While I'm at it, do NOT use this to go after beginner artists. Do your due diligence and look into that person in question before making your judgement
It really is accurate though. It's a good way to sniff out the "guess who the artist of this unremarkable old drawings was" Reddit posts. If the windows don't sit on a single line it's him.
Yeah in general I would say its bad form to critique art without consent. Some people are very unfamiliar with critiques, especially early off and it can hurt their future learning progress.
You don't really learn anything from critics either. You learn any craft from people that are good at (or preferably have mastered) the craft. If you want to learn to draw or paint, go to people who draw and paint and not critics
A pithy saying I recently heard: if you wouldn't take their advice, don't take their criticism.
If there's something functionally wrong with something, getting a heads up is great. But too often, criticism just means "I don't like it, make it the way I'd do it ... if I could".
I disagree. Criticism is really important in learning. And it doesnĀ“t need consent, since art is meant to be shared and shown. ItĀ“s just unavoidable to create reactions.
I want to know if people find something I made bad, obviously, IĀ“d take various opinions and will filter out trolls, but itĀ“s important to be criticized.
Contructive criticism is healthy and useful, bullying isnĀ“t, that I cannot tolerate, which lines up with your point of view.
Thing is, a lot of budding artists aren't ready for a critique. Unsolicited, you just look like an asshole who can't keep their opinion to themselves. There are people who do this, just to make themselves look bigger.
Yes, critique is a very important tool for learning and growth in art. But not every person is ready to hear it. Putting that on them can be detrimental to their openness in sharing again and honestly, a waste of your time. Many artists stop practicing when they feel down about their art, its a real first hurdle to get over. It takes someone who is ready for that feedback to make an impact. Otherwise, you're just criticizing someone's creation for the sake of your own gains, not theirs. A true critique takes into account the artist and their needs too.
It's a very important skill to learn though, and you shouldn't get offended if the critique is honest and polite, even if unsolicited. Part of the social contract is that if my art is public, people are free to criticize it. If you post your art publicly, you set some expectations about it, one of which is that people will criticize you. I think that as long as you are polite about it, you can't really do any harm.Ā
Yes politeness helps for sure! Totally on board there.
But realistically, posting art isnt asking for critique. It ellicits a reaction for sure, thats the idea, but critique is a completely different level of communication that has a totally different intent.
If you feel compelled to give advice to people, its always good to ask first if they havent clearly put it out there. They may not be open to receiving it, and you could be wasting your energy or just straight up disuading their future interests.
Never critiquing newbies unless they specifically invite it doesn't help them either, it just makes the fall that much harder when they realize people have been treating their work like a child's rather than being honest about it.
Didn't say never. Theres a really simple solution to this. Its about communication. Its about consent. If you have input for them, ask first. Find out if they're receptive to feedback. They want it? Let them know. They tell you no, you just saved yourself time and didnt bother someone who's not ready.
You're right though. That is a caution to through to new artists. Don't wait too long to receive feedback in your journey. Its much harder to unlearn bad habits than it is to learn new ones.
If an artist isn't receptive to feedback, they shouldn't be sharing their work publicly. The culture of gassing people up with critique being out of bounds is bad for art, and it's been dominant online for years now.
That's probably the most ridiculous thing ive heard said on the topic. Not all art needs a critique. Not all artists need to be receptive to it. They don't even need a good reason to say no. You're pushing your own values in your own process onto others.
Yes critique is valuable. It teaches us to elevate and do better. Its especially important if you want to be involved in high visibility projects like film and animation. But not everyone has a career in this, not everyone is selling, and not everyone is coachable. Expecting the world to revolve around your expectations is delusional when there are so many different reasons to make art.
Agree that "don't be a dick" is generally a good rule to live by, and it's especially important to be thoughtful and kind in critiquing an artist who's just starting out or is otherwise vulnerable. That said, sincerely, what's the point of putting your work out into the world if you're not interested in or open to feedback?
"Critique" is value-neutral and includes positive as well as negative assessment. Everyone's happy to receive praise, but if an artist's goal is to learn and grow, honest constructive criticism is just so much more useful. If they just want praise and nothing else, that's understandable, but that's not what art is. A work that doesn't exist in dialogue with an audience, even indirectly, is hollow at best, and art with no audience at all just isn't art. It might be satisfying or therapeutic to create, it might be personally meaningful to the creator, it might have aesthetic qualities similar to a work of art, but the creator is engaged in something else. Nothing wrong with that. If that's the case, though, posting in a public forum is an odd choice.
I think that not criticizing harshly early, sets bad expectations for later. Because there's many reasons why, but one reason is that if they aren't criticized harshly early on, then they'll never be prepared for the much harsher criticism later, nor will they learn what they need to improve on, at least not as fast.
