards, just Rei+Mari with cool shots. And now all that's left from it, wherever you seem to look, is incoherent rage, taken personally, incapable of not using buzzwords, and achieving nothing.

The game is good, not having 8 to 11-style backgrounds is sad. I'm still grateful that the stage backgrounds themselves don't seem burn my eyes as much as the past few games.

>>1251
He could also remove all AI generations from Touhou and nobody would complain but you want to be a proAIneighbor instead with him.

>>1253
If he came out saying "Oh yeah, I'm just using AI as placeholder assets, I just wanted it to have it done quickly for the demo" then a lot of "people" will be left looking idiotic.

>>1255
Not really. Firstly, everyone would frame that as backtracking after getting called out, and second, how much work do the backgrounds really take? Apparently enough for him to automate the process, but if he wanted to composite them himself in time for demo release, it could probably be knocked out in a day, especially if he was already planning on doing it for the full release. And spell card backgrounds are mostly static, contrast that to the 3d effects in stages which takes a lot more work, and that was done in time for the demo.
Nah, he did it because he wanted to. Why? No fucking clue, really.

>>1256
I'm going to paraphrase what HE said in multiple streams in the past few months so no one accuses me of "defending him" but he said he has always considered it pretty tedious and slow to look up for hours for the right stock pictures for the backgrounds and later combining them and shopping them. His official stance on AI is that he does not want to use it for anything that he himself puts effort in making, and apparently he doesn't consider photobashing stock pictures as his own hand-made creation.

>>1253
For this topic I feel a containment thread serves better than just outright deleting stuff, though if this gets as bad as the /jp/ thread things will be cleaned up.
Reminder about rule 6:
>In general, keep conversations civil. Excessive flame wars may be removed.

ZUN has gone full grifter-jew mode. Now copyright striking people posting the OST on youtube.

Context. Context. Context.
Instead of jumping on a retarded flamewar starting with a twatter screencap and buzzwords, I think I'll give this a month for actual information to come in. Fortunately, you have several threads on 4chan to choose from if you're looking for a shouting match based on speculation.