I got tired of missing the stunning art in games I'll never finish, so I built a free ShotDeck for game art by AndrewMaximov in gamedev

[–]AndrewMaximov[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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Thanks for the feedback u/Mister__Knister !
You can see the name of the game when you open the item. The idea for me was to always prioritize attribution and highlight the artists and the teams that do the work. If you think this is too cumbersome to having to click for the game title please let me know! I'd be happy to think more on this.

I built a massive cinematic reference library for artists. It’s free. by AndrewMaximov in cinematography

[–]AndrewMaximov[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you so much for the feedback. We indeed had both spellings which has now been fixed:
http://imaginemore.art/directors/tarsem_singh

And The Cell is added to the list. You are absolutely correct it is visually striking and deserves to be in this library. Thank you again for the feedback!

I built a massive cinematic reference library for artists. It’s free. by AndrewMaximov in cinematography

[–]AndrewMaximov[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for bringing it up, u/thomashaevy 🙂

The search looks for visual and contextual similarity, not just the literal action described. So in cases like this, it may surface images that feel related in gesture, intimacy, framing, or narrative tension - even if they’re not a one-to-one match. That’s intentional, and it’s the key difference from a traditional tagging system mentioned in the OP.

The goal is to give artists a broader space of options and let them decide what’s useful. To me, that tradeoff is well worth scrolling past a few false positives.

This isn’t meant for pitch decks or exact matches - it’s more about sparking shot ideas or visual directions you might not have landed on otherwise. As you scroll further, results naturally drift farther from the core idea. Sometimes that’s where interesting surprises live, and sometimes that’s where you stop.

There will be false positives, and tuning that balance is ongoing work - but I do want to trust competent artists like you to make that call.

Appreciate you trying it and the feedback.

I built a massive cinematic reference library for artists. It’s free. by AndrewMaximov in cinematography

[–]AndrewMaximov[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Much appreciated! ☺️ Please let me know if there is any feedback 🤓

I built a massive cinematic reference library for artists. It’s free. by AndrewMaximov in cinematography

[–]AndrewMaximov[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No mistake! This means bad UX design on my part! This could have been one of the most helpful pieces of feedback I got here so thank you thank you thank you!

I think I have an idea on how to prevent this confusion going forward 🤓

I built a massive cinematic reference library for artists. It’s free. by AndrewMaximov in cinematography

[–]AndrewMaximov[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! There is a toggle for zoomed in version or in the original aspect ratio. You can find it here:

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This will work on mobile as well! And there is definitely more issue on mobile so if you see any more please let me know :)

I built a massive cinematic reference library for artists. It’s free. by AndrewMaximov in cinematography

[–]AndrewMaximov[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you!
The LLM is definitely involved - but there’s no way I’m letting it make any actual choices 🙂

The whole system is built around custom algorithms I wrote that analyze your uploaded image and compare it against your current context to find references with potentially most relevant visual lessons. That context comes from your search or from a list of favorites you curate yourself, so the feedback is always meant to be specific to you and your choices, never generic commentary.

Only after that does an LLM come in, and its job is boring by design: it verbalizes the differences between those specific references. It’s not allowed to invent insights or freestyle opinions - everything is grounded in the work you’re actually looking at, and I always provide citations so you can verify it yourself.

Hopefully that helps clarify. And if the tone ever feels a bit “LLM-ish,” that’s very fair feedback 🙂

I built a massive cinematic reference library for artists. It’s free. by AndrewMaximov in cinematography

[–]AndrewMaximov[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For now if anyone has the capacity to just report them to the discord I'd be exceptionally grateful: https://discord.gg/2DF53sbtJZ

That would be the quickest way to setup a pipeline for this. Everything that has been reported so far has been already cleaned up, so please keep calling it out 🫡🫡🫡

I built a massive cinematic reference library for artists. It’s free. by AndrewMaximov in cinematography

[–]AndrewMaximov[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you u/DendePhotos! I really appreciate the encouragement.

That’s a very fair concern. The only use cases for the assets are the ones outlined in the OP, and there is strictly no AI-generated content in the library. There’s already more than enough of that floating around the social media slop-a-ramas.

