AI enhanced textures for old games

[Perkel]

 

[FeelTheRads]

That's pretty impressive. However, Heroes 3 is never that pixelated and I'll take the original look over the painted look of this thing any day, even on big monitors.

 

[agentorange]

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.

 

[Perkel]

That's pretty impressive. However, Heroes 3 is never that pixelated and I'll take the original look over the painted look of this thing any day, even on big monitors.

That is small home upscaled to huge size. It is like 20 pixels on 20 pixels and shows how ridiculous good algorithm is.
It this case you go from smear that is impossible to upres to proper house. With some photoshop especially on those lower walls of house and grass/dirt it would easily match original 3d asset source. I could even do this easily myself. I could never on other hand upres it no matter how hard i would try.

This is why this is huge. Because it produces amazing effect in a while with ability to be handmodified to be literally the best remaster you can ever get without literally repainting completely from ground up picture and changing by that artstyle.

 

[Konjad]

To me it looks exactly like this:

 

[Perkel]

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 don't have words to describe your autism.
1. 99% of those 2D artists and 3D artists would want their ORIGINAL art to be in game not low ress shitty pixelated version.
2. "Pixelated look" you speak of never existed on old low res CRTS. IT is mostly product of high res CRTs and mostly LCDs.

Here is your autism vision of graphics:

This is how it actually looked like on actual crt screen:

As you can see your retarded vision is actually wrong.

To me it looks exactly like this:

This reminds me of that Turok remaster lol. That was looking like hot garbage. High res textures all over super low poly models.

 

[FeelTheRads]

It this case you go from smear that is impossible to upres to proper house.

Yeah, except in the game it does not look like a "smear".

I understand showing it work on real screenshots, but upscaling a tiny portion of a screenshoot to show how totally shitty it looks without this "amazing" new algorithm is just disingenuous.

Especially since when showing a full screenshot it typically just looks like crap when you see how basically everything has the same pattern of lines on it. Like in the Heroes 3 screenshot.

 

[FeelTheRads]

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 don't have words to describe your autism.
1. 99% of those 2D artists and 3D artists would want their ORIGINAL art to be in game not low ress shitty pixelated version.
2. "Pixelated look" you speak of never existed on old low res CRTS. IT is mostly product of high res CRTs and mostly LCDs.

Here is your autism vision of graphics:

This is how it actually looked like on actual crt screen:

As you can see your retarded vision is actually wrong.



This reminds me of that Turok remaster lol. That was looking like hot garbage. High res textures all over super low poly models.

Yeah, I think you should upscale the first image like 10 times more just to make it look even more like your retarded comparison is worth anything.

How about putting them both at the same scale and see which one looks better.
It's not gonna be the one which is a zoomed in photo of a monitor.
Retard. You'd never actually see the game like that.

Edit: Oh, look RPG Codex did the scaling for you.

 

[agentorange]

I don't have words to describe your autism.
1. 99% of those 2D artists and 3D artists would want their ORIGINAL art to be in game not low ress shitty pixelated version.
2. "Pixelated look" you speak of never existed on old low res CRTS. IT is mostly product of high res CRTs and mostly LCDs.

You're a fucking moron and don't put words in my mouth. Point to where in my original post I mentioned "pixelated look," first of all. Nowhere. But nice try attempting to make me look like a hipster who thinks that pixels = good. My entire fucking post, which you probably didn't read, was about how the artists of the era would have known the constraints of the era, better than you do, the artists of the era would have been working on CRT screens and would have known exactly how the end result of their work would have looked (which is nothing at all like those idiotic misleading images you posted)--which is why they chose to do things the way they did. And you are calling me an autist? You don't even know what the fuck you are talking about. You are just bamboozled by a new gimmick like a child.

"99% of those 2D artists and 3D artists would want their ORIGINAL art to be in game not low ress shitty pixelated version."

As for this, I don't even know what to make of this. Do you know what the word original means? What part of "original" implies being fed through a machine algorithm filter?

 

[Perkel]

Literally look at the fucking quote nigga.
You literally don't know how CRT worked.

 

[FeelTheRads]

What quote, moron? The one with a ZOOMED in photo of a screen, which is how nobody ever sees a monitor?

I've been using CRTs for far longer than I've been using LCDs, so yes, I know how games looked on them. And they did not look like shitty paintings. Nor did I ever see just a small section of a game, zoomed in, through the lens of a camera.

 

[Zer0wing]

Is there any AI algorhitms to do the similar thing but with 3D meshes a-la ATI Truform on Morrowind?

 

[Perkel]

You're a fucking moron and don't put words in my mouth. Point to where in my original post I mentioned "pixelated look," first of all. Nowhere. But nice try attempting to make me look like a hipster who thinks that pixels = good.


As for this, I don't even know what to make of this. Do you know what the word original means? What part of "original" implies being fed through a machine algorithm filter?

1. When you defend pixelated low res pictuers then this is where you argue this.
2. What part of "original" is pixelated low res mess ? Any 3D/2D artist would wish for their artwork to be in high res without whole pixelization bullshit. Secondly if you argue that pixelated mess is closer to original then your autism is already advanced.
Literally this "filtered" look is most of the time closer to original art than low res version of in game art. This is because you accepted
"pixelated look" and don't even count that. That skeleton i posted earlier is great argument.

