paxys
> Thiings is a growing collection of 1,900+ free AI-generated 3D icons
"Free", but downloading the entire collection requires a payment.
And according to the terms:
> 4. Content
> You retain all rights to your content. By using our service, you grant us a license to host and display your content.
But then they advertise that anyone can download and use these pictures? Under what license?
Hamuko
If they're AI-generated, just grab them and ignore the terms. What are they gonna do, claim copyright?
zer00eyz
I see someone has heard from their legal department on AI tools.
shortrounddev2
Seriously, why would I pay for someone else to generate AI images?
furyofantares
It depends on how good they are. I'd pay a little to not have to prompt and wait for a bunch of icons, a little more to not have to curate and reroll, and more to not have to train a lora, all assuming those are buying me quality thresholds I care about.
jstummbillig
Because it requires work and you place value on your time
null
huhtenberg
Along the same lines, less "cute", but far more extensive - https://thenounproject.com
fredley
Noun Project is fantastic. It's been around for at least a decade and it's hard to find things with no icons these days.
I notice it suffers from the same London Bridge problem, do people never learn? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Bridge_(Lake_Havasu_Cit...
cyclotron3k
If you're making an icon of Tower Bridge, you're going to tag it with "London" and "bridge", so it's going to turn up in all searches for London bridge.
At this point though, the two bridges should just swap names.
graypegg
I've contributed a bit to Noun Project, it's lovely. Submitted icons need to pass a manual quality gate, which does take a while, but it means that you don't run into bad AI slop or broken SVG paths as often as you do from other stock graphics services.
dvh
Capacitor looks weird. When I type "lead" is offers me to add it, but when I type "asp" it shows me "wasp" without option to add "asp" (a fish). Diode is shorted. I really don't understand the purpose of this.
oxguy3
So many of them look weird. The aesthetic seems to be soft, clay-like icons but then there will be lots of weirdly detailed or sharp parts.
And there's so many weird specific design choices that a human artist would not make. Why is the subway tunnel curved on one side and squared on the other side? Why does the nature journal have two different bookmarks (one of which awkwardly covers the E in NATURE)? Why would a wall outlet have one plug with a ground prong and one without? Why does the Golden Gate Bridge look like an M.C. Escher piece? Why does the bingo ball look more like a pool ball?
Also a lot of items that are very clearly a specific brand, even though the description is generic. The "smart thermostat" is a Nest. The "soccer shoe" is made by Adidas. The "smart speaker" is an Amazon Echo Dot. The "wireless earbuds" are AirPods (and for some reason there's three of them).
And then there's the blatant AI goofs; the logo and text being distorted on the HP 11c calculator, the VCR having an EPICT button and a REE jack, the TARDIS reading "POLIC BOX", the egg timer reading "30 10 10 10 15", the playing cards having two aces of clubs (one of which is red).
I like this handmade/clay aesthetic, but it completely falls apart when it's obvious a human hasn't touched it. If I want handmade icons, I'll pay an artist for them; if I want AI slop, I can generate it myself.
globular-toast
For the laundromat it couldn't decide if it's the laundromat building or the washing machine itself. Reminds me of Rollercoaster Tycoon graphics but unintentional and inconsistent.
fredley
The entry for London Bridge is wrong, Tower Bridge is depicted.
extesy
Staff is also wrong: https://www.thiings.co/things/staff - shows a group of people but describes a stick.
fredley
And some of those people have mouths and noses, some don't. Creepy image.
dsego
The needle is all wrong, the thread doesn't go through the eyelet.
munificent
Take a look at the scissors on the cross stitch kit: https://www.thiings.co/things/cross-stitch-kit
aclindsa
Only half of all wall outlets need the ground prong: https://www.thiings.co/things/wall-outlet
And this decidedly is not a square not: https://www.thiings.co/things/square-knot
grues-dinner
Some wall outlets in some regions do combine a two-prong and three-prong socket.
Though I don't know if that applies to the region that has the D: face sockets.
fredley
The image for Physics shows an impossible Newton's Cradle. The balls should be, well, cradled between two strings.
zuminator
The puzzle cube is colored wrongly
globular-toast
Golden Gate bridge is apparently designed by MC Escher: https://www.thiings.co/things/golden-gate-bridge
toddmorey
I am interested in guidance for generating a custom icon like this with a similar level of style consistency. I know there are some resources out there with guidance, but does anyone know any really good ones?
timnetworks
Generate something you like the style of, then run it back through a vision model and ask it to describe the image without describing the subject, append that to a batch of icon descriptions, easy custom icons. (figure out transparency at this step) Then ask it for an imagemagick script that will convert them into needed sizes and formats.
very manual yes, but gives a lot of control
[edit] the images seem to be made with a transformers model rather than diffusion (e.g. DallE3 vs MidJourney) which is mostly proprietary for now.
wigiv
This is absolutely not my area of expertise, and I can't fully vouch for how well it works, but I was looking for a similar solution for consistency across website graphics and came across this walkthrough for consistent game assets:
https://runware.ai/blog/creating-consistent-gaming-assets-wi...
Maybe helpful?
rglover
Me as well. The one thing I've struggled with is consistently getting a combination of object-only and transparent background.
wvbdmp
Of course it has “Reaper Drone” as well as several different tanks and war planes, but not, for instance, “dildo”.
_august
Somewhat relevant GitHub project, for generating Genmoji-style images: https://github.com/EvanZhouDev/open-genmoji
awfulneutral
Spinosaurus is the inaccurate one from Jurassic Park 3 and Tyrannosaurus has inaccurate hand rotation. Velociraptor and Dilophosaurus are also from Jurassic Park and highly inaccurate. For shame!
Waterluvian
This page feels like one of those times that touch and drag inertia would really be a benefit. It feels so clumsy to navigate on my phone but looks so close to being a delight.
ivanjermakov
I also want to pinch zoom out to see the full database, but I guess they won't give it out for free.
the-anarchist
Really, that's your takeaway from all of this?
Waterluvian
Well… I guess if I’m limited to only discussing the most significant part of any issue, it would have to be that none of this matters, agency is an illusion, and we should all sell our computers and find people to feed.
But touch drag inertia is a close second.
HanClinto
Cool site!
But why does it exist? Will it be around in 6 months? What is the backstory / creator of this project?
It's odd that they use their own license language, and doesn't use something explicit like CC-BY-NC. It appears to be a non-commercial, non-distribution license, but otherwise free for personal and commercial use...?
Appears that the site is funded through being able to purchase sponsorship spots for $10 / mo.
staticshock
Confusingly, the about page suggests that this is an AI-driven storytelling app: https://www.thiings.co/about. Maybe that's a vestige of prior iteration of the app, though.
The concept minds me of the million dollar homepage, where you could pay a dollar per pixel of advertisement. Here, you're paying a dollar (that's a guess; i didn't check) to get a new object listed in the potentially infinite grid, which gives you a unique URL for that object, an emoji-like reference image, and a one-paragraph description for aliens, were they to land on earth and ask what that object was for.
Basically, looks like an art project that monetizes participation.
the-anarchist
Love this beautiful pattern wallpaper generator but I have two questions: How do I save a pattern (rightclick download doesn't work) and can you make the background color adjustable? Thanks!
How did you get fireship to narrate?
(more seriously, the timing on the playback does not seem to account for load time, audio may start a couple words in if not instantly loaded)