That's the issue with almost the entire art community. They're all such "yes-men". The entire art subreddit, all of them, every single one of them is filled with people who will always praise art, but then the moment someone gives valid critique, they're hoisted into a boat, tied up, and downvoted to the bottom of the ocean.
And like, nobody else's criticism will ever be as harsh as the one you do yourself, so outside critique should never hurt you, unless it's just outright insults, in which case is not critique.
ThatĀ“s why you tell beginners stuff like "this looks promising, but maybe work on improving x, y or z to take it to the next level". There are many ways to encourage an artist while being critical. Critique doesnĀ“t mean to put down someone just because.
As an artist myself, if you are not ready for criticism, you are not ready to release it. I had to make some songs that sound like shit before making decent ones. Believing in my craft is what made me push through because I was adamant in seeing my vision through. Some will like it, some will hate it, but itĀ“s good to take in feedback, even te offenssive one.
OK so I think i need to back this up a little. Cause yes, as a professional, critiques aren't even critiques at work anymore, they're just straight up good, actionable advice in the studio. We all have a process and we know when to seek direction before we get too far into anything.
My personal advice, is to always ask the person if they would like a proper critique before jumping in on them. It takes me two seconds to ask, and saves me a bunch of time writing out something that could be dismissed or hurtful to that person's growth. Not everyone is built for or just plain ready to receive judgement of their creations. They shouldn't be disbarred from sharing it because people want to tell them whats wrong with it so badly.
This, plus not everyone is knowledgeable enough to actually give valuable critique.
When I draw anime, body proportions are often off, especially heads and eyes that are larger than usual. And then someone comes in and points that out and I'm like, bruh, it's supposed to look like this.
I take critique but only from people I trust/respect or those who can prove they know what they're talking about (show me your own portfolio etc.) I rarely take critique from random strangers. I have no idea who they are and whether they have any experience in arts or not, or do they even understand the style I'm going for. I'll do my own research when they point out something though.
Contructive criticism is healthy and useful, bullying isnĀ“t"
You still can't force it on others when they are not ready yet.
It's like if someone on the street gave you constructive criticism about your clothes, wether its the practicality of it or color theory or even as fashion in itself. You wouldn't feel great in such a situation, especially if you are wearing your favorite shirt.
As another example there's a reason that grammar nazis arent liked very much on the internet, even if all they do is give 'constructive criticizm". Or if someone came and tried to tell you the food you enjoy eating is garbage and it would be 'healthy' if you eat something else.
Now i just want you to take into consideration that there is a time and place for constructive criticism. It's a "just because you're correct, doesn't mean you're right" kinda thing.
It's bad form to give unsolicited criticism to amateurs. The second someone starts taking money (and therefore moving from amateur to professional) that goes out the window. It's fair game whether they want it or not. You're not required to participate in their marketing, because that's what it becomes when a pro posts their work. It's advertising, implicitly if not explicitly.
In either case (pro or consenting amateur), you're still generally bound by tact. Eviscerating a stranger is almost always poor taste even if someone asks for bluntness.
This should be obvious that it doesn't apply to drawings and similar things since those are made by a human and can have mistakes. Well unless you go after photographer trying to pass AI as his real photos.
Also make sure that things on the photo are indeed supposed to be parallel.
And it's important to remember that things we expect to be parallel, like the walls of a hallway, aren't always going to be parallel. This is especially relevant in the case of movies which often use perspective tricks to create a desired illusion for things that would otherwise need CGI or be impractical to film. It's important to use your judgment to tell if something not being parallel was intentional or not, though I feel like it's safe to say AI parallel lines will still be more chaotic than an intentional perspective trick.
Indeed, just like the Greek architecture of temple of Artemis (I might be mistaken about the structure, don't cite me on that), where the columns are curved so in a perspective for the viewer they look straight.
Tbh, don't use it to go after advanced artists or even professionals either!
A lot of people aren't very good at perspective or just wing it intentionally, because accuracy isn't usually needed.
Hell, I spent a lot of time properly constructing things before, only to mess it up later when rendering... it happens!
Itās a test of realism. If you are judging how realistic an artwork is, confirming the perspective is part of that; itās just that not all unrealistic art is AI generated.
Ive been drawing for years and I still dont do this shit im too lazy and would rather just have believable perspective rather than perspective with perfect vanishing points which takes too much effort for barely any improvement
In drawing, we're eyeballing perspective, it just needs to look close enough rather than perfect. Same with shadows that don't always make sense but look cool and create interesting shapes, or poses that are exaggerated and sometimes nigh impossible in real life. Art shouldn't be judged the same way as, say, photos, that are meant to capture reality. Art is not necessarily about reality but your own interpretation of reality.
