General Category > Off-Topic

Clients and AI

(1/3) > >>

louisryko:
This is more of a rant than anything else, but I'm also looking for some community input regarding an on-going issue I'm dealing with...

I have a client for whom I create a lot of residential 3d imagery for. This client, let's call him Jay is extremely picky with detail and precision. About 5x more than any other client. Every single pixel and mm in my scenes has to be perfect for them. Like, the tiniest bit of flicker in an animation has to be fixed, or a coffee cup in the back of a living room isn't rotated 5degrees more 'correctly'. Or the a blanket isn't fluffy enough. You know the deal...

Jay is also constantly pushing me to investigate AI. Like, really pushing me. Every conversation includes "ok, and can we somehow make that job faster with AI?"

Of course, I use AI touch-ups, particularly on scene people. But I still mostly get Max + Corona to do the grunt work.

What Jay fails to understand is that AI is not a one-click solution. It's not a band-aid. It currently doesn't do the things he expects it to do. And it certainly won't reach the level of detail and precision he expects in my regular cgi stills + animations. At 7k resolution, too!

Now, in my latest conversation with Jay - where we're discussing modelling 200+ unique apartments for glb export (for web-viewing) he insists I do thorough research to ensure that some AI software isn't out there that will save me from manually importing each CAD floorplan and modelling each apartment. He believes we can get AI to not only model each apartment (accurately, and consistently, mind you!) but also with lighting, furniture and all textures and make it suitable for low-poly glb export!

I see Jay 'like' and 'share' so much 'AI developed' stuff on LinkedIn. Half of which is fabricated (clearly not AI to my cgi-trained eyes) and the other half is just such poor quality. This is one of the roots of the problem, I think.

Of course, this is all coming in the name of time and cost saving. Which I understand. But there are doing things right (the way the client expects the final result to look like) and doing things quickly with AI.

Ugh. How can I convey to Jay a more accurate reality here?

Or am I simply wrong? Is all this possible in AI these days, in a time-saving, accurate and reliable manner?

I'd love to hear other experiences if there's any out there. Cheers. /rant

(Reposting from a throwaway account - I hope that's OK?)

TomG:
You are correct in your understanding of AI. It is fine for generalities, but it fails when it comes to specificity. And it sound like specificity is a key requirement of your client (as it is for many).

If you want to "edit" an AI result, you just have to roll the dice again - you can't make specific changes, like "rotate the cup an extra 5 degrees" is precisely what AI can't do. Or if you had AI fill in a high res version to replace a low rez model (e.g. people), and you want the person to be identical but change that jersey for a jacket... no can do, you will get a different person where features etc. change as well.

AI has its uses for ideation, and then for "refining things where specific details don't matter", but that's it for the present time. Also I'd say this is pretty fundamental to how AI works, so "present time" could mean until there is a radical and as yet unseen shift on how things are done.

This is why Chaos has very specific uses for AI and we are not just throwing it into everything everywhere :) We want to use it where it is genuinely useful, given the actual jobs that our customers do ;)

As to how you convince your client, well that is harder. You may want to search for articles on the problems AI has with specificity, find some videos, tutorials, and even papers that describe that shortcoming.

TomG:
PS and your case is not helped by all the hype that comes with AI, both from the companies that make it or use it in their products or offerings (as many more companies include AI but do not make it in any way), but also from users who have a blinkered view - maybe for their clients and projects, AI is just fine; or maybe they've invested too much in it emotionally or financially to afford to have any doubts or admit any shortcomings; either way, you get a lot of vocal "rendering is dead!" stuff flying about (just as "GPU rendering has killed CPU rendering!" has been said for oooh the last 15 years or so....)

louisryko:
Thanks for the reply. Tom.

Agreed on all fronts.

I'm not sure what I was hoping to achieve with this post other than just venting and maybe some re-enforcement that I'm right in pushing back in these scenarios.

For the modelling job; I'm certain AI is basically of no help at all. If my max scripting game was stronger I'm sure that'd be the best help available. It's a lengthy process to import, model, texture, light, optimise, organise, texture bake, and finally export the individual apartment models.

Your suggestion of trying to find a good video to educate Jay is a good one. Cheers,

Juraj:
This sounds like quite a shitty client to have ;- ) But I understand if it's your main source of income, you might not be considering dropping him. But that would be the best solution.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

Go to full version