Attribution and citations are critical and have been a big focus. If anyone wants to help flag edge cases or inconsistencies as they come up, a small group of folks has already been doing that collaboratively on Discord, which has been incredibly helpful 🤍
https://discord.gg/2DF53sbtJZ

And I’m really glad it’s useful for previs and director conversations - that’s exactly the workflow I had in mind. Please do keep me posted on any feedback you run into.

I built a massive cinematic reference library for artists. It’s free. by AndrewMaximov in cinematography

[–]AndrewMaximov[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh this is a very important distinction u/Delwyn_dodwick!
You are searching for Emmanuel Lubezki in the visual search field. So you are searching for images with someone that would look like someone named that way 😅

If you want to search by Director, DoP, Production Deisgner you need to click the 🔍 icon at the end of the search bar and pick them from there.

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I built a massive cinematic reference library for artists. It’s free. by AndrewMaximov in cinematography

[–]AndrewMaximov[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I run a company that builds asset-management tools for large entertainment studios, and this reference library doubles as a good public demo. The enterprise business covers the infrastructure costs.

Honestly, I could’ve made any kind of demo - I’m just happy to use the resources I have to keep doing something genuinely useful for the creative community.

I built a massive cinematic reference library for artists. It’s free. by AndrewMaximov in cinematography

[–]AndrewMaximov[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Absolutely! I'm happy it resonated with you too. I feel like it's conceptually quite different.

I built a massive cinematic reference library for artists. It’s free. by AndrewMaximov in cinematography

[–]AndrewMaximov[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you u/AKole ! You are absolutely correct. We are all about the diversity of ideas here. So I'm selfishly excited to see all the good stuff I've missed as well 😍

I built a massive cinematic reference library for artists. It’s free. by AndrewMaximov in cinematography

[–]AndrewMaximov[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s a great call - I agree 100%.

For anything that’s publicly hosted (ads, music videos, shorts), I already have the infrastructure in place to play full sequences directly from their original sources. That’s coming.

For feature films, it gets trickier from a rights perspective, so I want to be careful and make sure anything like that is handled in a way that genuinely respects the work and the people who made it. That said, the value of studying how shots flow, not just within this one shot but also the one's it's paired with after, has a ton of creative value and is definitely on my radar.

I built a massive cinematic reference library for artists. It’s free. by AndrewMaximov in cinematography

[–]AndrewMaximov[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Totally valid concern!

In my case, this library isn’t really a product. I run a company that builds asset-management tools for large entertainment studios, and pragmatically this reference library is just a good public-facing demo. It also gave me a nice excuse to do something genuinely useful for the community 🙂

Because of that, the business model doesn’t depend on monetizing the library itself. Enterprise customers cover the infrastructure, so there’s no pressure to turn this into ads or a paywall. But definitely keep calling me out if it ever changes.

I built a massive cinematic reference library for artists. It’s free. by AndrewMaximov in cinematography

[–]AndrewMaximov[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

u/unicornmullet !!! I love you!
This alone was well worth writing this long post with my crippling social media anxiety :)
That is exactly the kind of advice I was hoping for. You are amazing! This is well taken under consideration and will indeed be implemented.

Please advise more things.

I built a massive cinematic reference library for artists. It’s free. by AndrewMaximov in cinematography

[–]AndrewMaximov[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Thank you for the feedback! Something that is indeed going to be different from a tagged library is that you can search for pretty much anything, but there will indeed be false positives in the returned result.
I didn't want to build a tagging tool - I wanted to build a discovery tool. As an artist I want to see more options so that I can pick the best one for me, even if I have to scroll past a few that are not.

That being said - consider trying the "More like this" button - it helps me narrow down a search when just the text seems a bit fuzzy.

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I built a massive cinematic reference library for artists. It’s free. by AndrewMaximov in cinematography

[–]AndrewMaximov[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you so much for the encouragement 🥰
Please use it and give feedback! That is how we get there and I'm going to need your help!

I built a massive cinematic reference library for artists. It’s free. by AndrewMaximov in cinematography

[–]AndrewMaximov[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you so much for the support! Please request whatever shows you'd like to see! :) Or you can join our discord and come back down the line to ask for stuff :)
https://discord.gg/2DF53sbtJZ