Devlog: Using AI to Create Title Screen Artwork & Graphics

Hey everyone!

It's time for another update on the development of In Heaven’s Shadow, and I’m excited to share the journey of creating one of the most visually impactful parts of the game: the cover artwork. 

There's a reason people say "don't judge a book by it's cover", because people do, and that's what sells. You can make a technically magnificent game, but if you don't have the resources to properly market and sell the product, nobody will ever know its greatness. With such a tight project timeline, I did not have the time to spend doodling and creating my own artwork (not that I really have the skills to do it, at least not without taking several days). Luckily, there are now plenty of AI resources readily available, and often offering some amount of free usage. I had to try so many different tools to get what I wanted, and in the end, nothing was quite perfect, plenty were good enough, and all of them were better than what I could produce myself.

The Limits of AI

Like most things in this process, I thought this would be a lot easier than it turned out to be. I actually ended up spending days, probably a collective 30 or more hours playing around with different AIs. I had to use the results from one AI tool as the base for another tool, try different prompts backward and forward, even asking ChatGPT to help me optimize my prompts. Through this, I've learned that AI does not understand how to create artwork that splits down the middle. I've also learned that asking it to make small edits to existing work is what it excels at (up to a limit, it seems that it has difficulty processing multiple layers of changes), and sometimes, things you explicitly tell it to ignore or exclude become all the AI can focus on.

Inspiration & Vision

The celestial realm in "In Heaven’s Shadow" is one of the key locations in the game and it needed to look both ethereal and grounded in mythology. I wanted this environment to embody the contrast between East and West while introducing Western audiences to elements of Chinese mythology.

For this, I drew inspiration from celestial motifs—soft, pastel-colored clouds, floating landmasses, and cosmic skies. The aesthetic is designed to have a “cotton candy” look with a mixture of pinks, purples, and vibrant cosmic blues.

I also wanted to display the other half of the game, which takes places in a grungy urban jungle that is patrolled by hunters and their drones.

This is where AI had the most difficulty. It seemed to understand that I wanted to create a contrast between the two sides, and did a wonderful job using color to create two distinct atmospheres. However, no matter how hard it tried, even reiterating what I would assume is correct, the AI was unable use different motifs on either side. There was always either a cityscape that appeared in the celestial realm, or thick clouds that would appear in the city. It seemed to really want to create a balanced image. For some reason, several different AI had difficulty comprehending that I wanted to create a celestial realm that is in the clouds, there was always some sort of sea or river at the bottom, even when I told it explicitly to cover the watery areas with clouds.

Final Concept

In the end, I conceded and decided to showcase only the celestial realm and abandon the city elements of the visuals.

The initial idea was for the city to blend together with this ethereal, otherworldly realm, evoking feelings of an escape to wonderland, a land to escape and adventure amongst the clouds, and so that's what I focused on. I focused on creating that world that would invoke a sense of wonder and curiosity in the audience. I experimented with variations of floating landmasses and cloud formations to give the feeling that this divine realm is a place separate from the Earthly realm. The colors needed to evoke both beauty and mystery, as the celestial realm isn’t a clear representation of good or evil—it’s a neutral place, with themes of duality and balance.

Final Look

The end result features a stunning celestial realm, with floating islands surrounded by pink clouds, an awe-inspiring cosmic sky, and soft, glowing clouds that evoke a sense of wonder and balance. This setting will serve as a pivotal part of the game, introducing players to an otherworldly space that is both beautiful and mysterious, in keeping with the game's broader narrative of divine beings in hiding.

I additionally took my final image and put it through an AI video generator that was able to create motion with the waterfalls and extrapolate to create a bit of a zoom-in/fly-through effect.

The process of creating this scene was both rewarding and challenging, but it was essential to get it just right, after all, it is the player's first encounter with the game. I’m excited for players to explore this space and experience the mythology and visual storytelling firsthand.

That’s all for this devlog. I’ll continue sharing updates as I progress further with other key areas of development!

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more!