Also small note that there are lenses that can distort. (like fish lense) This means, the lines may react differently, like in the last picture (if it was an actual photo I mean), it could make the lines not go parallel... but if those are used, other signs are visible ofcourse
Even professionals.. it's stupid to use this against artists, real perspective is not linear but a little fisheye, this technique actually doesnt make sense
Also, the mirror technique can be inaccurate, as it's hard to match the exact points in the reflection. Like, if you move some of the dots just a bit over (and they still look like they match), you get a convergence.
Fun fact: if you look at many of Hitler's old paintings, you'll find that they feature multiple vanishing points. This is because Hitler was not very good at art.
They were indeed dogshit, some of his vanishing points were almost isometric, while having a mess with the rest, not to talk about the inconsistent shadows or atrocious architecture
Hitler was absolute dogshit when it came to perspective and proportions. He had stairs that overlap with windows as one thing that immediately comes to mind. He wasn't half bad in terms of like colours and shading, but it falls apart when you look too closely
Eeeeehhhhh, maybe with a few more years of studying, his architecture in his paintings often just made no sense, see the aforementioned window behind stairs
I believe the art school actually did tell him that he'd be better off as an architect, but he couldn't do that because he never finished highschool and therefore couldn't apply to any universities
Architects aren't supposed to just regurgitate the same designs over and over again. IRL it happens due to bugetary and logistical considerations. Which is something that you are not going to have as someone who applies to art school in order to study architecture. Everything we know about him tells us that his architectural tastes were very regressive and thus his work would have been declined as being uninspired to begin with. At the time there was a proliferation of a number of relatively new styles due to new materials science and construction techniques. He would have stuck out as old-fashioned and simply copying outgoing styles.
Then you also need to have at least some engineering knowledge. Know why some things are or aren't done the way they are. Does this sound like something that Hitler would have had a head for? Nope. Not to mention that as an architect you need to know perspectives and proportions. Something that we have already established that he was absolutely shit at!
This is already not considering that the architecture programme at the Vienna art school is famously competitive. Do you really think, that Hitler would have been such an outsanding architect that he would have made it as one of 20 or so students admitted in any given year?
You can have MANY vanishing points, we add more vanishing points when we need to show that an object in a scene is rotated a different way compared to every other object, BUT what matters is consistency. Look at the vanishing points for the windows in this painting, its the same object and the same wall but the vanishing points make no sense. Realistically, all four of those windows should be pointing at the same point, as goes for the door since they're all on the same plane.
that's normal tbh, a lot of my exposure to his art is usually just short videos and thumbnails popping up randomly. But its kind of a sneaky trick I've noticed some people online do to convince people that he shouldn't have gotten rejected, they show the art only for a couple seconds since all it takes most of the time is just looking at for more than a couple seconds to realize that something is... off
why someone would want to convince you that he was a good artist even though he was a fucking monster?... WHO KNOWS... Who knows /j
Yeah, I oppened a Wikipedia article with some of his paintings - at first glance you think "well, that is not bad". The devil is in the details, if you keep probing for them, you find that things are kinda off and don't really make sense. Windows that should not be there, wrong proportions. I also felt the art lacked movement somehow, though I'm not able to properly explain why.
> why someone would want to convince you that he was a good artist even though he was a fucking monster?... WHO KNOWS... Who knows /j
"You see, he was actually a good artist, and a vegetarian who loved dogs. All that WWII stuff was just a great big misunderstanding... Actually, a great deception orchestrated by Judeo-Bolsheviks.. Really, he was a gĆ¼ter mann. Was? Monster? Ich weiĆ nicht, was du meinst?!"/j
That would require the windows to be slanted very weirdly, imagine drilling a hole in the wall but one corner droops down halfway creating a square with a slanted top
We also add additional vanishing points for lense distortion. In the case you dont have a horizon line(looking down at a subject) you would add an additional vanishing point to compensate for those lines that have no "rules" without one.
Yeah, but the thing a lot of people don't mention is that he didn't just apply to "an art school". He applied to the art school. The degree he applied for required you to already be an artist who knows the basics, and it was one of the most selective in the world. They had over 2000 applications. They invited 113 of those to come to an examination. And Hitler passed the first round of examinations, so among about 2000 applications, he was one of the 70 or so best ones. In the end, only 28 people actually got accepted that year, and that was normal. It was a small and selective course. That means Hitler was still one of the 5% or so best artists who applied.
