Post

Background: Charlie noticed this strange version of a well-known concept art piece by Ralph McQuarrie for Star Wars (1977) in the recent book about ILM (which, other than that, is apparently fantastic). So he wanted to know if it was a printing error. But it looks more like a botched upscaling job.

I don't see why anyone would ask an AI to make a McQuarrie drawing look bad, but anything is possible in this life. Well, I guess it is? Or some weird filters? And if that's the case, it's sad that this false, slop reality is even contaminating the new official books.

This is probably a software-generated reinterpretation of the concept art. It confuses certain shapes and blends them together. In any case, I just checked my archives and couldn't find any ugly versions of this concept art.

Oh yeah, no witch hunts, please. That said, if this could serve as a lesson and everyone would double-check every single concept art piece in future artbooks...

There's no room for doubt. Someone must not have had the high-resolution image, must have upscaled it, and must not have noticed that the image was very different, before dedicating a double-page spread to it. We need to change our habits when it comes to AI, and in particular: check everything.

Also, you don't use Generative AI to "upscale" something. If you really need to upscale (instead of finding better sources, which there are plenty of) at least use machine learning.

I’ve seen first hand how this happens in work environments - it’s just becoming a lazy production matter of fact for so many and they din’t have the same level of visual acuity to spot the mush/errors that AI creates. Then, actual artists have to point it out.