AI enhanced textures for old games

[schru]

Not necessarily. I suppose it depends on the monitor's matrix, but when Maggot posted some photos of his CRT monitor last year the picture was quite smooth and crisp in 2D games. Unfortunately it seems like the images he uploaded are gone and I had just this one saved; I'm pretty sure the pixels would be visible at that level of panning in the recently released Enhanced Edition:

Spoiler

Also, those Blood screenshots...

The algorithm would probably yield better results if it were applied to individual textures.

 

[otsego]

The algorithm would probably yield better results if it were applied to individual textures.

Of course this should be obvious. Those BLOOD up-resses look awful, but it is the program scanning a full image and applying its formula (I presume). But individual results of separate sprites have been very impressive. I'm very excited about the Doom project, for example.

The way this algorithm seems to interpret design and apply it almost seems too good to be true. Combine that with an artist who makes the correct adjustments (aka. someone not looking to do a cheap hi-res update), and we could see some decent graphical updates to some classics that we could POSSIBLY agree are worthwhile.

 

[Haba]

Give it a few years and well have algorithms that will draw us new sprites.

 

[Merlkir]

A few months ago I suggested using LetsEnhance for upscaling Chrono Cross backgrounds, but apparently the engine would shit itself and it wouldn't work even via emulators.
I think it's a good direction for cheap HD remasters though, like the various jRPGs re-released on mobile and steam.

Hm, the Grandia I+II remaster is coming soon, right? Maybe they're using this approach?

 

[J_C]

This is mind blowing to be honest. I love the style of the old games, but it always hurts to see them look like crap on modern monitors. It you scale them up, they look super pixelated, and they lose a lot of their quality compared to their original release. If this technology keeps improving, and it can enhance full games, and not just pictures we can play those old games with their original quality, but on high resolution monitors. This alone gives me a boner.

 

[Perkel]

ESRGAN option is mainly for images which were downscaled.
Meaning like there is original art and then it is downscaled to fit into game or some part of image.

Which is why it works really well on pixelated stuff that looks like it was downscalled and textures of old games vs pixelated stuff that was made like that on purpose. On other hand if art is in original resolution then algorithm also doesn't seem to work great either.

 

[jfrisby]

Can this be done on images that were scaled up to restore the square pixel-ratio? (https://imgur.com/a/nocUZ)
.. or would I need the original 320x240?

Would be interesting to see this replace the AA filters in DosBox one day, and combine it with the perfect-pixel stuff in DosBoxECE

 

[Perkel]

Don't think so. It was trained specifically on downscalled images.

Speaking of this AI stuff. This is just part of ongoing research.
I mean about 2 years ago we already had videos where AI could figure out correctly people features and convert people faces in videos to replace their faces in almost unnoticeable way.

NSFW

This stuff will do wonders for stuff like textures in future.

 

[Luckmann]

Can this be done on images that were scaled up to restore the square pixel-ratio? (https://imgur.com/a/nocUZ)
.. or would I need the original 320x240?

Would be interesting to see this replace the AA filters in DosBox one day, and combine it with the perfect-pixel stuff in DosBoxECE

Don't think so. It was trained specifically on downscalled images.

Speaking of this AI stuff. This is just part of ongoing research.
I mean about 2 years ago we already had videos where AI could figure out correctly people features and convert people faces in videos to replace their faces in almost unnoticeable way.

NSFW

This stuff will do wonders for stuff like textures in future.

It was made for downscaled images, but shouldn't you be able to "simply" (I can't get this shit to work myself for some reason) upscale them to an even higher resolution, and then downscale them normally to a reasonable size?

 

[jfrisby]

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?...set=pcb.1453894064745313&type=3&theater&ifg=1

 

[Merlkir]

Damn, some of those could use a touchup here and there, but a lot of them look like actual paintings again.

 

[Dedicated_Dark]

So ran 1 background from RE3 cause one guy on reddit asked for it. All are single pass, anyway here are the results.

^Original scaled up for comparison

^Network interp 0.8

^Manga

Manga produces the best result. But a lot of detail is just smudged over, I think running it through this upscaling thing and then re-touching it up to bring back the details would be the best result for now. Well loosers can't be choosers

 

[Dedicated_Dark]

Also I put a texture from Freedom Unite PSP and ran it through the manga thing.

ORIGINAL:

AND NOW BE BLOWN AWAY MOTHERFUCKERS:

BOOYAA!! FCKN Black Magic!

 

[FeelTheRads]

Left one -> looks like grass and dirt
Right one ->

Also, 2 photoshop filters later

Spoiler

Fucking black magic.

 

[Perkel]

Someone is making textures for HL1 via esrgan:

 

[Perkel]

someone batch upscaled Sierra games stuff:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Z5RAUE3iSB1qaBj_gWT7WQ0Aug2zrx_T

dude working on FF7 PC version mod where he upgraded textures with gigapixel software (another depp learning upscaler):

https://www.reddit.com/r/GameUpscal...l_fantasy_vii_my_upscale_mod_remako_enhanced/

 

[Dedicated_Dark]

So I got it working on my work comp with a 1080. Right now some guys are working on retexturing PSP Monster Hunter games, not just upscale, so I stopped my Freedom Unite project and am occasionally helping out by upscaling really tiny textures for them, that's it.

Anyway, if you guys tell me some games where I can easily extract textures and run it, I will think about it. Don't tell me too mainstream stuff as I am sure about 100 other people are already on it.

 

[DeepOcean]

From what I saw, the Hexen Ai upscaling project seems good but I think the same could be achieved with a source port with support for higher resolutions, some games seem to benefit more like those PS 1 fixed cameras 2d games with rendered graphics like Final Fantasy 7 but on alot of games, the Ai upscaling looks like those shitty emulation filters that only erase the subtlety of the pixelated image to create a blurry mess.

 

[Sigourn]

You realize the artists and engineers who designed the visuals for these game were aware of what the end result would look like taking into account the technological constraints of the times, and did everything they did, made every choice they made to achieve the desired look within those constraints? They look the way they are supposed to look. There is nothing to improve. This idea that you can apply a catchall filter to these games as a way to make them "better" is moderntard shit of the highest level, up there with colorizing black and white films. Might as well run photoshop airbrush filters over Bruegel's oil paintings while you're at it, too.

If you don't like the way an old game looks on your 4K monitor with virtual reality goggles then don't play the game, go play fortnite instead.

I agree.

I used to filter the shit out of Morrowind's textures until I realized vanilla looked best. And I don't mean "high res vanilla!" with weird enhancements, just the original uncompressed textures (full quality) of the game. Then I realized that by playing the game at 1080p, I was seeing Morrowind bigger than Bethesda originally intended, so of course textures stood out as particularly blurry. Once I played at windowed 720p, the game actually looked nicer (and ran better to boot).

 

[Ibbz]

Someone is making textures for HL1 via esrgan:

No point worrying about it for HL2, perfection has already been achieved by Fake Factory -

 

[Night Goat]

This is cool and all, but can it decensor Japanese porn?

 

[Rahdulan]

They're doing video now. Persona 2 Innocent Sin opening from the PSP version was given this treatment:



Probably needs a side-by-side comparison with the original, but it's moving forward.

 

[Jarpie]

I wonder how Blade Runner would look after this treatment.

 

[RNGsus]

This is shitty. There's nothing wrong with homm 3's visuals.

 

[Perkel]

This is cool and all, but can it decensor Japanese porn?

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/...orithm-that-uncensors-hentai-porn-deepcreampy

There are now AI that decensor JAVs lol Only took months after this post.