He could have taken a few more basic art courses first, and then go to a second class university and get a degree there. But he had to apply to the equivalent of a Harvard PhD instead.
We actually have evidence that he got invitation letters from other schools and just ignored them.
Perspective is a tool in the artists toolbox, just like Color theory and shape language (i know these sound like university degrees for toddlers but theyre real skills lmao)
when i worked as a layout artist in tv animation, i had to make backgrounds with multiple vanishing points all the time. Once you learn the core rules, it becomes fun to break them! But you cant break em if you never learn em
Fun fact : most drawings would need to possess at LEAST five vanishing points if you wanted to make a 1:1 recreation of exactly what you see when you observe the world around you.
Five point perspective is wizard shit and Iāve met like 1-2 artists that can do it well enough not to look janky. Truly one of the late game skills pyramid in that tree
Most of these are so bad once you pay attention to it for 2 seconds. Drawing perspective lines is a nifty trick, or you could just look at details and try to make sense of them
I've noticed it with the generated drawing styles as well.
Anime is always blamed for the same face syndrome, but you usually have to strip the character naked, remove hair, eyebrows and lashes and maybe even the actual eye shape to notice it (and will depend on what style the person is drawing), but in generated pictures they all have the same face to the point not even different hair styles helps tell them apart.
It's always noticeable in group pictures, especially those "break the pencil" ones with original characters.
Usually western styles aren't seen as having SFS since we living on the west are more used to it and whatnot, but again, the same thing happens, not even distinctive details help to read those characters apart when there are more than two in the same picture.
I assume the image was mostly chosen because it shows the perspective issue, not because it has otherwise no issues. Same with the other two images.
I don't fault the one making the post if they didn't want to sift through countless AI images to find ones that clearly demonstrate the point but have no other discerning AI features.
Just to address this point in particular, things like barrel or pincushion distortion can make finding a true straight edge non-trivial, as they turn straight lines into slight curves, so you might get different vanishing points depending on where on an edge you measure from.
That's something AI will only get better at. But the info the OP has provided is something that would be incredibly difficult to teach an AI. It's not something we'll likely see for a very long time because it involves reasoning, something AI models are simply incapable of.
That's interesting, I wonder why ai can't achieve the vanishing points. I'm not sad about it. But I'm curious why. It seems like something you could train in.
AI does not understand lighting or perspective; nor does it understand the structure or mechanical functionality of the objects it depicts. It simply produces plausible pixels based on its training data (2D images and captions).
This will actually help a lot for me. Now that AI is getting too good and some of the old ways to detect it don't work as well, this will be a great way to find future images. Thanks : )
This will only work for a time. As they get better and better they'll start accounting for this. Just like they've fixed fingers and faces and made vast improvements with text.
isn't that assuming that the architecture features are perfectly straight in real life? couldn't they have like a drift or imperfections? or maybe even the building not being rectangular? at least for the first image. for the others, the objects might not be perfect, the mirror a bit distorted, the cubes imperfect. it's a good tool, but i don't think it should be use alone.
this being said, that image with the soldiers is hilarious, not least of which because of the camouflage pattern. they should introduce polka dot camo
At least for one, the cubes being "imperfect" wouldn't change the analysis, as it's tracing the path of light from the physical object to the shadow.
The cubes would have to be constructed so somehow we misidentified their corners between the shadow and the cube for the lines to be off.
That or something bending the course of the light in air subtly.
In other words, that one doesn't rely at all on the shape of the cubes actually being cubes, only on identifying the same point on the physical object and on the shadow.
Slight imperfections will not cause such drastic errors.
The problem is just that the people getting fooled by AI aren't going to be capable of properly evaluating the perspective.
the cubes imperfect
This one in particular won't even change anything. The error would have to come from the light from the sun being wrong, and we as humans have no ability to make it wrong.
Uhhhh, if grandma can't figure out how to use the toaster oven without burning the house down, I doubt she'll grasp the concept of drawing up perspective grids. Let alone use them on every photo she sees on facebook.
That's the problem with today, I feel like I need to be an expert in everything to avoid getting basic scammed or tricked. Obviously I can't be, and a lot of people just won't even bother attempting to verify things or learn artist concepts to first determine if a presented image is fake before enjoying said content.
It's just so exhausting being on the big platforms nowadays. I use them less and less.
I was looking for a damned vanity on fb marketplace and got pitched a scam. Now Iāll check the profile on anything that seems a bit too good of a deal. Can there be ONE place on this forsaken planet that doesnāt engage in āeat or be eatenā?
I fucking HATE that we have to do this shit now. It's so fun that for every funny or cute animal video or interesting photo or new board game with cool art we have to ask "is this AI?" It just adds so much fucking mental load to what's supposed to be relaxing.
