[notfried]

When an architecture company seemingly uses AI to render mockups, they really need to ensure consistency and accuracy. It's not that difficult nowadays. It was quite confusing trying to understand the differences in design between pictures and to compute why the tunnel seems so short compared to the mountain, until I realized it must have been laziness; not laziness because they are using AI, but laziness to do their job right.

[StevenWaterman]

I'd be very surprised if this was AI, it's too bad-looking. The lighting is all wrong, there's noticeable repeating rock textures

[eesmith]

And they've been around for years.

You can see a copy of that last image (3rd in the gallery) from 2017 at https://web.archive.org/web/20170707052808/https://www.ship-... and at https://newatlas.com/stad-ship-tunnel-interview-terje-andrea... .

A copy of the first image in the gallery is at https://dozr.com/blog/stad-ship-tunnel dated 2021.

Edit: ahhh, 2017 and 2021 were the previous two big announcements about the tunnel. See my notes at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48597546 .

[pixl97]

Heh, it's kind of funny to see how many things are called AI that aren't AI, remember that when we see discussions in HN saying articles are AI or replies are AI.

It's memeable in many cases.

P1 "AI pictures are bad"

P2 "But AI was trained on human pictures"

[Human picture]

[black_knight]

Soon enough thought, the AI will learn this too from us and we will have AI bots writing comments about how TFA is AI generated.

[eesmith]

I think "that's AI" has acquired the more general meaning "that's fake looking", rather than specifically the use of some generative method.

[bondarchuk]

Yeah it looks more like photocollage creatively photoshopped. Perspective is very weird in picture 3 too, very cubist.

[wongarsu]

I suspect quickly slapped together 3d renders photoshopped into actual landscape images. With very limited attention to detail when it comes to matching perspective or lighting between render and photo, or when it comes to blending them together

There are more images like [1] that are just the cheap 3d renders, with less of the photoshop butchery

https://newatlas-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com/archive/snohett...

[bborud]

Of course, the tunnel will be in non-euclidian space. So it is shorter on the inside than on the outside :-)

[duskdozer]

I can't see TFA due to cloudflare, but there is a unique image style used in a lot of architectural mockups of proposed buildings and things that also looks very strange and uncanny. I can't find any examples of it online right now unfortunately, but could that be what they're doing?

[netsharc]

Maybe it's because they all use a standard software, this page mentions 3dsMax: https://www.aimircg.com/architectural-3d-rendering-process-z...

[tokai]

I don't see anything in those visualizations that makes me think AI. Its completely run-of-the-mill architect visualizations that have always been atrocious.

[thrance]

> not laziness because they are using AI, but laziness to do their job right.

It correlates often enough.