Like i said while it can produce shitty effects you are still most of the time looking at work of someone in 15 minutes with barely any fiddling and most of the time knowledge what they are actually doing. It doesn't work well on screenshots so you need to feed it whole art piece as in either part of ui or background but never as screenshot. I already posted few that look straight up source or maybe even better because i doubt some of those sources were even high res to begin with (like RE ones)

 

[Perkel]

Is there any AI algorhitms to do the similar thing but with 3D meshes a-la ATI Truform on Morrowind?

This is strictly 2D stuff i think. Which is why it doesn't work well on screenshots especially 3D games.
Just doing UI and background at the same time breaks a lot algorythm.

So you need to feed it source stuff like instead of screenshot background and UI elements separately.

edit: either way i wouldn't really touch textures on old 3d models either way because those low res textures hid problems with shading and lack of stuff like bumpmapping etc. When you upgrade model giving it high poly mesh it also looks out of place because you expect normal mapping etc which give textures ... "texture". which usually game didn't support in first place. Couple that with wring lighting and especially shading aliasing and you can make crap looking game even worse. This is why for example in older games aliasing is not such huge issue. Shimmering like you can see in new games on fences etc is almost entirely product of increased polygons + a lot of shaders working at the same time.

What quote, moron? The one with a ZOOMED in photo of a screen, which is how nobody ever sees a monitor?

I've been using CRTs for far longer than I've been using LCDs, so yes, I know how games looked on them. And they did not look like shitty paintings. Nor did I ever see just a small section of a game, zoomed in, through the lens of a camera.

And that is why you are nigga. RPG codex quotes scale images. In my case i see both of those literally in same size.
Probably high res CRTs especially PC ones. Try nigga actual tv crt which was prime destination of most of those shots and come back. As for second i don't even know what is your train of thought. Why i post zoomed images ? To make a point how algorithm can take 20x20px image that should be no way scalable and scale it up producing actually great result.

 

[FeelTheRads]

In my case i see both of those literally in same size.

You clearly have eye problems. If it was not obvious already.
Or if you mean me quoting you, yes, I looked. I noted it in the edit. The pixelated version looks good, the other one still looks like shit that no one would've ever seen on a monitor.

Probably high res CRTs especially PC ones. Try nigga actual tv crt which was prime destination of most of those shots and come back.

Yes, I assumed we were talking about PC monitors not peasant TVs.
Nobody ever played Heroes 3 on a TV.

Why i post zoomed images ? To make a point how algorithm can take 20x20px image that should be no way saleable and scale it up producing actually great result.

No, you post zoomed in shots to show how totally shitty and pixelated old games look today compared to how they should've looked... on fucking TVs. Because obviously PC games were made with TVs in mind.

 

[Bocian]

Heroes 3 is the last game to ever need this.

 

[Black Plague]

Why don't they use AI to enhance AI in old games?

 

[Great Deceiver]

Why don't they use AI to enhance AI in old recent games?

 

[Perkel]

AI peaked in Black and White and since then developers understood that good AI is bad for casual gamer.
stupid = good for them.

 

[J1M]

Perkel, the comparison shots look more impressive if you scale the original image to the same size.

 

[Perkel]

Perkel, the comparison shots look more impressive if you scale the original image to the same size.

Obviously. But i assume people here know that. Though fair good deal of them could still run monochrome lol.
Trying to get it running. I want to see it how it will work on planescape art. My next on list should be Anno 1602.
Myst, Amarzone etc should also be great test for it.

btw if you want to test something quick you can try use Waifu2X which is mostly working on manga/anime how it can scale tiny image and still looks very good and it is idiot proof.

http://waifu2x.udp.jp/

 

[Dedicated_Dark]

So besides that new texture pack for morrowind, did anyone else release anything I can actually use?

I guess I can use ppsspp to dump Monster Hunter Freedom Unite's textures and then run them through this shit. Let's see how it'll turn out..

 

[rusty_shackleford]

It's interesting, but most of the time it makes the images look like they're painted. That FF7 image for example is just shit.

it depends on the data the model was trained with

the model used was obviously trained on paintings

 

[FeelTheRads]

Myst

Good luck with that. Low resolution is hardly the biggest problem of Myst's graphics. Biggest one is renders of poor and low-poly objects.

But I assume you'll think it will look awesome just because it won't be pixelated on a big screen.
Btw, what do you think about this awesome filter:

Perkel, the comparison shots look more impressive if you scale the original image to the same size.

What's the point then? The big deal about this is to scale shit on your huge ass screen, isn't it? If you make is small again... then it will still look like shit if you stretch it on a big screen.

 

[Perkel]

Can't make it work. problem with torch module for python. For some reason python doesn't seem to find it and throws up that i don't have it where i just installed it via pip

edit:
i'll try to reinstall python from 0

edit2:

eh don't have much time now. I'll try to run it tomorrow.

 

[tritosine2k]

Its _NOT_ ai, or new:
Context-Constrained Hallucination for Image Super-Resolution - The UCF CS Department
http://www.cs.ucf.edu/~mtappen/pubs/cvpr10_super_res.pdf
Real good use case is compression of a megatexture or similar atlas.