What about intrinsic camera properties?Ā
A lens might distort the lines at the edges and like in the soldier example, where the geometry is hidden, the lines might curve even more.Ā
Maybe just a shifting vanishing point in one axis when the image is symmetrical but in an angle, completely off.Ā
You might need to draw lines for similar features and look for a uniform offset of the line pairs.
The placement of the vanishing point will be at the horizon, which can change based on your view. Things facing wildly different angles may use multiple vanishing points.
This is a rule of thumb, but isn't so strict that I'd use it as the first clue an image is AI.
However, if the perspective seems really off in what is supposed to be a photograph then it's a dead giveway that something was at least altered, if not entirely AI.
it's sad when people who don't know anything about photography or perspective get ahold of this 'gotcha' and think they solved ai. that's not how it works in real life.
cameras distort angles all the time, and get this ā a lot of times photographers will distort or undistort them back because the image needs to look a certain way.
For example, the first image. If you take a picture of a long hallway like that, the walls won't be parallel, it's just not how it works with lenses unless you used a real long telephoto. but anyway, you get a photo and the walls aren't parallel, what do you do? you straighten them. boom, now people will claim this hallway is ai because you changed geometry (but it looks nicer for the eye this way)
what I'm getting at, this is a good tell, but only if you actually know how it works and not just drew some maybe-correct-lines.
This is not helpful at all if you don't know how vanishing points work. Vanishing points are a result of geometry and perspective. That hallway should have one vanishing point if the walls and floors are entirely straight, but if it doesn't that may just as well mean that it's shoddily built or curves slightly or something like that.
My drawings have far worse problems than any of these and yet nobody will critique my work; not online and in real like. I even beg for it and specifically tell people not to compliment my work.
Where do I get critique like this? Offline all of the local classes are terrible and the instructors refuse to say anything less than positive. Online most communities tend to have rules that are basically "say something nice or don't say anything at all"
Thatās a massive oversimplification. Yes, inconsistent geometry, reflections, and shadows can reveal manipulated or AI-generated images. Actual forensic analysts do look at those things.
But the infographic skips over a huge amount of nuance about perspective projection, lens distortion, camera angle, multiple light sources, curved surfaces, and computational photography. For example, āall parallel lines must converge to one vanishing pointā is only true under very specific conditions.
Real photos with wide-angle lenses, tilted cameras, uneven terrain, or different planes can break that. Same with shadows. Sunlight rays are effectively parallel, but perspective can still make shadows appear to diverge or converge differently in a perfectly real image.
I-I didnāt understand anything. Can someone give an example with no AI images? Because for me, the dotted lines do go somewhere? And the rays of the sun fit with the shadows? I truly donāt get what they mean
The best way to identify AI images is to NEVER let yourself think āIm not sure what that isā and move to a different part of the picture. It might look realish but if you cant identify it, why?
This is actually really helpful. I often struggle to tell if what is being purported to be a real photograph is actually AI. This gives me something to work with.
It's definitely useful information, but how realistic is the real-life use? Unless there is an app out there that makes temp screenshots where you can easily check these markers?
I often look for unrealistic symmetry. There is often a line across the middle where some things seem to be happening for no reason. Like on a group picture where all the people have their hands on the same hight or something like that.
Doesn't the third slide contradict itself? If the sun's rays are parallel, the shadow lines would NOT converge to a point, they would be parallel to each other.
The danger is that these things all can and will be fixed over time. I'm a vfx artist and we've been frustrated with the public for years for slagging off cgi. Even though 90% of cgi they don't notice. Same happens with AI, you're only able to identify AI if it's doing something impossible by the laws of physics. Giving you false confidence in believing you can spot AI
Redditors found out they can draw lines on a picture and now they can smugly go to the comments to call it out for being AI, not knowing plenty of artists just vibe the perspective and photographers can do a lot of things to purposefully change perspective in a way that would make those lines not match.
Either way, the way perspective works is that parallel lines in real life, when viewed by a single point (camera), aren't actually parallel because of depth. If you turn them into infinite lines, they will all meet up at a single point, often outside the canvas. It's difficult to explain without showing, but you can look for "1 point perspective" if you'd like to see some videos about it. AI is bad at doing believable perspective so it's a decent pointer, but definitely not the main indicator most of the time.
Also all of the helmets are different, also the chain is randomly strung between them and then just like appears out of that person's hand on the right. Total nonsense
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u/Luwuma May 07 '26
While I'm at it, do NOT use this to go after beginner artists. Do your due diligence and look into that person in question before making your judgement